Karl Knausgaard - A Time for Everything

Barak must have forgotten to shut it behind him, he thought, climbed down the ladder, carried it over to the outhouse and hung it back on the wall, halted at the corner of the house and looked across to the place where he’d last seen Barak. Apart from the knife and the half-finished bow, it was empty and deserted.

He’d tell him when he got back, he thought, and began to walk down toward the river. When he came to the riverbank, he cupped his hands to his mouth and sang.

“Come along, girls!” he sang. “Come along, girls!” Soon bells were clanging from in among the trees.

“Have you been away exploring?” he said when they were all gathered round him. There were few things he liked better than his cows. Their warm, dark eyes, their calm movements, their mild natures. The warmth they gave off.

“Come on,” he said, and set off up through the copse with the cows straggling at his heels. When they were all in, he closed the gate behind them and set course for the house, realized that they were still following him, turned and told them they were to stay there, which they acknowledged, for the sound of hooves on turf behind him ceased when he went on.

Halfway across the orchard he caught sight of Barak lying on the ground on the far side of the tree. He was lying on his front with his arms outstretched and his cheek to the ground. The first thing he thought was that he must have fallen the moment before he saw him. But he didn’t get up, he didn’t grasp his knee or elbow, he just lay there, still.

Lamech began to run. Through the orchard, into the farmyard, over to the tree.

“Barak,” he said as he stopped. “Have you hurt yourself?”

Barak didn’t answer, and he knelt and turned him carefully over.

His eyes were closed. A trickle of blood came from one side of his mouth. But apart from that he seemed unhurt.

And his heart was beating.

Lamech craned his head back and looked up into the crown of the tree above him.

He must have fallen from there.

Lamech placed one hand beneath his head, the other round his waist, and raised him into a sitting position. The movement caused Barak to open his eyes.

“I fell,” he said.

“Does it hurt anywhere?”

Barak shook his head faintly. Then he turned to the side and vomited. There was blood in the vomit.

“Ugh,” he said. “That hurt a little.”

Lamech stroked his hair.

“Come on,” he said. “We’ll go indoors.”

He lifted him up and cradling him close carried him to the door, turned the handle with some difficulty, pushed the door open with his foot, and went in.

“There,” he said. “Not hurting?”

“No,” said Barak.

He carried him through the kitchen and into the living room.

Noah rose.

“What’s happened? Has he hurt himself?”

Lamech made no reply.

“Get an eiderdown and a pillow,” was all he said. “And we’ll lay him on the bench.”

Noah hurried out. With Barak in his arms, Lamech heard his footsteps on the floor above.

A bit more blood had run out of the corner of his mouth. Lamech wiped it with his thumb.

“You’ll soon be able to have a rest,” he said.

Noah returned, and Lamech placed Barak on the bench with the eiderdown spread over it. He thought that the blood might be coming from a bite on the lip or tongue, and asked him to open his mouth. But he saw no injury.

He pressed the boy’s chest gently.

“Does that hurt?”

“A bit.”

“That’s not too bad,” said Lamech. “You’ve only broken a rib. It’ll mend itself. Just rest now.”

And Barak closed his eyes.

“We’ll leave him in peace for a while,” Lamech said to Noah. “Go and tell your mother what’s happened, will you?”

Noah hesitated.

“Well, go on,” said Lamech.

Only when he’d sat down in the kitchen did he realize that the sun was out. He rose to stop him, but it was too late, Noah was already going round the house to the trapdoors of the cellar.

A few seconds surely wouldn’t hurt, he thought, and sat down again. His hands were shaking as if he’d been without food for several days.

He got up and drank a glass of water.

It was as he’d said. A rib or two was broken. There was no cause for anxiety.

But he couldn’t sit still.

After a while he tiptoed into the living room again.

More blood from the corner of his mouth.

But at least he was sleeping peacefully.

Out in the hall the door opened. It was Milka and Noah. Lamech wiped away the blood so that she wouldn’t see it, straightened up, and took a step back when immediately afterward she entered the room. She didn’t ask any questions, just went straight to Barak, squatted down and looked at him, placing her hand on his forehead.

“My poor boy,” she said.

“It’s best to let him rest,” Lamech said.

She nodded and got up.

In the kitchen Lamech told her what had happened. How he’d found him on the ground, presumably fallen out of the tree, one rib, possibly two, broken. The only thing to do was to have him lie quite still. Then it would mend by itself.

He said nothing about the blood.

“Did you tell him that?” Milka asked. “Did you tell him that he mustn’t move?”

“He’ll know that himself,” said Lamech. “It’ll hurt when he moves. Pain is useful that way. But he’s not in pain. I asked him about that.”

“He should be able to sleep, then,” said Milka.

Lamech laid a hand on Noah’s shoulder.

“I forgot,” he said. “I’m sorry I forced you outside.”

“It doesn’t matter. It was only a moment,” said Noah.

The skin on his forehead, one cheek, and parts of his neck had already flamed up.

“Lie down for a bit,” said Lamech.

Noah shook his head. “But I will go upstairs. I’ll come down in a while and see how things are going.”

“Do that.”

When Noah had gone, Milka and Lamech sat looking at one another in silence.

Milka rose and rested her hands on the windowsill.

“The vomit out there had blood in it,” she said.

Lamech said nothing.

“All we can do is pray that things will turn out well,” she said.

Then it went quiet again. Occasionally one of them would go out to look at him, apart from that they sat in the kitchen all that afternoon. Without them being aware of it, darkness fell slowly around them. Once Barak coughed, and Milka went in to him. He smiled when he saw her. There was blood on the pillow by the side of his head. He saw her looking at it.

“It came when I coughed,” he said.

She sat down next to him.

“Does it hurt anywhere?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Only a bit when I cough.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said.

She stroked his hair.

“Can you sit here for a bit?” he said.

She nodded.

“I’ll sit here. You go to sleep.”

His father sat alone in the murky kitchen peering out the window when Noah came down. There was autumn in the darkness out there, he’d just thought. Only a few nights ago the darkness had been of the hedge and the grass, the wind and the whitewashed houses on the sides of the valley. Now it was part of the earth. There was quite a different thickness to it, and a different depth. He’d always liked autumn best. Perhaps it was because the differences were more clearly defined. When it was night it was night, when it was day it was day. Morning came suddenly and changed everything, and evening came suddenly and changed it all back again. No subtle transitions, nothing that imperceptibly turned into something else.

He looked up into Noah’s face and the thought of Barak returned. Those few seconds he hadn’t been thinking about him were enough to sever the familiarity of the thought that he was lying injured in there. Fear gripped him as if for the first time.