Karl Knausgaard - A Time for Everything

She picked at the dry, decaying wood with one hand. She’d still had his seed inside her while she’d held Barak dead in her arms. She must bear that shame. But the disgrace of it also colored her relationship with Javan. Perhaps it wasn’t right. Perhaps that, too, was shameful.

She had obeyed her father in everything up to now. Maybe she should in this as well.

Perhaps he was right after all.

She rose and walked to the edge of the mountain, drew in a shuddering breath.

Somewhere in the darkness in front of her she heard the sound of wing beats. She followed the sound with her eyes, and just as she caught sight of the black shadow gliding through the air, it turned its head toward her, and she caught a glimpse of its yellow eyes.

It was an owl.

It must have landed in a tree lower down the slope, for a moment later she heard it call.

Hoohooo. Hoooo. Hoohooo .

Then there was silence.

She found it eerie. It was as much as she could do to turn her back on it and leave the place. It was no mere chance that it had flown by just then. Nor that it had hooted three times. Both were an omen.

But of what?

She hurried down the hillside, looked warily about as she walked along the path through the forest, broke into a run as she came to the cultivated ground.

The owl had been an omen. But did it concern her, or the place she was in? Was it telling her she should go, or that she should stay?

When she reached the orchard, the door of the house opened. She halted. Her father’s figure was framed in the light that fell across the farmyard. He leaned forward and threw the water from a cooking pot over the ground. The steam from it continued to rise long after he’d gone back inside.

She couldn’t decide now, she thought. She’d let time lend a helping hand.

Time would have to help them all.

A fortnight later she left. It was a brilliant autumnal day; the sun shone from a blue sky, the forested slopes were aflame in reds and yellows and greens. No one said good-bye to her, she walked alone across the fields toward the mountains, and all she’d been able to take with her were a few clothes in a pack on her back. Javan was waiting below the old feasting place, and there was a song in her heart.

They followed the rapids up and reached the far end of the lake by lunchtime. They took their first rest on a projecting rock by the shore. They had their second once they’d crossed the moor and were standing at the top of the mountain that fell steeply to the fjord. With their legs swinging over the lip, they sat eating the second half of their provisions. Above them was the dark blue sky, below them the dark blue fjord, and where the two came together, a black, perpendicular rock face reared up. They would see it every day, she thought, it stretched the full length of the opposite side of the fjord, and where it ended the sea began.

If they were to get down before darkness was fully upon them, they had to hurry. They’d sat here too long already, Javan said, and they got up, put on their packs, and began to walk again. An hour later they were down by the fjord. Apart from the faint light of the moon, it was pitch-black around them. But it wasn’t far now. And he knew the way well, and led off along the fjord, on an undulating road that was sometimes a bridleway, sometimes a path, and sometimes an animal track. She had no idea how long they walked, or what the country around them looked like, but she was so tired that it didn’t matter anyway.

The path had risen for a while, and they again found themselves above the level of the fjord when Javan turned to her.

“We’ll soon be there, now,” he said. “At the end of this plain there’s a valley cutting up into the mountains. .”

“Is it in a valley?” she asked.

“No, no. It’s at the mouth of the valley. With a view of the fjord, as I said.”

He stopped, raised his head.

“Can you hear it?”

Anna halted too.

“What?” she said.

“The rush from the river?”

There, far away, she heard a rushing sound.

“That’s where it is,” he said. “A stone’s throw from the river. Well, it’s more of a stream really. But it’s always been known as ‘the river’ by the people who live here.”

She put her arms around his chest and kissed his neck.

“I can hardly wait,” she said.

“Just don’t expect too much,” he said.

Ever since he’d first told her about the place, she’d formed a clear picture of it. Each new thing she’d learned about it altered it a little, but without disturbing the basic outlines: a small house on a hillock above a fjord. One field below the house and one field behind it, stretching back to a wooded slope. There was a lake there and a bog he was going to drain. And a barn on the other side.

Now there was a river there too.

“Anna?” said Javan. “Are you coming?”

He’d gone on without her noticing. Now he stood out there in the dark and held out his hand to her.

She took it, and they moved on. In a little while they arrived at a stone bridge, it crossed “the river” — which was indeed nothing more than a stream, in Anna’s terms — and when they got to the other side, Javan pointed up to the slope ahead of them.

“There it is,” he said.

The darkness was too deep for her to see anything but the outlines of the landscape as they walked up. There was what looked like a wooded hill, there a peak, there a field. . and there a house!

When they halted by the front door, she could see that it wasn’t much more than a shack. But he’d told her that. She had known that. So she wasn’t disappointed.

“Well, here we are,” he said. “Shall we go in?”

The door was stubborn, and he had to put his foot against the bottom and his shoulder to the top before it opened.

It smelled like a cellar inside. Dark, damp, almost decaying.

They took off their packs in the hallway. Javan went into the living room to light a lamp, she followed and stood dumbfounded looking round as the light spread through the room.

“It’s a pauper’s home!” she said.

Still holding the lamp he looked at her.

“It’s been empty for six months,” he said. “Some of the windows are broken. That’s why it looks a bit unkempt.”

“ Unkempt? ” said Anna. “Is that what you people call it?”

“ You people? ” queried Javan.

They stood there staring at one another for a long while. Then Javan put the lamp down on the windowsill and went over to her.

“It’s been a long day,” he said. “Things will be better in the morning.”

“You think so?” she said.

“There’s nothing here that can’t be fixed with a little soap and water,” he said. “Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the house.”

This was quickly done. A living room, a kitchen, a hallway, and on the second floor a couple of bedrooms. That was all.

They found two dead mice, light as feathers, on the bedroom floor as they were about to go to bed. She picked them up by their tails, took them downstairs, and threw them out the door. When she got back up, he’d spread two woolen blankets on the floor.

“We’ll have to sleep like this tonight,” he said. “Then I’ll organize something better.” He stroked her cheek, said good night, blew out the light, turned over on his side, and fell asleep. She lay awake. The sounds were new — the wind blew through a different landscape than the one she was used to, and struck different notes; the hiss of the waves lapping at the shore of the fjord was more wheezing, its rhythm more juddering, than the even, quiet swish of the river she’d grown up next to. And she’d never before lain next to a sleeping man.