Karl Knausgaard - A Time for Everything

There it was again.

Three thumps followed by a kind of scraping, then three more thumps.

Could there be animals in the attic?

Then he realized. His mother had sent a man up onto the roof to deal with the leak.

It must already be broad day then, he thought, and fell asleep again.

About an hour earlier Lamech had emerged from the forest and caught a glimpse of the farm buildings for the first time in a fortnight. White and red they stood out at the end of the meadow, beneath the familiar hill, where the trees, in contrast to the ones he’d seen higher up the mountain, were still green and summery.

He dumped his pack on the ground before him, stretched his arms above his head, rolled his shoulders round a few times, squatted down, opened the pack, and took out what food he had left, closed it, and seated himself on the edge of the forest, his back against a tree.

He’d got down off the mountain earlier than he’d expected, and as it wasn’t much fun coming home when everyone was asleep, he reckoned he might just as well have his breakfast out here. A hunk of bread, a little ham, a drop of beer. That was what he had to offer himself. Not a meal fit for a king exactly, but good it certainly was.

After he’d finished eating, he rested his head back against the trunk and closed his eyes, only to open them again the next instant: if he fell asleep now, he’d be dead to the world for hours.

He’d been awake all night, first in company with Obal and Tarsis, who late in the evening had nodded off in their chairs, while he, filled for some reason with disquiet, had remained sitting and mulling things over on his own. In the first light of dawn he’d gone out, propped himself up against the wall of the summer farm, and stared out across the valley. Perhaps it was the market’s hustle and bustle that still worked within him, the tumult of faces that still hadn’t settled down.

How frantic it had been. New heads, new eyes, new noses, new mouths all the time. No matter where you turned you saw new faces. Heard new voices. Smelled new bodies. Sensed new motives. For everyone wanted something from you. If your eyes lighted a second too long on some piece of merchandise at a stall, the vendor would immediately begin haranguing you, even if you were yards away, and it was like that all the time, everyone tugged and tore at you, you were buffeted this way and that, between these wills that all, naturally, had specially singled you out. And before you knew it, you found yourself caught up in a situation of some kind. Usually he was prepared for whatever might happen, and could take precautions, but in this chaos of objects and people, eternal proddings, irate glances, greedy fingers, and dreams of easy money, all dignity might vanish in the twinkling of an eye: and presto, there you were allowing yourself to be treated like a child.

But perhaps that was only to be expected, in what was after all this child’s world, with its trained monkeys and cages of rare animals and birds, stalls with glass beads, musical boxes, dolls and mirrors; cockfights and dressage exhibitions, cotton candy and rock, merry-go-rounds and acrobats, flashing knives and spinning wheels one could gamble money on. There were many temptations to give in to, there were many traps laid, especially for men from the villages like him: if you were a little slow, if you really didn’t look like much, if you weren’t particularly highly regarded at home, it wouldn’t take a lot to flatter you, and even though, deep down, you probably knew they weren’t really interested in you, it was hardly surprising that you gave in and savored it. Perhaps you’d go with a woman up to a room, only to wake up without a penny in your pocket, perhaps naked in the bargain, with not so much as a sock within reach; that sort of thing happened, and not that uncommonly either, he had helped someone from home with money for clothes, not just once, but twice — or maybe you’d go into a back room with some men to play cards and drink the night away, with the same sorry result, pockets completely empty. And perhaps it would be even worse than that, perhaps you’d lost more than you had with you, because if you were broke, you could still carry on playing, that was all right provided you signed here, down here at the bottom.

But it was fun, there was no question about it.

The first time Lamech had become aware of that aspect of the market was when he was thirteen. He had dawdled behind his two uncles, there was so much to see — just over there surrounded by spectators an old bear was dancing, the music from the barrel organ flooded across the square, in the stalls to his left doughnuts were being sold, he stood in the line and bought one, walked munching on, turned to look at a man with a huge feathered headdress, met the gaze of a chained monkey that stood stamping its jingling foot on the ground, then saw a man lying as if dead behind one of the stalls, his face in a pool of yellow vomit, halted by a tent outside which hung a drawing of something that must be a lynx, and a strange lizardlike creature with long, flat jaws, strolled on and came across a man talking aloud to himself — he was angry and suddenly began to turn round and round on the spot, it looked funny, but also frightening, and a space quickly formed around him in the crowd — allowed his glance to wander over a nearby stall displaying knives, and then one with corals of every shape and hue, when a woman in her twenties stepped into his path.

She smiled at him, he a little taken aback returned her smile.

“Do you like girls?” she asked.

There was something about her that didn’t make her question seem the least odd to him. She was thin, with slender arms and almost sunken cheeks, but her voice was soft and warm. He could see the cleft between her breasts. Her dress hugged her belly and hips, it was yellow, and he gulped.

“Yes,” he said.

“Have you ever had a girl? You haven’t, have you?”

He met her brown eyes and shook his head briefly.

She placed the flat of her hand on his breast.

“You can come with me if you want,” she said.

The unexpected touch made him turn harder than he’d ever been before. Or perhaps it was her proximity. Her stomach, her neck. Her hips, her thighs.

“Would you like to?”

He was never able to reply. Obal came bustling down the row of stalls, and he was livid.

“The boy’s just thirteen!” he said. “Have you no shame! Have you no shame!”

The woman smiled, but his anger must have made some impression, because she immediately retreated a couple of paces.

“He looks grown up enough to me,” she said, and nodded at Lamech’s fly. His penis was so stiff that his trousers stuck right out.

Obal struck her in the face with the flat of his hand, took Lamech by the hand, and pulled him away. The woman shouted after them, people stopped and stared, Lamech blushed and thrust his hand into his trouser pocket in an attempt to conceal his frantic erection.

Tarsis, who’d witnessed everything from a distance, laughed when they got up to him.

“Look at the boy!” he said.

“It’s not funny,” said Obal. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Lamech was glad Obal didn’t laugh at him. He didn’t quite understand what had happened, but he knew that it wasn’t funny, whatever it was.

Later that evening, when he was about to go to bed, Obal, who was in front of the mirror shaving, the top half of his body bare, with his shirt and good suit hanging over the back of the chair by his side, turned toward him.

“What were you thinking of?” he said. “Earlier today, I mean.”

“I wasn’t thinking of anything especially,” said Lamech. “She seemed nice. She was nice to me.”