Karl Knausgaard - A Time for Everything

Cain set down the bucket on the floor. Nobody looked at him. Hadn’t they noticed that he was behaving differently today? The joviality in his voice when he’d wished them good morning? His speed across the farmyard?

It was now he’d have to start speaking. The longer he waited the harder it would be.

But what could he say?

Abel simply prattled away about anything that came into his head.

What came into Cain’s head?

Nothing. The only thing he was thinking about was that he must say something soon, and he couldn’t talk about that.

It looks as if it could turn out fine .

Could he say that?

If he normally said such things, perhaps. But now it would merely cause surprise. They would look at him and their looks would demand an explanation. If he didn’t follow it up, but simply sat down, it would form the subject of the ensuing silence. And if he did follow it up? Look how the sun’s shining! Listen to the birds!

No, it wouldn’t do.

One of the men at the table turned and glanced at him. That made his father turn, too.

“What are you standing there for?” he said. “Go and fetch your brother instead.”

He couldn’t manage to speak. But he could smile.

He caught his father’s eye and smiled as broadly as he could. Then he turned and went out of the kitchen up the ladder to the bedroom where Abel was sitting on his bed rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“I dreamed of the cherubim!” he said when he caught sight of Cain.

“Uh-huh,” said Cain. “But now you’ve got to get up.”

“No, wait!” said Abel. “I was in a forest, there was snow everywhere and it was dark, I think, yes, dark, and then I saw the light from them, it was as if the whole forest was on fire! And then I walked in deeper and then I saw them between the trees.”

“They’re waiting for you downstairs,” said Cain, and he turned as if to go.

“Wait till the end!” said Abel. “When they saw me, one of them came toward me and lifted me up. We rose up between the trees very slowly, do you understand? I thought that it was just a dream, but then I stretched out my hand and touched one of the branches, and the snow was cold! And then we rose above the trees and then above the mountains and just then, just as I could see out over the whole world, I woke up.”

He smiled.

Cain could no longer conceal his interest.

“What did they look like, then?” he asked.

“I can’t remember,” said Abel. “I can remember everything else but not that, just that they were burning.”

“We knew that already,” said Cain, and went down into the kitchen again. When he saw that it was empty he was relieved. He liked nothing better than being by himself. In order to avoid Abel as well, he took his food with him and went out and sat down against a tree out of sight of the house but from where he could see the meadow they were to reap that day. With his back against the trunk and his legs stretched out in front of him, he sat eating in the morning sunshine. Before him the five men walked in single file across to the field, each with a scythe over his shoulder. Once there they immediately formed a line and began to reap. Side by side they waddled their way forward as ever more semicircles of grass fell to the ground before them.

The air was still clear and cool, and perhaps because of that Cain suddenly longed to be out there smelling the scent of newly mown grass and feeling the heat of the sun on his shoulders, because in reality he knew just how unpleasant working in the fields with a blocked nose, watering eyes, and shoulders painful from sunburn really was. Nevertheless he got up, threw the remainder of his food into the bushes behind a tree, and hurried out. Perhaps this sudden haste was also linked to the thought that Abel wasn’t there. They would surely notice that he was working and Abel wasn’t. Just as they would surely notice his speed and keenness!

Like the wind he ran across the field. The damp grass around him was greener than he’d ever seen it before. And the sky! Its blue was as deep as the sea. And the sun! How it shone today!

Although his throat was constricting and his lungs began to get all knotted after only a few yards, he continued to run. He had the idea that his breathing difficulties were something he could force his way through, that there was a barrier, something on the other side of the inflammation, clear and pure and cold, which he could reach if only he forced himself hard enough. But after barely a hundred yards he couldn’t go on. It felt as if he were breathing through a straw. At the same time everything inside him was screaming for air. His heart wanted air, his blood wanted air, his lungs wanted air. He fell to his knees and rested his hands on the ground as he attempted to draw breath. But instead of the rush he required all that came was a thin trickle bubbling down into his chest. Already there was a tingling at the tips of his fingers and toes. His stomach retched as if attempting to bring up the last remains of air in it. He forced his knees together to try not to wet himself, clawed his fingers through the earth. He felt a sudden need to stand up and run like a wild man, and roar with all his might, but instead collapsed completely and lay on his belly squirming in the grass. It felt as if his heart were bursting. He pounded his legs on the ground in despair, grasping as he did so how like a fish he must look with his protruding chin, his gaping mouth, and his flailing body. He looked like a fish on land, and like a fish on land he would die, everything inside him was squirming, all his body wanted was a little air, but that it was denied.

Now I’m going to die , he thought.

But he didn’t die. When in his despair he raised his head to look for help it was as if it found its way into a pocket: suddenly air flooded into his chest again. He breathed in with a great wheeze, sat for several seconds just panting. It was a fantastic sensation feeling how air streamed into his lungs, filling all the small cavities, thinking that the pain was over. At the same time he had the notion that it was only there, in that invisible pocket, that he could breathe, and so he was careful to hold his head still for a long time. After the first, almost ecstatic, delight had subsided, he began to think of what would happen if this really was the only place he could breathe. Perhaps he’d have to stay here for the rest of his life? Or might there be several pockets that he could live in by turns? Spend a week under the bushes by the stream, a week in the thicket by the barn bridge, a week here, a week in the grove of trees behind the house, a week up in the farmyard oak. Then take some deep breaths at the end of the week, and run as fast as he could from the one pocket to the next, dive into it almost mad with hunger for air, while everyone stood in a circle around him and looked on. And then, one day, not make it, but collapse halfway and lie there dead in the dust.

Carefully he raised his head and breathed. Yes, there was air there. Then he stretched first to one side and then to the other. As there seemed to be plenty of air in both places, he stood up and took a few tentative steps.

There was air everywhere!

He realized how foolish he’d been and smiled to himself. Of course there was air everywhere! Of course it was him there was something wrong with, not the rest of the world!

But it seemed different nonetheless. The clarity in the landscape had somehow vanished or become obscured, it seemed to him that all the greenness was no longer so brilliantly sharp, but softer and fuzzier. And he could see now that the light was also a kind of shadow . It laid its veil over everything he looked at, the grass, the trees, the river, the mountain, the five stooping men in the meadow.