Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

‘That’s fine,’ I said.

We went back into the main ward, Hans Olav moving quickly, stooped and with a swaying gait, his fingers constantly fidgeting beneath his chin, and three times I saw one arm shoot out and hit the wall as he laughed his low chuckle. He walked past Ørnulf, keeping well clear of him, and disappeared into the ward.

Ove opened the next door, inside was an elderly man sitting on his bed and getting dressed. He wore glasses, had a gentle face and full lips, a bald pate with hair growing all the way round, and from his appearance and style of clothing might have been a midrange accountant or perhaps a storeman in a building warehouse or, why not, a woodwork teacher.

‘You’re up already!’ Ove said. ‘Well done, Håkon!’

The man called Håkon looked down like a bashful girl. A fine blush spread across his ageing cheeks.

‘Thank you,’ he mumbled.

In the next room sat an elderly man on the edge of his bed, maybe sixty, sixty-five, with white hair in a wreath around his otherwise bald head, tearing out pictures from a pile of magazines. On his back he had a large hump, broad and so flat at the top you could have rested a tray on it.

‘How’s it going, Kåre?’ Ove said.

‘Hoo, hoo,’ Kåre said, pointing out of the room.

‘Yes, the food will soon be here. I’ll shout when it arrives.’

The rooms looked more or less like those in old people’s homes, a few things belonging to the institution such as blankets and tablecloths, Ikea pictures on the walls, some personal possessions such as framed photographs on the tables, the occasional ornament, maybe a plastic flower in a vase on the windowsill.

We walked down the corridor until everyone was woken up. Some of them were still asleep, others were awake, one, Egil, gave us an earful because we woke him. They were all men aged between forty and sixty apart from one needing special care whom Ellen looked after, he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. He stood out in other ways too, he was completely paralysed, lay back in an enormous wheelchair, used nappies and was fed, and his eyes were utterly vacant, no personality resided in them, they were only eyes. I froze with unease when I saw that. His facial features were clean-cut and would have been handsome had it not been for his permanently open mouth and the saliva running down from the corners. Sometimes hollow grunts came from him, but as far as I could see these had no particular meaning, at any rate I didn’t discover one or a system.

The last room was Ørnulf’s. Even though he was awake and sitting in the corridor Ove showed me in. The room was smaller than the others. Apart from a blue mattress, not dissimilar to the one we had in gym at school, the room was completely empty. No furniture, no ornaments, no pictures, nothing. Not even bed linen or a duvet.

‘Why is there no furniture in his room?’ I said.

Ove looked at me as if I were stupid.

‘Well, what do you imagine? He smashes everything in his path, if he’s in the mood, or else he tears it into pieces. Do you understand? He might not do anything for a few days but then it all wells up.’

‘OK,’ I said.

‘One rule: we never talk about the residents when they’re around. However little we think they understand. We have to be like their pals. Do you understand? Of course, we’re the ones who are in charge but we have to be open and chummy with them.’

‘I see,’ I said, following him back into the corridor.

‘I’ll help them to shower and get dressed,’ he said. ‘In the meantime could you make breakfast?’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘What do they have?’

‘Bread and stuff, that’s all. And coffee. They love coffee, as you might have worked out.’

‘OK,’ I said and went into the kitchen. It was a relief to do something specific and mechanical which didn’t involve the residents. Everything I had seen of them filled me with disgust.

I opened the fridge and took out anything you could put on bread. Cut up a few tomatoes, some slices of cucumber and strips of a pepper, and laid it all out on a dish, spread some salami and ham on another, put a mild white cheese and a brown cheese on a third. I kept myself busy, wanting to make a good impression on the others who worked there. Switched on the coffee machine, took out milk and juice, set the two tables. One of the residents came out of his room in just his underpants, he was athletic and had a serious masculine face, at first glance he appeared to be a magnificent human specimen, but then there was something about the way he walked, balancing on the outer edge of the balls of his feet somehow, and you realised everything was not quite as it should be. He stopped by the threshold to the bathroom, stepped over, stepped back, stepped over, stepped back, and I had a feeling he would have kept going all day if Ove hadn’t come, put an arm around his shoulders and taken him in. Håkon, the bashful one, waddled down the corridor, his back was crooked. Egil came with his head bent right back and his gaze directed at the ceiling the whole way to the table. Hans Olav stood still by the wall with his fingers formed into a quivering ball beneath his chin. Ørnulf sat as he had sat for the last half an hour, with his hands under his stumps. He kept drawing in air sharply between his teeth. Perhaps hyperventilating gave him a kick.

I poured coffee into a pump-action jug and stood it on the table. Sliced a loaf, searched for a toaster, but they didn’t appear to have one. Cast a glance through the window, a group of residents was coming across the grey tarmac, most seemed to be in their forties, and among them were two carers in conversation, one with a lit cigarette in his hand. The sky above them was light but sunless.

Ove took a tray of food into Hans Olav’s room, Ellen shouted that breakfast was ready, we sat down at our respective tables and the residents made their way along the corridor. The athletic man, whose name was Alf, was now walking with some strange robotic jerks. Right behind him came Håkon, the girlish-looking older man, with an apologetic nervous smile on his lips. Kåre, the hair-wreath man with the magazines, walked bent forward with the hump on his shoulders like a sack, and he kept shaking one hand to and fro in the air just under his face.

‘Where are you from then?’ Egil said, leaning forward and staring right into my face.

‘Arendal,’ I said.

‘How old are you then?’

‘Twenty-one.’

‘What kind of car have you got then?’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t got a car.’

‘Why not then? Why haven’t you got a car? Eh?’

‘Now don’t pester him, Egil,’ Ellen said.

Egil sat back instantly.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I won’t. No, no, no.’

He looked up at the ceiling for a while, then began to eat. The whole time he was breathing heavily, and when he had food in his mouth it was like sitting next to a small steam engine. His shirt hung outside his trousers, on top he wore a red pullover, slightly stained, and his hair, which was thick and curly, stood up at the back. His cheeks were reddish, perhaps because of burst blood vessels, and his eyes were bloodshot too. He made a confused absentminded impression and reminded me of a scientist or a gymnas teacher who had lived alone for too long and perhaps thought he hadn’t had all the success he felt was his due but actually enjoyed teaching and therefore didn’t give a damn about his appearance. Egil was like that. But added to this were the sudden lunges he made, a hand shot into the air and waved as though he had suddenly caught sight of a colleague down the corridor or he might jerk forward so abruptly that everyone around him recoiled. Then there was the staring at the ceiling.