Karl Knausgaard - A Time for Everything

It began to scream. At first Lamech held her away from him, saw how she brought her hands and feet into her body, the eyes that closed, the face that quickly grew redder, until his sister intervened and pressed her to his breast.

“She looks like something you’ve found in the forest,” he said to Milka. She smiled, and again his eyes filled with tears. Although this time they were tears of joy, he turned his face away, handed the child back, and hurried out.

It soon appeared that his sister was right. The child’s creased and wizened face turned smooth, her head rounded out, the black hair fell out, and the features revealed were fine and regular, with a hint of almond-shaped eyes, which Lamech had last seen in his grandfather’s brother, who had died sometime in his youth, after a much talked-of fall from the pass, which for some inexplicable reason he’d tried to force in the wintertime. If it hadn’t been for that, they would have named her after him, but Lamech thought it would be tempting providence, so they decided instead to name her after his paternal grandmother, Anna.

No one told him that she had two pairs of webbed toes, one on each foot, as that would cause unnecessary anxiety in his already tormented mind, and he only discovered it many years later, one spring morning when he and Anna sat by the wall in the sun. It had been toward the end of her second pregnancy, she was so big that they thought she was carrying twins again, she sat bare-legged and sweating with her dress pulled up over her knees, when her father, who’d sat looking at her feet for a long time, suddenly expostulated:

“What’s that?”

“What?”

“Your toes. They look funny. What’s happened to them?”

She thought he was joking. When he repeated the question, she was at first offended, it showed just how much notice he’d taken of her while she was growing up, she thought, but then he made her laugh about it, as both of them imagined her mother and her two aunts in the bedroom and how they must have decided to keep the truth from the despairing father.

Perhaps he’d had enough to think about. During the summer Anna was born, they discovered that Noah was allergic to sunlight. Not only did his skin burn at the slightest exposure to it, but he’d also get a high fever for days afterward. Throughout all the summer months he had to stay indoors. He was later to tell his sister that it was like growing up in a cage. That he felt like an animal when darkness came and they finally let him out. It was as if they were letting him out for a walk, that was the feeling he had, even though that didn’t stop him from feeling the impulse to run each time he felt the clean, clear evening air. Round and round the garden he ran, he did it for years, until by the age of twelve he’d developed the seeds of pride and dignity, and no longer found such an activity consistent with these.

All this time brother and sister were distant from one another. From the window in his room Noah could see Anna doing all the things he couldn’t, and that was something he found hard to accept, whereas Anna, on her side, could see how their father, to whom from her earliest childhood she’d had a strong attachment, gave all his attention to her brother. He might tousle her hair as he passed by, he might smile at her across the table as they ate, he might lift her up and throw her toward the ceiling when he was happy, but it wasn’t enough: she knew he didn’t do these things because he wanted to, but because he realized that he must. Whilst Noah was always present in his thoughts, Anna was something he suddenly remembered. Her mother saw how things stood with her, but her attempts to reestablish the balance by playing with Anna for an hour here and there in the evenings wasn’t sufficient, for she, too, invested more of her care in Noah than in her. And although Noah probably didn’t realize it, even Anna wasn’t able to do as she wanted. She had to help with washing clothes, cooking, fetching water, bringing in firewood, cleaning floors. She had to card, spin, knit, crochet, darn. She had to bake, fry, boil, preserve, pulp. When they planted onions and potatoes in the spring, she had to help, when it was harvesttime, she had to help, when they lifted the potatoes and onions in the autumn, she had to help with that, too.

Noah didn’t have to do anything. He just sat up in his room. It wasn’t only his skin there was something wrong with, she knew this even though no one articulated it. His emotions weren’t quite as they should be. There were no limits to them. If something special was about to happen, he might lie awake at night and talk of nothing else for days — it didn’t need be anything big, an uncle announcing a visit was enough, or his father coming back after going to the market at Nod for a couple of weeks — and so great was his joy, that when the actual day came and the longed-for moment finally arrived, it would turn into its opposite, an equally great and ungovernable sorrow, which those around him seldom understood — why is the boy crying? Doesn’t he like his presents? — apart from his parents, who soon learned to leave it until the very latest moment to tell Noah about anything nice that was going to happen. It was harder to guard against the other manifestations of his abnormal sensitivity. Since early childhood he’d been able to tell what mood the grown-ups were in, whether they lived in the house or came there as visitors, and in some way these moods transferred themselves to him, the effect depending on how important the individual was to him. It seemed as if he were obsessed by them. Especially his father. Noah waited for him all day, restless and excited for the last couple of hours, and when he finally heard his footsteps outside, he would quickly leave his room and take up position at the top of the stairs, from where he could see his father come in, shut the door behind him, take off his boots, turn around, and meet his gaze. Each day it was the same, each day Noah and his father would stare at one another. On some days Noah would run shouting jubilantly to his father and throw his arms around his neck, other days he would cling to his legs, perhaps weeping as well. Anna saw all this, but could never see what it was about their father that caused such different reactions in Noah. Why did he cling to him? Why was he crying? Was there something about their father? She looked at him, but couldn’t discover anything special. Other than that he directed all his attention to Noah. Usually he would lift him up and hug him, whisper something in his ear, and sometimes this would be enough to calm Noah down again. Sometimes it didn’t help, and his father would accompany Noah to his room, where they could sit and talk right up until suppertime. He was patient, gentle, and mild, he seemed to be attuned to the delicate motions that were necessary in Noah’s world, where the least vibrations could bring everything to a standstill. It’s hardly surprising that things sometimes went wrong. Lamech might be so exhausted that he was on the point of collapse after a long day in the fields, he might have run up against problems that he hadn’t yet solved, and wasn’t even sure he could solve, he might be drenched, cold, and hungry — and on top of all this the boy would come running and cling sobbing to him as soon as he’d closed the door behind him. Was it surprising that sometimes he couldn’t face it, but carefully pushed him aside? That when the boy only clung tighter, he occasionally flared up? Perhaps even raised his voice?

He didn’t mean anything by it, and when he witnessed the consequences, he would deeply regret the fact that he hadn’t tried harder to empathize with Noah’s feelings. Because, after each such rejection, which at most meant a brusque shove, Noah could begin to scream so violently that he’d lose consciousness through lack of air, or he might run to his room and lie there sobbing inconsolably until he fell asleep hours later.