Karl Knausgaard - A Time for Everything

Barak nodded.

“There are fish that resemble little horses,” Noah went on. “And fish that look like stones and even like plants. Not so long ago I saw an insect that looked like a twig.”

“Did you catch it?” Barak asked.

Noah shook his head.

“And one of the rocks beneath the waterfall has the same shape as a human face. Have you seen it?”

“Yes.”

“One of the beams in the attic has a face on it and there’s another in the floor of the living room. And, you must remember, they were once inside a tree. How many trees could have faces like that in them? Trees are full of pictures. Stones are full of pictures. Mountains are full of pictures. The ice in the glacier has every kind of outline in it. Then there are potatoes that look like faces and carrots that look like hands or noses. .”

He stopped. He could see from Barak’s gaze, which was fixed somewhere deep in the landscape outside the window, that he wasn’t listening. He was glad he’d discovered this for himself. On some occasions he’d worked himself up into such enthusiasm that his brother’s sudden diversions, which came sooner or later, in the form of questions about something quite different or an abrupt turning away, had made him quite cold inside, and put him in a state in which the only possible answer to his brother’s obvious lack of interest was anger. Only when it was too late was he able to reflect that his brother was only a child. That it was him his brother’s attention was directed toward, not what he was interested in. If he’d made him cry, he would be racked with remorse, and then it would be tit for tat, for Barak was proud and not too young to know the power of rejection.

Noah tousled his hair.

“Are you bored?” he asked.

Barak shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Time’s just going a bit slowly today.”

Noah smiled.

“That’s hardly surprising. I remember how I used to look forward to him coming home. But the worst thing you can do is to sit here. You must get out and do something. Before you know it, it’ll be bedtime, and when you wake up, he’ll come.”

“Well,” he said. “But what can I do?”

“Help your mother drive the cows in for instance. You can do that now. You see, they’re standing over there.”

He nodded toward the herd that had gathered on the other side of the meadow fence at the bottom of the garden. Some stood grazing, some stood staring into the garden, some kept their calves, playing by themselves over by the tree, under supervision. They drifted slowly to and fro with their placid minds. Now and then a tail was lifted and a cow pie was pressed out, now and then one would get too close to another and be forced to run a few yards, now and then they opened their jaws and bellowed.

“Are you going out tonight?” asked Barak.

“Perhaps.”

“Can I come too?”

“You know you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you belong to the day.”

Barak turned his head to him and smiled.

“Do you belong to the night, then?”

Noah nodded. “Yes.”

“And Anna? What does she belong to?”

“A bit of both, I think,” said Noah. “But now. .”

“Yes?”

“Off with you!”

He put his hands under Barak’s arms and lifted him to his feet.

“And take your bowl with you,” he said.

A few minutes later Barak appeared in the farmyard, wearing high boots and carrying a stick in one hand. He walked down to the meadow, opened the gate, and walked out among the cows. Even though they knew the way only too well, he gave them a few smacks on the legs, and so, steered by the little boy with the big boots, the whole herd moved slowly up toward the cowshed. When they were out of sight, Noah replaced the board in front of the window, laid a fresh sheet of paper on the table in front of him, and began to write.

LIVING THINGS

FIRE

DEAD THINGS

trees/land plants/water plants

the sun

mountains/stones

insects

the stars

earth

land animals/sea animals/birds

cherubim

water/clouds/ice

human beings

lightning

air

Nephilim

conflagrations

bones/skeletons

Angels

the moon

GOD

LIVING THINGS IN THE DEAD

DEAD THINGS IN THE LIVING

stones with insects or plants

skeletons

the human face in the rock by the waterfall

eggs with shells that resemble stones

horses, etc., in the clouds

insects that resemble twigs/leaves

faces/bodies/animals in embers/ashes/clay/ice

LIVING THINGS IN THE LIVING

LIFE THAT RESEMBLES OTHER LIFE

faces/eyes/animals etc. in wood

insects that resemble land animals

faces/body parts/animals in root vegetables

sea animals that resemble land

animals/birds

birds that resemble land animals

sea animals that resemble plants

He had made similar outlines many times, moved the various categories around and tried to make the whole thing work out, but so far he’d never been satisfied, and it was always the same points that caused him trouble. Most problematic were the two main headings “living things” and “dead things.” The skeletons that lay on the table by the wall definitely came under dead things. But at one time they had belonged to living things. The question was whether a skeleton was living when it was part of, and was surrounded by, something that was alive? Or was it dead the whole time? What did being alive really mean? If, for instance, you chopped off your arm, the arm went from being alive to being dead. So one might imagine the rule to be this: if a part of living things is removed, that part enters the category of dead things, while the main part remains living. That’s how it was with his father’s toe, which he still had on ice in the cellar, more than six months after it had been amputated. It had become gangrenous the previous winter, and as there hadn’t been anyone except them on the farm, his father had gone to the neighboring farm to get help cutting it off, but the men there were out in the forest, and so when he got back he’d decided to do it himself in the evening after everyone had gone to bed. He’d sharpened a knife, placed his foot on a stool, and begun to cut. Noah, who’d been woken by the noises of someone moving about in the kitchen, had crept downstairs. Silently he’d stood in the hallway and watched his father hunched over, cutting at himself with a knife, illuminated by only a candle on the table, and without making so much as a whimper. The toe had stunk like rotten meat, his father would later relate, and that he’d been filled with such a great hatred of it that he’d felt hardly any pain, just a longing to be rid of it. When he’d cut through the last fiber, he put the toe on the table and bound a cloth tightly around the bleeding wound. Then he’d picked up the toe again, studied it for a long time by the light of the candle, before limping out into the hallway, pulling several pairs of thick socks onto his wounded foot, pushing the other into a clog and going out. Noah, who’d concealed himself behind the open clothes cupboard, crept out after him and saw how he threw the toe into the woods. When Noah was certain his father had gone to bed, he fetched the candle and slipped in among the trees. After searching a few minutes he found the toe, packed it in snow, placed it on top of a beam in the cellar, and had, ever since then, replenished the ice surrounding it at regular intervals. A part of his father belonged to him, he liked that thought, and at the same time the toe was shelved beside many of his other objects, between living and dead things.