Karl Knausgaard - A Time for Everything

Cain couldn’t look at him. His eyes wet with tears, he peered into the flames, no longer noticing the words that were sung, but only the atmosphere they evoked, the longing they awoke in him.

When the song was over, the audience stood silent. Before them the land stretched away, behind them the mountains rose, above them the night sky shone. This was their world, this was their life. The song had made them bigger, but it had made them smaller, too, and perhaps that was why it had left them quiet.

“I want to sing another song,” said Abel then. “It’s about my brother, Cain.”

He smiled.

“Come up here, Cain,” he said.

When Cain showed no signs of moving, several people shoved him forward, and he unwillingly got up onto the dance floor and stood at the side of his brother, who put his arm round him and pressed his cheek to his own, in a gesture that was probably intended to be warm and heartfelt, but that changed character as it progressed, because of the resistance it met in Cain’s stiffening body, and ended up as something infinitely gauche and clumsy, something an observer would have found difficult to interpret as anything other than a grotesque parody of brotherly love.

There were shouts of “Cain and Abel!”

Abel smiled, took a pace forward, and raised his head.

My brother is a tree

And that’s a certainty

If he could have his will

He’d stand completely still

And let his two big boots

Grow down just like roots

So deep into the soil

Oh, so deep into the soil.

It was a simple tune like a nursery rhyme, and when he’d finished people looked at each other: was he making a fool of them? Some also looked at Cain, of course. Even though he was staring down at the ground, he felt their eyes on him.

Then his brother grabbed his arms and began to lead him around the dance floor. At first he resisted, but Abel’s grip was firm and as he didn’t want to start a fight here, with everyone watching, he began to move with him. Mechanically, like two dolls, they twirled on the floor, to the crowd’s amazement.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he whispered.

Abel stopped and stared at him.

“You’re my brother,” he said. “I love you.”

Cain felt a shiver down his spine. He didn’t look drunk, as he’d half expected, nor even cold or remote. It was something beyond that, and that was what made it so eerie. It was like looking into glass.

When Abel began to dance again, Cain gripped his arm as hard as he could.

“That’s enough now, Abel,” he said. “We’re going home.”

“Good idea,” Abel said simply, took his brother’s hand and led him across the floor, down to the ground. Like two small children they walked across it hand in hand. Cain felt the gaze of the crowd at his back, but he didn’t turn; in a strange way their exit felt like a victory: it was just the two of them. In a few minutes the festivities would continue, and the wonder would dissipate itself in them. And what had happened anyway? Nothing! Abel had sung as usual, and finished with a spoofy song about his brother, whom he’d hauled up onto the floor and just as jokingly danced with. What was so extraordinary about that?

The only things he didn’t like were the way his brother had looked at him and that they were walking hand in hand. When he tried to extricate his hand, however, Abel held it tighter. He didn’t look at him, and Cain, who realized it was important to his brother, finally resigned himself to it. He must have drunk himself from all reason, he thought, and reverted to some hazy depths of childhood, where leading your elder brother by the hand was something big.

“Abel?” he said.

“Mm?” said Abel.

“Where are we actually going? The house is over that way.”

Abel looked at him and smiled.

“I thought we might take a dip,” he said.

This time he looked normal.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” said Cain. “We’ve had quite a bit to drink!”

He laughed to emphasize that they were both in it together.

Abel didn’t answer, and Cain followed him into the trees and over to the river, which flowed in full spate, dark beneath the shadows of the trees, with reflections of the moon superimposed like small, finely hammered sheets of light; farther out, gray like the sky.

Abel stopped under one of the trees, pulled his shirt over his head while at the same time turning his back to Cain, kicked off his shoes, pulled the cord out of its loops, folded it up in one hand, and took his trousers off. Naked he turned to Cain, who couldn’t help gazing at him, before dropping his eyes.

“So you’re not coming, I see?” said Abel.

Cain shook his head.

“You swim.”

They smiled at one another. Then Abel went to the bank, climbed up the tree, balanced on the branch, stood erect, and dived in. Cain saw that he still held the cord in his hand, but didn’t think anything of it, concentrating as he was on following the shadow that slowly glided over the riverbed, the small air bubbles that broke the surface behind him.

When Abel reached the place where he’d once lain spying, Cain caught himself smiling. There really had been something chickenlike about him then, he had to hand that to Abel.

But where was he intending to go?

Cain began to walk after his brother along the bank. After a few yards he lost sight of him. At first he thought this was because he’d entered the gray and cloudy water in the middle of the current, and carried on in the expectation that he’d become visible once more against the sandy bottom a bit farther down, but when that didn’t happen, he realized he must have dived down into the pool. It was bowl-shaped at the bottom, perhaps twelve feet deep, and because Cain recalled what Abel had used it for as a child, he stood on the bank waiting, slightly annoyed at his brother’s whim, whom did he think this amused? Neither of them were children anymore.

The water quivered black and shining in the current. Cain broke a twig from the tree beside him and threw it in, saw how it was spun round and carried along as soon as it hit the surface. That must be why he couldn’t see any air bubbles, he thought. The current carried them away.

He looked back at the tree his brother had dived from. Already a long time seemed to have passed since he’d stood there. Abel completely naked and he. . well, he’d been embarrassed .

Wasn’t it quite a long time ago, in fact? He’d dived in there , swum right down to there , and then he thought he’d swum even farther, right down to there , and followed him, and then thought that no, it was the pool he’d gone to. . and then walked back again? Surely that was several minutes all told?

His eyes swept the surface again. Although Abel must be able to hold his breath considerably longer now than when he was a child, this was getting protracted.

What was it he was trying to prove?

“That’s enough now, Abel!” he called, although he knew that his brother couldn’t hear him. “Come on up!”

It seemed when his voice died away as if it were the first time he became aware of himself. That he was standing here, on the riverbank, right now, and that Abel was down in that black river water, and had been far too long.

No .

He ran up a bit, kicked off his shoes, and waded in. The current was strong, he felt it tug at his legs, and he raised his arms to keep his balance. When the water reached to his stomach, he slowly began to walk downstream until he felt the bottom slant beneath him. He threw a quick glance up at the bank, and the sight of Abel’s clothes, illuminated in the light from the moon, turned him cold with despair.