The Morning Star

by Karl Ove Knausgaard

  I went inside. Ommundsen was nowhere to be seen, so I went upstairs to look for him there.

  I spotted him straightaway. Sitting on a chair by the window, he was with a woman, they were sitting close and he was holding her hands in his.

  It was Emilie, my old English teacher.

  But she was married with kids. And he was married with kids.

  Were they having an affair?

  Ommundsen noticed me and got to his feet.

  “Iselin!” he said in a loud voice. “You came after all. How nice!”

  I went over to them, I had no option then.

  “And the two of you know each other, of course,” he said.

  “Of course,” said Emilie. “Lovely to see you, Iselin!”

  “You too,” I said.

  “Can I get you a drink?” said Ommundsen. “We’re not at school anymore. And besides, you’re past the legal drinking age now!”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “What’ll it be?”

  “Just a Diet Coke, please,” I said.

  “Right you are,” he said, and then turned to Emilie. “How about another bottle?”

  “Why not!” she said, and they both laughed.

  Ommundsen’s face, tanned and clean-shaven, glowed with happiness as he went off to the bar.

  Her face glowed too, only a bit milder.

  “Martin’s been telling me how talented you are,” she said, looking at me with a warm smile.

  “I’m not talented at all, I’m afraid,” I said.

  “Well, according to what Martin says you are! Do you still sing?”

  I shook my head.

  “You were his favorite student. Did you know?”

  I shook my head again.

  She nodded knowingly a few times, as if I’d just said something insightful.

  “Are you a couple now, then?” I said.

  She smiled again.

  “Yes, we are.”

  “So you got divorced, and he got divorced?”

  “That’s right, yes,” she said.

  Ommundsen came back and put my glass of Diet Coke and a bottle of white wine down on the table.

  “There we are!” he said as he sat down. “Now, Iselin, how are you?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Enjoying your studies?”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  “It’s psychology you’re doing, is that right?” said Emilie.

  “Mm,” I said.

  Ommundsen put his hand on her thigh, just above the knee, while beaming at me. He looked like he was bursting to say something, only nothing came out but the joyful look in his eyes.

  “What are you going to specialize in?” said Emilie.

  “I don’t know yet,” I said.

  “How’s the singing coming along?” said Ommundsen. “I’ve so often wondered.”

  “Fine, I suppose,” I said.

  “Do you sing in a band? Or a choir, perhaps?”

  I shook my head.

  And then I stood up.

  “I’m afraid I’ve got to go,” I said.

  “But you’ve only just got here!” said Ommundsen. “Stay and talk with us. Or at least drink your Coke!”

  “I actually came to thank you,” I said. “For helping me that time. I never got the chance to say. Only it meant such a lot to me at the time, that you believed in me.”

  “No problem,” he said. “I still do believe in you, in case you want to know!”

  I said good-bye, they said good-bye, and I went downstairs and outside into the hot summer night, angry at myself for having been so stupid as to go there in the first place. But at least I’d thanked him, I thought, and put my earphones back in, listening to some more Jorja Smith as I went through the center of town and carried on walking. I passed the gas station again, the white building that was the nursing home, the High Technology Center, and came out onto the little bridge that ran underneath the big one.

  The waters of the fjord were completely still and completely dark, shiny as oil.

  Then I saw fire again.

  Up on the fell.

  I stopped.

  No, it wasn’t a fire. Something was rising into the sky.

  A star.

  A megastar.

  Was it real? Was it actually there? Or was I imagining this too?

  It rose and rose, and its light spread across the sky and glittered on the fjord.

  A couple on the other sidewalk had seen it too, and stood holding on to each other, staring up at it with their mouths open.

  Some cars stopped on the bridge above and drivers and passengers got out.

  It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  A megastar.

  And it was real.

  I carried on up the hill. People at the bus stop outside the old cinema on Danmarksplass stood gaping at the sky. Outside the restaurant a bit farther along too, people stopped with their heads tipped back, eyes fixed on the star.

  I put Sheer Heart Attack on again and followed Ibsens gate. On some of the little boxes that passed for balconies, people stood looking up and talking as I walked by. There was an unusual intensity to their voices. Like fear, almost.

  But I certainly wasn’t afraid. If Armageddon was coming, it was fine by me.

  I stopped and looked up at the star again. It was hard to take your eyes off it. It was so big that it lit up the darkness all the way down to the ground. It shimmered faintly in the crowns of the trees and on the rooftops, on the patches of grass that surrounded me.

  It was all over Instagram already. Photos of the star above the Eiffel Tower, the star over Hydra. People had started asking what it was.

  There’d probably be a scientific explanation for it in the morning.

  I sang along to myself as I went up the road. I’d discovered the album after watching the Queen film. It wasn’t really my sort of music, but I loved it all the same. It was like a whole world of its own. And they sang so brilliantly.

  I took the shortcut down from the hospital, and as I got to the bottom of the steps and turned into the narrow road where I lived and saw the house, I could see I’d forgotten to switch the landing light off; all three windows shone in the August darkness that was especially dense there, where the ground rose up steeply and a few big deciduous trees grew, thick with leaves.

  The couple I rented from had gone to Mozambique three weeks before to work for NORAD, the government development agency. They hadn’t bothered renting out the rest of the house, and I’d been tempted a few times into watching TV in their living room and making myself some food in the microwave. But not tonight.

  I let myself in and went upstairs to my room on the top floor. It was like a sauna in there. I opened the window as wide as I could, took my clothes off and went into the bathroom across the landing to have a shower. When I was finished I put a clean T-shirt on and a pair of comfy shorts and lay down on the bed with my iPad to watch Chicago Med.

  It took only a few minutes before my skin was sticky again and the first beads of perspiration began to trickle down my cheek, throat and arms.

  I couldn’t remember a night that had ever been as hot, not even on holiday.

  I fetched a towel to wipe my brow.

  The episode I was watching began to blur, looming back at me and blurring again, and soon it dissolved completely.

  I was woken suddenly by the sound of someone hammering at the door, and sat bolt upright. The iPad shone in the dark next to me. Let me in! someone was shouting in the street outside. Let me in!

  I went to the window and looked down. A man stood thumping his fist against the front door.

  Let me in! he shouted again.

  Who was it? What did he want?

  He was desperate.

&n
bsp; I stepped back into the room in case he looked up and saw me.

  Mother! he shouted. Mother, let me in!

  It was their son.

  Should I go down and let him in?

  I supposed I had to.

  I leaned out of the window.

  “Who is it?” I said.

  He looked up. His eyes were wide and wild. He was tripping out of his mind.

  “Let me in!” he shouted. “I’ve got to get in!”

  SOLVEIG

  Is that you?” the new patient said when I entered the room. He was sitting upright in bed in his blue hospital smock.

  I looked at him quizzically.

  His face was suntanned and his eyes warm, their gaze bright and alert.

  “We were in the same class together at primary school. Don’t you remember me?”

  I nodded hesitantly.

  He smiled.

  “You don’t remember me,” he said. “Not that it’s any wonder. We moved away halfway through.”

  “That rings a bell,” I said. “A very faint one, though!”

  He smelled mildly of aftershave and his cheeks appeared to be quite smooth, so I supposed he must have shaved before I came. For some reason it touched me.

  “Well, it’s thirty-five years ago,” he said.

  “You were rather quiet, would that be right?” I said, a vague recollection having appeared in my mind of a timid little boy with fair hair who might have been him.

  “That sounds like me,” he said. “I sat drawing most of the time. As I remember, anyway.”

  “When did you move back?” I said.

  “Two years ago.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “What was your excuse?” he said, his eyes latching on to me as if it were something he genuinely wanted to know.

  “My mother got Parkinson’s and was on her own,” I said. “She deteriorated rather rapidly.”

  He nodded.

  “I’d been thinking about it for a long time,” he said.

  Our eyes met, and I felt myself blush.

  I went over to the window and raised the blinds.

  The sun was burning high above the town. It gleamed in the bodywork of the cars in the car park. A bit farther away, the river ran silvery and still toward the fjord.

  I turned to him again. He’d folded his hands against his chest.

  “The funny thing is I don’t feel ill,” he said. “Not in the slightest. I tried telling them I could walk up here on my own, but were they having it? Not on your life. I had to lie down and be wheeled.”

  “Yes, sorry about that,” I said with a smile. “There are rules they have to follow.”

  * * *

  —

  As soon as I found a minute, I read through his record in more detail. Inge, that was his name. I remembered the moment I saw it. He had a tumor in his brain that hadn’t been discovered in time. He’d thought the headaches he’d started getting a few years previously had been migraines, and his GP had thought so too. Not even when he began seeing things that weren’t there, or which couldn’t possibly happen, did the thought occur to him that something serious might be wrong, and so he never mentioned it to anyone. But then the previous spring he’d had an epileptic fit and a scan had revealed the tumor. It was located in the brain’s visual cortex, hence the hallucinations.

  I wondered what kind of hallucinations he’d had, what things he had seen.

  Perhaps I could ask him about it tomorrow, I thought, glancing up at the board above the door, where a lamp was now flashing. Room number 2, Ramsvik’s room. I got up to go and attend to him just as the phone in my pocket began to vibrate. It was Line.

  She never called at this time of day, so although I was busy I answered.

  “Hi, Line!” I said.

  In front of me, Ellen crossed to the coffee dispenser and placed a cup under the spout.

  “Hello, Mum,” Line said.

  There was a gurgling sound, and only a dribble of coffee. Ellen turned her young, ruddy, rather pudgy face toward me.

  “Is everything all right?” I said, pointing at the same time to the coffee maker in the corner.

  Ellen gave a little smile and went over to fill the dispenser.

  “Yes, of course,” said Line.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes. But I was thinking I could come out for a few days, if that’s OK?”

  “Of course it’s OK! When do you want to come?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight? You mean tonight tonight?”

  “Yes, is that all right?”

  “Yes, of course!”

  “I’m actually on the bus now. It gets in around sixish.”

  “Wonderful! What a lovely surprise,” I said, shaking my head at Ellen who was holding a cup in the air and looking at me inquiringly.

  “OK,” said Line. “I’ll let you get on, you’re bound to be busy at work. See you later.”

  “Yes, see you later. Take care!”

  I put the phone back in my pocket.

  “Weren’t there some biscuits around here somewhere?” said Ellen.

  “I think they got eaten,” I said on my way into the corridor.

  The sun shone through the window at the far end, giving a sheen to the lino on the floor and making it look almost liquid.

  What could have prompted Line to come and stay at such short notice? I wondered. It wasn’t like her at all.

  And what was I going to make for dinner?

  Should I get a bottle of wine?

  No, the liquor store would be closed. Anyway, best not to make a fuss. If I went overboard, she’d only realize how much I missed her, I thought to myself, and knocked on Ramsvik’s door. Ramsvik, or the Consul as I secretly called him.

  He was lying on his back in the bed with his head turned to the side, and was looking straight at me as I came in.

  “Hello,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  He stared at me without moving his head.

  “Good . . .” he said hesitantly, elongating the vowel sound. It was as if he knew it wasn’t true even as he spoke the word, but was unable to say anything else.

  “Are you in pain?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Pain.”

  “Where do you feel the pain?” I said. “Is it in your head?”

  “Head,” he said.

  “Do you want some more painkillers?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  There was something resigned about the look he gave me as he replied.

  “Or was that more of a no?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Ramsvik was in politics and I’d known who he was when he was admitted. He was often in the local newspapers, occasionally the regional ones too. He was a man of weight and authority, a commanding figure who was used to people doing as he said. He could be blunt, but a gleam was never far from his eye. People liked him. With his beard and his formal style of dress, there’d been something vaguely nineteenth century about him, all he needed was a monocle and he could have been a wholesaler or a consul in a book by Kielland.

  Now his imposing demeanor was gone, had seeped away from him like water. All that remained was his body, large still, but weak. He’d suffered a sudden stroke while having breakfast at home. His wife had been alert and made sure he was flown to the hospital immediately. The surgery had been successful and the damage rather less extensive than there had been reason to fear. He had been left with a partial paralysis and had difficulty speaking. It was a small price to pay for the life he’d almost lost. But no less traumatic on that account.

  I’d seen him with his children when they’d come to visit him, a boy about ten years old and a girl of perhaps twelve. They’d been out of range, he couldn’t reach them, couldn’t hug them, couldn’t
talk to them. All communication had been down to them. They’d been frightened, but their fright would diminish and go away. The distance between them, however, was something that had been there to begin with, at least that was the feeling I got. Few things were more devastating to a person than losing the ability to communicate, but occasionally something good would come of it too. And so far he seemed to be dealing with it constructively, without letting himself become angered or frustrated by having to take such small steps at a time, the dependency on other people that had suddenly been forced upon him, but managing instead to turn it into something positive. A new sensibility.

  “Live and the children are coming to pick you up tomorrow, is that right?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I spoke to Sunnaas today,” I said. “Your room’s all ready for you there.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Let me know if there’s anything you need,” I said. “Someone will be with you in a minute to give you those painkillers. And I’ll see you before you leave tomorrow, of course.”

  As I turned to leave, his gaze slipped away from me and he stared into space.

  * * *

  —

  When I got back from lunch, I was told Inge’s wife was sitting on the ward waiting for me, and I went to speak to her.

  She got to her feet. Her name was Unni and she was about my age, blonde and slim, her features pretty in a way, if a little indistinct.

  “Oh, you’re the one who went to school with Inge!” she said when I said my name.

  “Yes,” I said. “Over thirty years ago.”

  “How funny,” she said, smiling.

  I smiled back.

  “Have you had something to eat and drink?” I said.

  She shook her head and held her hand up to stop me fetching her anything.

  “How long before they’re finished?” she said.

  “It’s impossible to say exactly,” I said. “But a couple of hours, I should think.”

  “And when will I be able to talk to him?”

  “The anesthetist will wake him up more or less immediately after the surgery, and if everything’s all right, I imagine you’ll be able to see him then. I don’t see why not. He will be rather weak though.”