Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

The door in the corridor from the stairs banged open. The next moment Hans Olav trotted past, bent forward, his hands fidgeting under his chin. Ove, who was following, stopped in the doorway.

‘I’ll stay with him for a while,’ he said. ‘Then perhaps he’ll sleep.’

I got up, it was probably best to see to Ørnulf. I watched Ove walking down the corridor, quite small but so powerful that his arms didn’t quite rest against his body, they always stuck out, which meant he walked with a little wiggle. He must spend a lot of time training, I thought.

Ørnulf was squatting in his room, facing the wall.

‘Hi, Ørnulf,’ I said. ‘Fancy a walk?’

Without looking at me he turned and shot out to the door to the stairs, which he opened with a stretch. The steps he took one arm at a time, like a kind of large insect, also deftly and at speed. By the time I reached the end of the corridor he was sitting with his arms around his legs beside a wheelchair.

I hated this.

I looked for his name above the hooks, found it, took a jacket.

‘You’ll have to wear a jacket,’ I said. ‘Shall I help you?’

He didn’t react, his face was blank, there was nothing to tell me what he was thinking.

I leaned down and carefully took his arm to insert it in the sleeve. He yanked it away.

‘If we’re going for a walk you’ll have to wear a jacket,’ I said. ‘Otherwise there’s no walk.’

He didn’t move.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go back up.’

I started back. I turned, he was sitting in the same position. Went up the stairs, stopped to listen whether he was following, nothing.

Ellen looked up at me from the sofa.

‘I can’t put his jacket on,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t want it.’

‘Does he need to wear a jacket? It’s quite warm outside.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Is there anything else I ought to know?’

She shook her head, I hurried back down, for all I knew he could have taken advantage of the short time I had left him alone to escape.

But he was sitting beside the wheelchair, arms around his short legs and chin resting on his chest.

‘Shall we go then?’ I said.

He clambered up onto the chair, turned the wheels with seasoned dexterity, rolled down to the door and glanced up at me. The moment I opened the door he set off at a furious pace. I had to walk as fast as I could to keep up with him. He had found a rhythm, moving along with quick regular thrusts, hands on the wheels, off, on, off. We passed the admin block. Further ahead, a group was walking towards us, I saw at once it was two carers and four residents, their body movements were unmistakable.

The two carers looked at me.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Hi,’ they said. ‘Hi, Ørnulf.’

He ignored them, and soon we had put them and all the buildings far behind us. His face had stiffened into a sort of grimace with bared teeth. It was red with exertion. Deciduous trees lined the road, dense and green, occasional spruces towered up, heavier and darker. Ahead of us was the main road, alongside it ran a cycle path, which I had decided we would follow.

Ørnulf didn’t want to. He pointed to the left, where the road looped around a little housing estate. I couldn’t let him rule me totally, I thought, and grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and began to push. He tried to brake me with his hands. His eyes were panic-stricken. What an idiot he was.

‘It’s no good protesting,’ I said. ‘We’re going this way.’

He jumped out and headed up towards the end of the road under his own steam. This was very dangerous, he was crossing the main road, not much taller than a dog, if a car came this could end really badly, I ran after him with the wheelchair, shouting for him to get back in.

He stopped on the other side and stared at me. Dragging his legs over tarmac didn’t seem to affect him.

I placed the wheelchair in front of him. He swung himself up. I wasn’t going to give in and pushed him down the slope. He jumped out again and went the other way, his palms on the tarmac, his lower torso swinging between his arms. I followed, but now he wouldn’t get back into the chair, now he was moving on his own, and that was how we entered the housing estate, him on the tarmac, which was dry and covered with sand and gravel, staring straight ahead, me walking behind pushing the wheelchair. This was no good, if anyone met us now I would be given the boot, but I was fuming with anger, couldn’t he just sit in the chair and do as I wanted? What was it about this estate that was so incredibly important to him? It was just stupid, I was his carer, we were out on a morning walk, one route was as good as another, and if it wasn’t, it definitely wasn’t worth sacrificing the comfortable wheelchair for.

I ran a few steps, overtook him and placed the chair in his path. He turned and tried to get past, I moved, he grabbed a wheel and tried to shove it away.

‘We’re going this way,’ I said. ‘I’m telling you. This way. Sit up on your wheelchair and then we can go.’

He dragged himself up, and when he was in position his hands began to turn the wheels at a furious pace again. I walked beside him through the estate, which consisted of relatively new houses with gardens that were not yet established. A bus stopped in the road, a couple of passengers got out and started walking. We reached the crossroads and Ørnulf, who had been frenetically pumping his arms, suddenly stopped.

‘Shall I push you?’ I said.

He didn’t react to my question, so it was impossible to read an answer from his face, but when I grabbed the handles and pushed he didn’t object. I walked as quickly as I could and soon we were back near the institution.

As we passed the admin block he suddenly jumped out of the wheelchair and sat on the ground a few metres from the steps to the main entrance.

‘You can’t sit here,’ I said. ‘Come on now. The unit’s over there!’

He didn’t look at me, he ignored me, hyperventilating, his arms firmly planted on the ground.

‘Don’t you want to go back to the ward, is that it?’ I said.

No reaction.

I tried to lift him, but he grasped the chair so firmly that it was impossible.

‘Do you want to sit here? While the others are having a nice time drinking coffee?’

No reaction.

‘Fine by me,’ I said. ‘I get paid the same money anyway. I can stand here, no problem.’

I took shelter under the projecting roof and lit a cigarette, but after a couple of minutes I realised this didn’t look very good, a resident in the road, his carer ten metres away, smoking, so I stubbed out the cigarette and went back to him.

‘Come on now,’ I said. ‘You’ve made your point. You don’t need to be stroppy any more. Jump up and we’ll be off.’

No reaction.

Hands around his knees, a grin on his lips, sucking through his teeth.

‘All right, all right,’ I said. ‘As you wish.’

I folded my arms and scanned the area trying to find a way out of the situation I found myself in. He might be defiant and strong-willed, but he had met his match in me. I could stay there until darkness fell, I could stay there all night and into the next day if I had to. The trick was to think about something else. Not about him or time dragging.

But it was hard, there was something about him, the aggression I could feel in him, his presence cast a shadow over my thoughts. He couldn’t have much in his head, almost all his movements were conditioned by reflex, such as when he rushed in after hearing the sound of the pump-action coffee jug and mechanically held out a cup. He didn’t enjoy the taste of the coffee, drinking it was just something that had to be done, something that had to be expedited, something that had to happen. If it did, he would want it to happen again. Outside, there was only one route that counted. Not the walk as such, because then he could equally well have taken the other route.