Karl Knausgaard - A Time for Everything

They’d have to send some people over as soon as possible.

“Can you believe it?” said Javan. “Can you believe it?”

She shook her head and put her arm around him.

“If only it would stop raining,” she said.

When it began to grow dark, they finally managed to tear themselves away from the sight of the sea and walked up to the summer farm. Rachel and Jerak were up there together with Lamech, but Anna, Javan, and the twins hadn’t thought about them once, they’d been so thoroughly spellbound. They’d been shaken, too. Once they’d got into the forest and couldn’t see the sea any longer, Anna suddenly began to tremble. She tried to ignore it, and walked on, but then her stomach heaved, and she was sick leaning up against a tree.

Javan put his hand on her back as she stood there.

She wiped the saliva from her mouth, straightened up, swallowed a few times.

“Ugh,” she said.

Then they went on. On the other side of the forest they saw two figures standing outside the summer farm high above.

It was Rachel and Jerak, and they were terrified. They’d been sitting inside, Rachel half asleep, when they’d suddenly heard a rumble so huge that they’d thought it was an earthquake.

“Or the mountain slipping,” said Rachel.

They’d rushed out the door and seen the vast wave come rolling in.

“We thought, This is the end of the world ,” said Jerak.

From their vantage point they’d seen not only the wave that came up the valley, but also the waves that rose up behind it.

They’d thought that everyone below was dead.

“We thought we were the last people on earth,” said Jerak.

“Especially after all this time,” said Rachel. “Why didn’t you come up right away? Didn’t you realize how scared we must have been?”

She began to cry.

The excited voices had awoken Lamech, who began clicking his tongue from his bed in the corner of the room.

“The sea isn’t rising anymore,” said her mother. “That was what we had to make sure of. That was why we were so long. But the sea has stopped rising, Rachel. It’s over now.”

Only Rachel and Lamech slept that night. The others sat up, taciturn and thoughtful. At first light Anna and Javan went down to the edge of the mountain again. It was still raining, but the sea hadn’t risen by so much as an inch.

It gave them hope.

The rest of the day was spent going through their stores. They worked out everything in rations, and discovered that with these alone they should be able to manage for two months, maybe longer. In addition there were the sheep. They knew that the cows had been brought up to several of the other summer farms, and decided to visit them the next day, so that together they could find a way of solving the food problem. Some had more, some had less. But there would be enough for everyone for at least a month, maybe two, provided they could reach an agreement.

Then there were the reindeer. And there must be fish here now, too.

Yes, manage they certainly would.

The next morning they were down at the edge of the mountain once more. There was no change. The sea had neither risen nor sunk. The sea remained as it was. As it did the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Meetings between neighbors were conducted, and there was general agreement, no one saw any reason why things should be different up here than down there: provided everyone had enough food for themselves and their own, barter was the order of the day. What would happen after that could be dealt with when the time came.

On the fourth night after the tidal wave, Anna was roused by Rachel’s hand on her shoulder.

“Mom,” she said. “Wake up. I think it’s begun.”

She sat bolt upright.

“Have your waters broken?” she said, reaching for the dress that was hanging on the bedpost.

Rachel nodded.

Anna got up and pulled it over her head.

“Have your contractions started?” she asked.

“Yes. I think so.”

If she thinks so, they haven’t begun , Anna thought.

“How often?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only felt them once. Just before I woke you.”

On the other side of the bed Javan raised his head, looked at them.

“What’s happening?” he said.

“Nothing,” said Anna. “Go back to sleep.”

She stroked Rachel’s arm lightly.

“We’ll go downstairs,” she said.

Rachel nodded. She stole across to the other bed, bent over Jerak, and whispered something to him before following her mother.

Omak and Ophir lay asleep on the floor downstairs. Both were snoring. A few feet beyond them lay Lamech. He, too, was asleep.

“What do we do now?” said Rachel.

“Wait,” said Anna.

They each sat down in a chair. Rachel was avoiding her with her whole body, Anna noticed. That meant she was frightened. She probably didn’t know it herself. That she inclined her body away from her, that she never met her gaze, that she only looked at the floor or over at the far wall.

After a quarter of an hour she stood up and bent forward.

“It’s beginning again,” she said.

She moaned. When the rising pain reached its climax, she gave a loud groan.

“Ooh,” she said when it was over. “I can’t stand many more of those.”

She seated herself again.

Anna took a deep breath. What was this going to be like? She was a long, long way from giving birth. Perhaps as much as twenty-four hours away.

It was going to be a nightmare.

“Rachel?” she said.

Her daughter half lifted her head, fixed her eyes somewhere in the region of Anna’s chest.

“Walking helps. Shall we do that? Go out for a walk?”

“Don’t we have to stay here?”

Anna shook her head.

“The contractions must come closer together first. That’ll take a while, you know.”

A suspicion crept into Rachel’s look.

“How long?” she asked.

Anna shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s impossible to say. A while. But walking helps. The contractions are brought on by it.”

“Let’s go then.”

Rachel hadn’t as yet seen the sea from the plateau, and they agreed that it would make a reasonable walk. The darkness was as dense as it had been every night for the past six months, but the path was wide and the terrain it followed relatively easy to travel. Four times the contractions made her stop and double up on the way down there, which took them about an hour.

When they came out onto the mountain and the sea lay pitch-black and quiet before them, to their amazement they picked out several lights shining across it. Despite being small and widely dispersed, Anna’s first thought was that the cherubim had returned. The next moment she realized that it was people on the other mountains who must have lit fires to signal that they were alive.

They counted eleven fires.

“Why haven’t we done the same?” asked Rachel.

“We’ve had enough to think about as it is,” said Anna, and smiled. “Tomorrow I’ll make sure that we light one here too.”

“They’re so beautiful,” said Rachel.

“Yes,” said Anna. “And eerie.”

Just then Rachel bent over again. This time she cried out loud. It sounded as if it were as much in anger as in pain. Anna put her arm around her and they walked toward the forest again. Not many minutes later, the next contractions arrived.

Anna was getting worried. Had she miscalculated?

Rachel screamed and swore at her side. Then she recovered, and they walked on.

And then the contractions came again.

They were at least an hour’s journey from the summer farm. They might get up there, if Rachel was dogged enough, thought Anna.