Karl Knausgaard - A Time for Everything

The world has opened itself to them, and as they press on into the Plain of Jordan, they are alert with all their senses sharpened. Nothing in the sun-scorched landscape escapes their notice. They make out with ease the lizard lying motionless on the rock in the sun, although the pattern on its skin is an almost perfect imitation of the rock, and when a prod with the staff makes it scurry away, they watch the rapid succession of its movements with interest, unique to the moment, as also are the tinkling flock of sheep’s, as it halts and the heads gaze at them suspiciously, and the shadow of the bird that crosses them so quickly before it goes on over the ground, and the cool scent of burnt dung from the deserted campsite they pass, and the nuances of yellow, brown, and red in the mountainside just behind them, and the distant sound of voices from the river, which turn out to belong to some women who stand out in the current washing clothes, and that rotting smell from the pond on the other side, cut off from the river by a sandbar. It’s the same river that runs through Sodom, and sometime later they can see the city far ahead, shimmering red and yellow under the light of the low sun, which has almost completely disappeared behind the mountains to the west when they finally come to a halt, a few hundred yards from the city gate.

This is where Lot is sitting. At first he doesn’t see them, because they’re tired and stand quite still for a while to recoup themselves, but when they begin on the final leg, he leaps up and comes running toward them. The dust swirls about his feet. Even though he holds his robe above his knees with one hand, he’s so eager that he almost trips several times. And when he throws himself on the ground before them, he’s so out of breath that at first they can’t make out what he’s saying.

“Yoo-hoo, sirs, yoo!” is what it sounds like. “Yoo-hoo, sirs, yoo!”

Silent and still they wait for him to catch his breath. Behind him the highest part of the wall has blushed with the ruddy light from the last rays of the sun. Within the city there is the glint of glass and metal. Lot raises himself to his knees and passes his hand over his damp forehead.

“You, sirs!” he says. “Please do rest the night at your servant’s house, and wash your feet!”

When they make no reply, but stand there just as unmoving, he hurriedly adds:

“Then you can get up early tomorrow morning and continue on your way.”

One of them turns and peers out across the plain they’ve just crossed, where several fires are burning like small stars in the growing darkness. The other turns slowly to Lot.

“No, we’re going to spend the night in the streets,” he says.

“But it’s cold outside at night!” says Lot. “Wouldn’t you rather lodge at my house? It’s warm and comfortable in there.”

He rubs his hands together.

“And there’s food, too!”

They don’t answer.

“Please!” he says. “Be my guests tonight! Just for a while. Then you can go out into the street afterward!”

Are they smiling?

Quite possibly. At any rate something must have changed because they do go home with Lot in the end. Presumably their first refusal was force of habit, a kind of reflex from their normal mode of existence, before it occurred to them that this would mean an end to the realism they’d just begun to get a taste for, and from one moment to the next they decide to spin this out for as long as possible. Maybe they were tempted by the unpredictability of the situation, which was suddenly opening onto something unfamiliar.

The next morning chaos reigns. Even though Lot had been told that the city and all its inhabitants will soon be destroyed, he went to bed that night, only to be woken a few hours later by the two angels, clearly pressed for time, standing by his bed shaking him.

“Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, so that you won’t die because of all the evil that has been done here in the city!”

It’s still dark outside, he’s just woken up, and when he’s over his first confusion, he sits peering at them for a while, his eyes half-closed with drowsiness.

“But it’s the middle of the night!” he says.

The angels say nothing, and he swings his feet to the floor with a sigh, gets slowly up, and pads over to the chair where his clothes are. He pulls his nightgown over his head and folds it neatly before laying it down. Just then his wife puts her head around the door, she, too, wears a soporific look.

“What’s the matter?” she says.

“We’ve got to leave,” he says, without looking at her, his attention fixed on the clothes he’s got in his hand.

“Now?” she queries. “But it’s the middle of the night!”

“It’s begun to get light,” he says, and nods at the darkness outside the window.

“Well, where are we going?”

“Out of the city,” he says. “It’s going to be destroyed soon.”

“What on earth do you mean!” she exclaims. “Destroyed? How do you know that?”

He makes no answer but puts on his robe and begins to hunt for his sandals.

“Did you two tell him that?” she inquires, barely glancing at the two angels, who all this time have been standing quiet and inert in the middle of the room.

“Just do as I say,” says Lot.

She retires with a snort, and as Lot bends down and pulls out his sandals from under the bed, they hear how she’s begun to move about in the room next door.

“Oh, well,” Lot sighs, and sits down on the chair to tie on his sandals. This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back as far as the angels are concerned. Without a word one of them grabs him by the hand and pulls him out into the corridor, while the other goes to get his wife and two daughters.

“No, now you listen to me!” cries Lot. “We can’t just leave like that! What about our things? The animals? All our valuables?”

From the adjoining room comes the sound of loud protests as the other angel gets hold of the arms of his wife and two daughters to make them leave.

“What’s going on, Dad?” says one of the daughters.

“We’re going away,” says Lot. “And we’re going now.”

“But it’s the middle of the night!” says the other.

“No buts! When I say now, I mean now!” says Lot.

Some minutes later they’re making their way through the city’s night-darkened streets. The angels lead the way, almost hauling the family behind them. The two girls, in particular, complain. They haven’t been able to get ready, don’t know where they’re going or why. But the determined look on the angels’ faces and the haste their impatient movements convey, together with the respect their father obviously has for them, means that the girls eventually keep their frustration to themselves. When they get out onto the plain outside the city gate, they are all silent, only the daughters’ sullen expressions betray their discontent.

Although the sky above the mountains in the east has begun to grow pale, the darkness is still thick about them as they hurry away from the catastrophe none of them really believes in. Apart from the occasional drawn-out bleat, all is quite still on the plain. No sound of tramping hooves from an enemy army to hear, no torches to see. Even so the angels chivy them along. Only when they get to the place where the river makes a bend, some miles from the city gate, do they stop. But there’s no reassurance on offer, for when they turn to them, their faces are still full of worry.

One of them looks at Lot.

“Flee for your lives!” he says. “Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere on the plain! Get away to the mountains, otherwise you’ll be lost!”

“No, sirs,” says Lot. “Your servant has found favor at your hands. You have shown me great fidelity by saving my life. But I can’t go to the mountains; for misfortune might befall me there, and then I’ll die.”