Karl Knausgaard - A Time for Everything

“Which way is it going?” asked Anna. “From where did you see it last?”

“It’s coming toward us.”

By dinnertime the mist had lifted completely. The sea was only thirty feet below them. And the ship, which everyone was aware of by now, lay looming in the swell just off the island.

It was vast. Perhaps fifty feet high, a hundred wide, and almost six hundred and fifty in length. And as black as night.

They had stared at it for several hours, but as yet had seen no sign of life aboard. The deck was enclosed so it could be that the crew was simply keeping out of sight, but it didn’t look as if anyone was steering it, so they assumed it was deserted. The aura of death that clung to it strengthened the assumption.

The ship was their last hope. In just a few hours’ time the sea would cover this mountain too. They thought the ship had been sent by God. The flood had been an ordeal he had put them through, the rising sea had been sent to test them, and they had not succumbed, they had crawled up to this foothold, and stood here now, only hours away from their end. Then a ship arrived. What else could it mean but that they had overcome their trials and were God’s chosen among men?

But if the ship had been sent to them by God, why was it so black, so impassive, so hostile and dead?

There was death in God, there was hostility in God, there was darkness in God.

God was as blind as the sea, as scorching as the sun, as black as the darkest night.

And now he’d sent his ship to save them.

Crowded together they stood watching the ship move closer. When the moment they had been waiting for arrived, and the keel nudged at the mountain just below them, all they did at first was stand and watch.

How were they to climb up? The hull was fifty feet high and completely smooth, there were no handholds or footholds anywhere.

“Hello?” someone called after a while. “Is anyone there?”

Another went down to the water’s edge and thumped on the hull with his fist.

Nothing happened.

Only when the ship slowly turned, and they saw that there was an external rudder post all the way down the stern, did their hesitancy leave them.

Anna stood in the background, a few yards higher up the mountain with Rachel and the baby and Jerak.

She was frightened. She looked at this ship, and it frightened her.

But it was their final hope.

Down below two men had begun to clamber up the post. It was round and clearly very slippery. For every two yards they managed to gain, they slipped a yard back.

Everyone’s eyes were on them. Some called out pieces of advice.

When they’d got to within six feet of the top, something happened. A man dressed in white appeared at the gunwale. As he bent over to look at the two men hanging there beneath him, a shudder passed through Anna.

It was Barak.

It was Barak who was up there.

The men pressed on beneath his gaze. Little by little they clawed their way closer. When there was only eighteen inches left, the figure disappeared from view for a moment. When he returned, he was holding a cudgel in his hands.

Barak, Barak, Barak .

They shouted to the men to come down. But either they didn’t hear, or they wouldn’t hear. They climbed on, and just as the first man pushed his body over the gunwale, the figure brought the cudgel down with all his might on the man’s head.

His skull split instantaneously. In a matter of seconds his face was covered in blood. The figure put his foot to the man’s shoulder and shoved him overboard. Like a heavy sack, he fell through the air down to the mountain beneath.

The figure bent over the gunwale again and looked down at the second man. He loosened his grip and slid down so fast that his skin was red from friction burns by the time he reached the ground.

Having satisfied himself on this point, the figure above moved away and disappeared.

All this had occurred within the space of a minute or two. Not a single thought passed through Anna’s mind while it was going on, she just stood watching, rooted to the spot.

When the crowd gathered around the corpse on the mountain beneath her, Anna raised her eyes and looked up at the ship. It couldn’t have been Barak standing there, she thought. It was impossible. But if it wasn’t Barak, who was it?

One of Noah’s children.

Noah , she thought, and her heart broke.

As if in a dream, she saw the dead man being carried past her and laid on the top of the mountain. The crowd’s anger was now as great as its fear. They decided to make another attempt. This time there would be plenty of them. If the first one got killed, the next man would quickly try to get past, if he too was killed, the one after that would try. They would perhaps lose two or three men, but if they once got aboard, their lives would be saved and that was worth sacrificing oneself for.

They drew lots to decide the order. And then, without further ado, they began to climb up.

The same thing repeated itself. The white-clad figure came up to the railing, waited until the first man had got half over, smashed his skull with the cudgel, tipped him overboard, and took a step backward.

Fear was in the eyes of the man following. But even though he knew what lay in store, he put his hands over the edge and heaved himself up.

The figure aimed the cudgel with full force at his head, and the next instant his body, every bit as dead as those of the other two, hit the water.

“Don’t do it, Lotan,” they shouted from below as the third man neared the edge. But his mind was made up. While the figure with the cudgel was waiting a couple of paces away, he put his forearms over, tried to twist his head to one side to avoid the coming blow, and partially succeeded, the cudgel caught him across the cheekbone and jaw, smashing them, so that he was still alive when he was kicked overboard, and only died the instant his body hit the surface of the water fifty feet below.

The last five gave up, and the figure in white vanished once again. Some of them tried to break holes in the ship’s side with large stones, several more joined them: If we’re going to die, they’re going to die , seemed to be their only thought. Their fury was great and they battered like madmen with their stones, but when the ship’s hull didn’t show so much as a scratch, even this eventually subsided.

Anna’s thoughts were fixed on Noah. He knew they were here, she was sure of that. Just as sure as she was that he would never allow them to go aboard.

She could do nothing about it.

And yet she shouted to him.

“Noah!” she yelled.

Everyone turned to look at her. Noah was someone they’d heard of, he still occupied a place in their consciousness, but only as a name, nobody but Anna had set eyes on him.

She wanted him to see what he was doing.

“Noah!” she shouted again.

Noah, who had stayed below deck ever since the ship had glided out of the forest, certainly did know she was there. Or rather, he suspected it, but for him it had become two sides of the same coin. He hadn’t wanted it to be like this. He would have preferred it if the ship hadn’t drifted into the mountain, and that Anna weren’t there. If he’d been able to help her, he would have done so. But he couldn’t.

When he heard her shout, he rose to go up. He didn’t want to, it was perhaps the very last thing he wanted to do, but he had to: he owed it to her.

He’d taken a couple of steps before he halted.

In a few hours the mountain would vanish. Soon the sea would cover the entire earth. Then he could go up. That was the way he’d planned it, and that was still the way it was going to happen.