Karl Knausgaard - A Time for Everything

All night they sat in their cellars, surrounded by the bric-a-brac that always collects in such places — discarded rainwear and work clothes on hooks by the door, boots, clogs, and gloves on the floor beneath, perhaps a few rusty scythes and rakes in one corner, along the far wall shelves of jam jars and bottles, under them barrels of beer, bins of potatoes, some boxes of fruit — and perhaps it was good for them to let their eyes settle on these familiar, if dim, objects in order to get a little respite from what was happening up above.

Only the youngest children slept. People sat huddled close together, and every time the deep, thundery booms from between the mountainsides reached the cellar, a nervousness spread through them: a hand was lifted to a face here, a foot shifted to the side there, some coughed, some sighed, some bent their necks as they rested their heads on the wall behind them. The reason no one spoke was not due solely to weariness or fear, but also because by being silent they minimized themselves, made themselves less exposed, more like the forces that presently ravaged their world. The cellar was one hiding place, silence another. If one of them had broken it, the act of speaking, no matter whether it was nervous, despairing, or encouraging, would have been demoralizing, for there was demonstrated their vulnerability and helplessness in all its horror: the only thing they had that was their own, that was human, were words. Words made them what they were, and what are words when it comes to the crunch? What help are words when things really get tough?

None at all.

And so they sat dumb like animals, in the warmth of the flock like animals, with large and frightened eyes like animals. For the first few hours the various noises conjured up images in them — the faint but high-pitched zing that only sounded once became a corrugated iron sheet, perhaps from the woodshed, which, after spiraling through the air, had hit the stone wall at the back of the house, or perhaps the jutting rock in the horse pasture on this side of it; the dry, ripping kind of noise became a tree that the wind had pushed over, the root that had lost its centuries-old grip in the ground; the brief crash became the barn roof falling to the ground — but gradually they ceased imagining the destruction like this, sounds were merely sounds, and finally they reacted only if the noises were sudden or new and unfamiliar. Whereas in the storm’s introductory phase they had cringed each time a windowpane went or an object thudded against the wall above them, they were sunk in listlessness and apathy by the time the wind reached hurricane force in the middle of the night, whistling and howling, whining and wailing, crashing and thundering everywhere outside. So steeped were they in this lethargy that they remained sitting in their cellars for a time even after the storm had abated. The light that began to filter down between the planks in the ceiling above them gradually raised their faces from the darkness, wan from lack of sunshine, thin from lack of food, expressionless from lack of hope. But then a baby woke with a cry, and the stillness that followed after its mother had laid it to her breast was of a different order, as if it demanded something of them, and one after another they got to their feet, stiff from a long night’s inactivity, laid aside the woolen blankets they had been swaddled in on the bench, proffered the most aged a supporting arm, and went up to the new day.

Nothing could have prepared them for the sight that lay in store there. On the mounds all the trees had been blown down and lay with their great roots in the air. The same with the trees along the river, and broad inroads had been made into the forest. The barn roof had blown off and lay in several sections out in the field; two of its walls had fallen in. Several of the smaller outbuildings, including the woodshed, toolshed, and storehouse, must have been lifted bodily by the wind and then smashed to the ground, for they now lay strewn in several more or less unrecognizable piles of planks all over the field. The ancient oak in the farmyard had toppled onto the house and smashed in the roof and one wall; the whole first floor was a welter of fallen roof tiles, smashed planks, pieces of furniture, and strips of wallpaper.

It was a catastrophe. But like all catastrophes it was limited and in the long term reversible: the houses could be rebuilt, new trees would soon grow where the old ones had fallen. And so it was not the sight of the ravages of the wind that made them despair. It was the rain. The hurricane was over, its damage finite, but the rain that fell, the water that rose, seemed to have no limits. It just kept on and on.

The water was now a mere few feet from the top of the embankment they’d been working on constantly over the past few weeks, and the question they had to address was whether there was any point in raising it farther. If the water kept on rising, the pressure would sooner or later cause the dam to burst. Preferably sooner , one of them mumbled. And if that happened it would be pointless to repair the houses now.

They decided to wait and see. If the water continued to rise during the day and the following night, they would leave the valley and head up into the mountains the next morning. If the water remained as it was, they would see how things went for a few days more.

Just making the decision raised their spirits a little. They gathered at one of the two farms that had come through the storm undamaged, brought food and clothing, buried the three who’d been killed, found themselves a place in the house or barn, arranged their effects around them, ate, tried to sleep, waited. There were people everywhere, under the stairs, in the corridors, in the attic; people were even sitting inside the deep wardrobes. Usually only the annual festivals saw all the inhabitants of the valley gathered, and even though somber circumstances had brought them together now, a little of the happy, excited atmosphere was apparent: children ran around playing; small pockets of youngsters formed in various corners of the house and barn; old friends who hadn’t seen each other for a long time stood in corridors and nooks and talked about what had happened since they’d last met. But thoughts of their circumstances hadn’t deserted their consciousness entirely. When a loud cry was heard out in the farmyard that afternoon, everyone, both young and old, came pouring out from their quarters like rats from a burning house.

One of the young women had shouted. She stood near the gate and pointed down the road.

“There’re people coming!” she called out. “Up the road. Lots of people!”

Half an hour later a crowd of about forty men, women, and children stopped in the farmyard. They were dirty and thinly clothed, and seemed oddly turned in on themselves: as if there were no one else nearby, they parked their handcarts, stretched their legs a little, mumbled some words to each other, and when they finally met the gaze of the valley people, who all the time had stood silently staring at them, it was in the way that one meets the gaze of a herd of cows: interested but unexpectant.

The valley dwellers had never needed to deal collectively with any other outside group before, they had no spokesman, and although everyone was hoping that someone would step forward and speak, nobody felt they had the necessary weight to do so, and so they stood there waiting for the situation to resolve itself.

The company of strangers had no such difficulty. After the initial inspection, one of them, a potbellied, wide-jawed, black-bearded man, barely four foot six high, stepped forward a couple of paces.

“We are from the town on the coast,” he said. “We’ve been walking for several days and are tired and hungry. We’re wondering if there’s anywhere round here where we can spend the night?”