Karl Knausgaard - A Time for Everything

“You can’t be left alone here with the baby,” said Anna.

“Why not? Fetch him now.”

When she stood panting in the doorway twenty minutes later, everyone stared inquisitively up at her.

“The baby’s come,” she said. “It all went fine.”

She turned to Jerak.

“Rachel’s waiting for you,” she said. “I’ll just pull out some dry clothes, then you can come along with me.”

When they reached the place where they’d left the path earlier that night, Anna handed him the clothes — he’d already gotten a knife — pointed to where he should turn, and went back to the summer farm so as to leave them in peace.

They arrived back an hour later. Rachel held the swaddled child close to her breast, she had an aura of tranquillity about her that Anna had never seen before. Jerak had to look down every time anyone met his eyes.

Rachel carried the baby up to the loft and lay down with him there. Jerak ran up and down the ladder all day long. Anna stayed away for the most part, but she couldn’t deny herself a couple of visits as well.

She’d never been filled with such delight as when she saw Rachel, propped up with pillows, sitting on the far side of the bed with the little baby gathered to her breast. Or lying on his tummy, with his cheek against his mother’s skin and those eyes. . yes, those eyes. . the dark, serious look he gave them when their faces drew close. A hint of wonder could also light up in them.

And his hands! They were so amazingly small!

Rachel lay up there all night, but came down the next morning. She wanted to show him to Lamech.

She held the boy over his bed. Lamech stared at him for a long time, and Anna, in the background, smiled, but then he began to click his tongue again, and she knew that his final connecting thread with the world was broken.

“I’ve got a son,” said Rachel despite that. “Isn’t he lovely?”

Click, click, click.

She turned to Anna and smiled.

“Well, at least they met,” she said. “Look, can you hold him for a moment. I’ve got to take a trip outside.”

Anna held him in her arms and looked down at him.

“He’s so calm,” said Javan, who’d come over.

“Have you seen his hands?” she said.

Javan placed his index finger in the little hand, which immediately closed on it.

He yawned and closed his eyes. Anna lulled him to and fro for a while, carried him up to the loft when Rachel returned.

They stayed up there for a week. Anna was filled with rapture during the days and with worries in the evenings and at night. It seemed the rain was never going to stop. And what would happen if the sea didn’t retreat? Could they live here? Really live here?

Life at the summer farm had already begun to wear them down. They could put up with the fact that it was cramped, but having nothing to do was worse. Rachel and Jerak had their hands full. Anna as well. But Javan and the twins had nothing to do. They simply sat around inside. Javan would go out to the lean-to occasionally, but that was all.

A future here?

The sea had to fall.

But the sea didn’t fall. Quite the contrary. On the eighth day after the birth it began to rise again. And it rose quickly. Javan had taken a walk down that morning, and having seen that the water had risen, he could confirm that the water rose by about three feet in the next hour.

In ten hours the plateau would be flooded. Two days and the forest would have disappeared. They would have a few weeks until it reached the summer farm, perhaps even a few months. But to what purpose?

Suppose the rising waters stopped when they reached the mountainside beneath the summer farm, Anna thought, as she stood on the plateau along with all the others who’d gathered there that morning, somber and scared. Suppose we’re lucky enough that it halts there , she thought. What sort of life would we have then?

She looked out over the endless gray sea.

If only there was something she could do!

Nothing could be as bad as this, sitting there, totally powerless, just waiting.

It was fifteen feet below the lip of the mountainside now. And it was still rising.

She turned to Javan.

“What shall we say to Rachel?” she asked.

“We must tell her the truth,” said Javan.

“We can’t do that,” said Anna. “We can’t .”

“We’ve got to,” said Javan. “I’ll do it if you like.”

She considered for a moment.

“No. I’ll do it,” she said.

They stood there a little longer. Could it be that the water had stopped even now? But deep down inside them they both knew that this time there was no hope left.

They didn’t say a word as they walked back to the summer farm.

Anna had initially intended to put off the conversation for a while, perhaps until the evening, but once she got inside the hut, she thought it might be best to get it over with at once.

She climbed the ladder and found them just as she’d left them: Rachel in the bed, her back propped against the wall, the boy at her breast. He gurgled as he drank.

Rachel looked up and smiled at her.

“I’ve got bad news, Rachel,” she said. “The sea has begun to rise again.”

Rachel just looked at her. She didn’t seem to take the words in. Or what they signified.

“What do you mean —” she said at last. “ Rise ?”

“Three feet an hour.”

“That’s just the tide,” she said.

Her mother shook her head.

“The sea’s begun to rise again. That’s the truth.”

“We can’t die now,” said Rachel.

“I know,” said Anna.

“Not now ,” said Rachel.

“No,” said Anna.

Silence fell between them.

“Shall I send Jerak up?” Anna asked after a while.

Rachel nodded.

When she got down, the twins were on their way out the door.

Omak turned to her.

“A group of us has got together,” he said. “We’re going down to build a raft. It’s best to do it before the forest disappears.”

A raft .

Anna giggled to herself but said nothing. After giving the message to Jerak, she stood by the window and watched her two sons going down and across the mountain with five other men, all in their twenties, all with axes in their hands. They disappeared into the forest, and followed the animal track for half a mile before leaving it and heading downward. When they found a spot they thought suitable, they began to chop. None of them really thought the water would submerge the forest, this raft was a means of occupying themselves more than anything else, and they worked at best half-heartedly. When the first trees hit the ground, they decided to go down and see how high the water had gotten. On the way they passed an area of clear-cutting that seemed quite recent, the light wood of the stumps couldn’t have been many weeks old, but it didn’t strike them as odd.

Soon they heard the waves washing over the forest floor. Then they saw them. Limpid, almost shining, the sea lay among the trees below them, white with foam, the waves slapped up the gently rising ground.

“Look at that,” said Omak.

Spellbound they stood there and stared.

After a while one of them went right down, bent forward, and put his hand in the water.

“It’s warm,” he said

He licked one finger.

“And salty.”

“Shall we go for a swim, then?” said Ophir.

They looked at one another. There was something almost indecent about the proposal. But at the same time they realized that the respect they had for the water came from the situation they were in, and had nothing to do with the water itself. The water wasn’t sacred. It was warm, it was salty, it was the sea. So why not bathe in it?