The Morning Star

by Karl Ove Knausgaard

  “You’re so gorgeous,” I groaned. “You’re so good.”

  Any second now and bang.

  “You’re so gorgeous,” I said again. “You’re so lovely.”

  Aaaahhh.

  I squirted for what felt like an age inside her before flopping down on my side.

  She flipped onto her back with her cheek on the pillow and her eyes closed.

  “Was it good?” she said. “Was I good?”

  “It was brilliant,” I said.

  There was a silence.

  “I didn’t see this coming,” she said after a bit. “You won’t tell anyone?”

  “What?” I said.

  “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  “What do you take me for?” I said. “Who would I tell?”

  She sat up, took a towel off the chair and wrapped it around her.

  “Your friends?” she said on her way to the bathroom. I heard her turn the shower on. I got my underpants on and was buttoning my shirt when she poked her head round the door.

  “You’re not leaving, are you? You can’t!”

  “It’s not even one o’clock yet,” I said. “I can still get home before it gets too late.”

  “I can’t be on my own now,” she said. “You can’t do this to me.”

  Oh Christ, now for the complications.

  On the other hand, if I stayed, I could fuck her in the morning again before going to work. I couldn’t do that if I went home.

  “I wasn’t sure you wanted me to,” I said. “Of course I can stay.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Once she’d closed the door I sat down in the chair and checked my phone. No texts, no e-mails. The top story on all the news sites was the new star or whatever it was.

  I’d forgotten all about it, with one thing and another.

  I opened the text I’d sent to myself.

  The New Star

  An evening in August

  as the sun sank

  and spirits rose

  I beheld the new star

  It still worked.

  It was good.

  You can never be sure. Sometimes you get a moment’s inspiration and it turns out rubbish.

  I put the phone down on the low shelf above the bed, peeled my shirt off and got under the duvet. Should really have had a shower, I thought, stinking of cunt most likely, only it felt so good to be lying there, all my fatigue came creeping back, like a mudslide, increasing in velocity, until after only a few moments it swept me away into its obscurity.

  When I woke up, the room was pitch-dark. On the shelf above my head, my phone was vibrating. I groped for it.

  “What’s that?” the artist woman said. She must have got back into bed without waking me up.

  “Phone’s ringing,” I said, and answered it.

  It was Geir.

  At half past three in the morning?

  “Hello?” I said.

  “I’ve got something for you,” he said. “Come out to Svartediket now, right away.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “We’ve found the lads from the band.”

  “Straight up?”

  “Or rather, we’ve found three of them.”

  “Are they dead?”

  “I’ll say. Murdered. Horrific, never seen anything like it. It looks like some kind of ritual. They’ve been butchered.”

  “How do you mean, ritual?” I said, feeling around with my other hand until finding my shirt on the floor.

  “They’ve been skinned.”

  “So we’ve got a serial killer in Bergen?”

  “Yes. Get here as soon as you can.”

  “I haven’t got the car.”

  “Then get a taxi. You can’t drive all the way out here anyway. Get him to drop you off at the waterworks, then follow the reservoir for a bit on the right. You’ll find us easy enough. OK?”

  “Why are you doing this for me?”

  “Let’s just say I feel sorry for you. Now, get a move on.”

  He hung up. I got out of bed and put my shirt and trousers on in a hurry while the artist woman peered at me.

  “What is it?” she said. “Where are you going?”

  “It’s work. Emergency.”

  “I thought you were arts and culture?”

  “Not anymore,” I said. I bent down to put my shoes on, grabbed my jacket and was out the door.

  TURID

  Jostein of course hadn’t come back by quarter past seven and I had to get off to work. That was his problem, not mine, I thought, but still I waited as long as possible before switching the oven off, going into the bedroom and getting ready. It was boiling hot in there even with the window wide open. Outside, in the garden, everything was still. I stood looking at it for a minute. The grass on the slope of the lawn was parched and yellow, although I’d been watering it as much as I could all summer. It still pained my heart to see the stump by the fence where the chestnut had stood. How lovely it used to be in spring with its white flowers and thick foliage. But that was life. Even trees got sick and died. There was so much else that was good, I told myself, leaning forward to see the climbing roses that had come into bloom a few weeks before, their clusters of white flowers.

  I wondered whether to close the window as I was leaving the house, but Ole would be here, and Jostein would be home as well before too long, and wouldn’t like it if it was too hot in there.

  The sound of my breathing filled the room, then my feet as they slid through the legs of my jeans. And from Ole’s room next door came the incessant tapping of his fingers at the keyboard. I changed into a white bra and put on a white T-shirt. Stood in front of the wardrobe for a moment wondering if I should wear a thin jacket on top, the night would be cooler, but dismissed the idea. I’d be indoors, so it wouldn’t matter.

  I checked my phone to see if he’d sent another one of his excuses. He hadn’t, and so I put it away in my bag along with my sunglasses and my inhaler. Then I knocked on Ole’s door.

  He was sitting with his back to the door in that big ergonomic office chair of his, in the same gray shorts and black T-shirt he’d had on all week.

  “Everything all right, love?” I said.

  He swiveled halfway round in the chair and looked up at me.

  He was different, I could tell straightaway. It was written all over him.

  “Yes,” he said, and smiled. “Now it is.”

  Had something happened? What had happened?

  “That’s good,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. Normally he’d have given a sigh and said, “Yes, Mum.” Or else he’d be more riled and ask why I wanted to know, not even bothering to turn round then, sick of me asking.

  “Yes,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”

  Could he have met someone?

  But how could he when he never went out?

  And what girl would be interested in someone who always had the same shorts on? And with such greasy hair?

  “All right, then, Ole,” I said. “I’m off to work now. Your dad’ll be home soon.”

  “OK,” he said. “Have a nice time.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Give me a ring if you need to.”

  “OK.”

  At the bottom of the stairs I had to stop to get my breath back. It was getting bad now; it used to be only when I went up the stairs that my windpipe would tighten like that.

  It was like having to breathe through a straw.

  And it affected my head as well, the only thing I could think about was everything I couldn’t do. It was like all my power had run through my fingers.

  Not that I had any power. But all the things I was used to doing.

  The air shimmered above the tarmac as I stepped outside. Two sparrows sat pecking at an apple each
in the apple tree, completely unperturbed by the shiny strips I’d hung up in the branches to keep them away and which glittered in the sunlight. I waved my arms at them and they fluttered off. I knew it was no use, they’d only come back again the minute I was gone, but it gave me a little feeling of satisfaction nonetheless.

  I went to the car and dipped a hand into my bag for the key.

  But where was it?

  I rummaged through the contents with both hands. Glasses cases, glasses, scarves, house keys, paracetamol, chewing gum, inhaler refills, inhaler, all sorts, only no car key.

  Where had I put it?

  I went up to the house again, a bit too quickly, and had to pause for breath on the top step. I went inside and looked on the table in the living room, the table in the kitchen, the bedside table in the bedroom. But no key anywhere.

  It was already half past seven. I’d still be on time if only I could leave in the next couple of minutes.

  “Ole?” I called out.

  “What?” he called back from his room.

  “Come here a minute.”

  I heard him open his door.

  “Where are you?” he said.

  “In here,” I said. “I need your help. I can’t find the car key.”

  He appeared in the doorway. I sat down on the chair.

  “Mum’s a bit short of breath,” I said.

  “And Mum can’t find the car key?” he said. “Is Mum helpless?”

  “That’ll do,” I said. “I don’t know where that came from.”

  “Where what came from?”

  “Saying ‘Mum’ like that.”

  “No, it was a bit weird,” he said. “But I’ll find the key. You have a sit-down.”

  He searched where I’d already been, but I didn’t say so. I could have missed it, and besides it was good to sit down.

  “Nope,” he said.

  Why was he in such a good mood all of a sudden?

  “Has something happened?” I said.

  He stopped and looked at me.

  “No,” he said. “What would that be?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “You seem different, that’s all.”

  “Happier?”

  “Yes.”

  He stared out at the garden.

  “Does it worry you, me being a bit happier?” he said.

  “Don’t be so silly. Of course not.”

  It was odd how unlike his father he was. So sensitive, and so delicate.

  His features were different too, and his whole physique.

  Jostein had been a handsome man. I could still see it in his face, his bright blue eyes. The powerful, compact body he used to have had gone fat, but there was still nothing slack about him, not like Ole with his rounded shoulders and soft, formless features.

  As a baby he’d been irresistible.

  As a child shy and physically awkward.

  He would lose the puppy fat if only he’d start getting out a bit, get some sun on him, find himself some friends who could spur him on, encourage him to pull himself together, start training perhaps, and start dressing properly . . .

  A good attitude was half the battle.

  “Found it!” he called out from the bathroom.

  I got to my feet.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “Thank you, love. Do I get a cuddle before I go?”

  “Does Mum want a cuddle?” he said as he came up to me.

  I smiled.

  “I told you I didn’t know why I said that. It was how we talked when you were little, that’s all.”

  He handed me the key.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Without a word he put his arms around me. I put my cheek to his chest.

  “OK, Mum,” he said, and stepped away. “You’d best be off.”

  “Text me when you go to bed,” I said. “So I can say goodnight.”

  “Will do,” he said, and went back to his room, while I went outside to the car I’d sensibly left in the shade under the cherry tree when I’d come back from the shop that afternoon, so the temperature inside wouldn’t be quite as unbearable.

  There was a waft of barbecue and I glanced over the hedge into next door, where Jensen was standing on the patio with his back to me, trying to make himself useful, his hands in a pair of barbecue gloves. He was on his own there and my eye ran through the garden until I saw his wife crouched in a pair of red shorts in front of one of their many flower beds, brandishing a pair of pruning shears.

  How idyllic.

  I got in the car, started the engine and turned out onto the road, pulling away past our row of houses and gardens, then out onto the main road. It was twenty to now, so I’d be two minutes late. Nothing anyone could pull me up for.

  Apart from Berit.

  She’d pull me up for it. She collected other people’s errors. And she was always on my back.

  Criticizing a person was the same as putting yourself above them, telling them you’re better than they are. There was no other way of looking at it.

  Being in charge of the unit meant she was within her rights. But it wasn’t exactly beneficial to the working atmosphere. And going on years of service I was her senior by far.

  Anyway, you didn’t have to be a brain surgeon to work with the intellectually disabled.

  I sighed without realizing until I heard the sound it made, which bordered on a groan.

  When I was at home I managed to shut out all thought of work, if not a hundred percent, then at least eighty. But as soon as I was in the car on my way there it all came pouring in.

  Every day, I dreaded it. It hadn’t always been like that, but now it was.

  And then there was Ole.

  It seemed like it was never going to stop with Ole.

  What had that look been in his eyes?

  What had I seen there?

  Perhaps he’d decided something and everything appeared brighter to him now? I’d told him so many times that going to university in Oslo wasn’t everything. That it might make better sense to start at the university here. He could even live at home then, if that was what he wanted.

  But that was just the problem. He had no life of his own. Having to stand on our own two feet sharpens us. It hones us. It gives us an outside, instead of just an inside.

  I visualized his face. His kind eyes.

  There was nothing wrong with him. He was good all the way through.

  Why wasn’t that enough?

  The Shell station appeared ahead of me. I glanced automatically at the fuel gauge. Three-quarters full.

  And then I thought about cigarettes.

  What a treat it would be to sit on the veranda and have a smoke tonight.

  Just the one.

  But that would be it then. I knew it would. One cigarette would be enough to get me started all over again.

  Anyway, the gas station was behind me now and I turned onto the old main road where unbelievably there were still a couple of small farms with sheep and cows before the new housing developments began, the new church without a steeple, which everyone hated apart from the people who’d commissioned it, who thought it was fantastic, so very modern.

  It looked about as inviting as a deep freeze, if you asked me.

  Anyway, God wasn’t modern.

  It was those lunatic devil worshippers who’d burned the old church down. Everyone knew about it as soon as it happened. The news spread like ripples in a pond. The church is on fire, the church is on fire. It had never occurred to me until then that people actually cared about the church. Or that I did. It wasn’t just a building, as everyone had thought.

  Jostein had managed to get an interview with one of the ones who was behind it, a young man they called Heksa. The police went and picked him up straightaway and he ended up inside. Jostein had alw
ays held that he’d never had anything to do with it. But there were rumors, and not long after they moved him over to arts and culture. Restructuring, was the reason they’d given.

  People could say what they liked about Jostein, but he was a very good crime reporter, one of the best even. They took that away from him.

  And now he was clinging to what he had.

  I’d have thought he had more pride, to be honest.

  Now he went looking for excitement elsewhere.

  He was like a kid, wanting adventure.

  Only not with me.

  I came round the bend where the landscape suddenly dropped away toward the fjord, and saw the rooftops of the tall, rectangular buildings at the perimeter of the grounds standing out red in all the green.

  My chest tightened.

  I breathed in slowly and imagined a gentle breeze passing over a wide meadow. Air streaming freely through my throat, streaming freely into my lungs.

  Streaming freely.

  And out again, streaming freely.

  After the bus stop I turned onto the narrow drive that wound its way through the trees of the hospital grounds. Two carers I didn’t know came pushing a couple of residents in wheelchairs. Behind them came another two residents. They stopped when they saw the car, as they’d learned when they were children; it was etched into them.

  I lifted my hand in a wave and they stared with open mouths.

  The woods behind the buildings were bathed in light. The sun twinkled in the rows of windows as I passed. There were only four units left now, so a number of the buildings stood empty.

  The clock above the entrance of the administration building said eight o’clock exactly.

  Parking outside A2 and turning off the engine, I heard distant cries from inside, like the bellowing of a bull. I picked up my bag and opened the car door. At that moment, my phone pinged. I sat in the seat with my feet resting on the ground outside while I found it. It was Jostein.

  Dragging out a bit, sitting with a bunch from work.