The Morning Star

by Karl Ove Knausgaard

  I looked at him as we came to a halt by the hearse. He smiled and gave a shrug.

  “Have you studied theology?” I said.

  “Not theology, no,” he said. “Philosophy. Years ago now, though.”

  “So in other words you don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, realizing that I had raised my voice.

  He smiled again, hesitantly this time.

  “And yet you accuse me of heresy. I am a priest in the Church of Norway. I have just buried another human being. Do you think you’re being appropriate? And by what right do you criticize me?”

  “Steady on,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I know exactly how it was meant,” I said, turned and went back inside the church.

  Shortly afterward, I heard the hearse drive away.

  He had overstepped a boundary, I told myself, still seething as I began to get changed in the sacristy.

  I hung my white vestments in the cupboard, put on my skirt, put my arms into the sleeves of my blouse and buttoned it, sat down on the chair and fastened the straps of my sandals.

  I felt completely empty.

  But then I always did after a funeral, there was nothing unusual about that.

  What was more, I had a right to be angry. His criticism had been inappropriate and stupid. Not to mention insensitive. Did he think priests were completely unmoved by what they were involved in?

  I stood up and brushed my hair in front of the mirror, tied it in a bun and put on some lipstick.

  The shadows under my eyes, always there, were now even darker.

  The white blouse didn’t exactly help.

  What did I have in the cupboard in the office? I wondered. Winter things, mostly.

  It had been rather a long time since I’d bought myself something new. Perhaps I could do so today.

  It would be nice, I thought, putting the lipstick back in the little makeup bag I kept in the sacristy and taking a last look at myself in the mirror.

  I put my hands to my abdomen.

  Could I really be pregnant?

  JOSTEIN

  Outside the windows where I sat working, the sun was shining and the sky was empty and blue. I sensed the bars and restaurants were starting to fill up, so I submitted the piece I’d been working on just before three, even if it could probably have been better. No one cared anyway, least of all me. It was an interview with a female artist who was opening her first solo exhibition that same evening, out at Abildsø Galleri. She’d given me the tour there that morning. Pale and dark-haired, in an oversized sweater and roomy trousers, the sort builders wear, with pockets all over the place, she was waiting for me outside when I got there with the photographer. It was saddening to see how much she was looking forward to seeing herself in the paper. I wanted it all done as quickly as possible and suggested straightaway that we go inside and look at her paintings together. They were all of clouds, white on a blue background. Why clouds? I asked. I don’t know, she answered. She went around with her hands in her pockets, shoulders hunched, staring at the floor in front of her a lot, hardly looking at me at all. Perhaps because clouds are constantly changing in their form, at the same time as they’re always the same, she said. That presents a challenge to any artist. Why’s that? I said. What happens when something that’s in constant flux becomes . . . well, fixed in its form? she said. I looked at her without saying anything. OK, so what happens, then? I said eventually. She had no answer to that for a while, and we walked slowly past a few more pictures with neither of us saying anything. But then she thought of something. It had to do with time. Time, she said, stops in the painting. But it doesn’t stop outside the painting. No, I said, you’re right about that. But what’s it got to do with clouds? Everything, she said. It’s got everything to do with clouds. OK, I said, and altered tack. Would you say your paintings present a new take on clouds? She laughed and said she hoped not. But maybe, if it wasn’t too ambitious, she said, she hoped they might give someone a new take on painting. What kind of take would that be? I said. How do you mean? she said. Well, you said you hoped your pictures would give people a new take on painting. What sort of take do you mean? That bit was a joke, she said. OK, I said. What does this exhibition in Bergen mean to you as an artist?

  I’ve got nothing against artists as such, it’s the ones who think they’re artists I don’t like, the endlessly self-obsessed, pretentious little people who think they know something the rest of us don’t, think they see something the rest of us don’t, and feel they have to lecture us about it. The truth is they know less and see less, and that it ought to be us giving them a damn lecture. But I had a job to do, and the questions I asked her were respectful enough. Nonetheless, it must have been clear what I thought about her and her art while we’d been talking, because her gallerist rang a few hours later and complained to Ellingsen, the arts editor. He came over to my desk and told me what the guy had said. I said he could read the piece himself and tell me if he saw anything disrespectful or condescending in it. He didn’t, so that was the end of it. I knew he wanted to tell me to watch myself, but I knew too that he hadn’t got the guts.

  Idiot.

  Before knocking off, I checked my e-mails and noticed that Erlend, the photographer, had sent his photos. I wrote back and told him they were good, put my jacket on and left the hideous open-plan office behind me, not for good, unfortunately, but at least for today. No one looked up as I walked out, they were all sat bent over their keyboards, staring at their screens. Those who weren’t writing were most likely checking how many hits their pieces had got. It was the dearest thing to their hearts.

  I needed a piss, but getting out of the building took priority. I didn’t like pissing alongside the new colleagues. Could always take a cubicle of course, but then people would think I was embarrassed about pissing in company. They can say what they like about me, but neurotic’s not a label I’d care for.

  On the sidewalk outside I paused and lit a cig. The sun glittered in the glass facade behind me. The air was hot and the street was full of traffic and people, it was like being abroad. But the city was mine, no doubt about that: on Sydneshaugen, Johanneskirken towered above me, below lay Torgallmenningen, beyond it the Fløyen fell, and behind that, obscured from sight, if not from mind, Ulriken.

  Where should I go?

  Verftet was good for sitting out when the sun was going down, but it was such a damn trek. Wesselstuen would do for a Monday night.

  On my way there I phoned Turid.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “What happened to hi?” I said.

  “Hi,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Are you at home?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m done for today. Going for a beer at Wessel’s. Should be home around sevenish.”

  “OK,” she said.

  “Are you tired?” I said.

  “No, not especially. Why?”

  “You sound tired, that’s all. What time’s your shift start?”

  “Eight.”

  “We’ll have an hour together, then. Have you made any dinner?”

  “It’s in the oven.”

  “Is Ole in?”

  “What a lot of questions all of a sudden!”

  “It’s the journalist in me,” I said.

  She laughed.

  “He’s in his room,” she said.

  “Is he off out tonight?”

  “I don’t know. I shouldn’t think so. Phone him and ask.”

  “He doesn’t speak to me.”

  “You shouldn’t give up.”

  “Anyway, I’m there now. See you later.”

  I hung up and turned the corner, then carried on down the hill in the direction of the Hotel Norge. A swarthy little type from Eastern Europe was sitting on his haunches on the si
dewalk with a cap in his hand. It couldn’t have been much of an earner for him sitting there, I thought, people only passed by. If you really had to beg, you needed to do it somewhere where it was natural for people to stop, or somewhere where they spent money and felt guilty about it. Outside the supermarkets was best, where people came trundling out all the time with their trolleys overflowing with food; they could hardly do anything else then but give a few kroner to some poor guy who they thought was starving.

  He peered up at me as I went past. I couldn’t see his eyes, only two narrow, wrinkled flaps of skin.

  The way they bowed their damn heads.

  We’d not had their kind in town the last hundred years, I was sure of it.

  It put me in a bad mood and I looked the other way.

  Why did they have to humiliate themselves once they got here?

  I was no adherent of communism, but the two-bloc set-up, one good, one bad, one where capitalism was king and one where the state was everything, and then clusters of poor countries on the fringes where the actual conflict was played out, had been nothing if not stable.

  I remembered the demos back in the day, the marches entering Torgallmenningen, flags and banners waving. Down with the USA, down with the war in Vietnam, down with NATO, down with nuclear weapons. They were demonstrating against themselves, I understood that even then, even if I was only in my early teens.

  But no one demonstrated at all these days, I thought, surveying the square that was teeming with people. A group of youths were sitting on the Blue Stone, more still on the step below, and everywhere people were crossing the open space on their way to one place or another.

  Or no, that wasn’t entirely right, they demonstrated for the climate and against the apocalypse. But that was like being in favor of life and against death.

  Tearfulmenningen, I’d called it in an article I did once.

  Lot of positive feedback for that one.

  I carried on the last bit to the cafe and scanned the outside tables with all their gleaming pints to see if there was anyone I knew. There wasn’t.

  I could sit on my own, only it didn’t look like there was a single table free.

  This damn heat!

  Fortunately, I’d got my jacket on. The sweat stains under my arms made me look unhealthy. And I couldn’t exactly tell people I was actually in good shape.

  Maybe I could go on to Ole Bull?

  I glanced toward the place. It looked like it wasn’t as busy, so maybe I would.

  But just then a group of four got up from where they were sitting. I didn’t think twice. Two girls who’d been standing at the bar were already on their way over, so I threaded my way through and quickly put a hand on the back of a chair, inquiring if the seat was vacant only seconds before the two girls got there.

  “Sure,” said one of the group who were now on their way. “Go ahead.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and gave the two girls an apologetic shrug before sitting down.

  “We could share the table, maybe?” one of them said.

  I shook my head.

  “Some others coming in a minute,” I said. “Sorry.”

  They turned round and went back to the bar. I took them to be students. Humanities, I reckoned, going by the clothes.

  Slender and gorgeous, both of them.

  Should have taken them up on it, I reflected, and lit a cig while looking across at them; they’d gone back to where they were standing before, each with a glass of white in one hand and their other elbow on the counter, jangly earrings, eyes on the lookout.

  They’d likely have been interested if I’d told them I was an arts journo, they’d have wanted to talk then.

  But for a start I’d only have to go through a load of shit to keep them interested, and even then they were still only in their early twenties, meaning I’d have to surpass myself if I was going to make enough of an impression to fuck one of them.

  No sense kidding myself.

  I lifted an arm and wiped the sweat from my forehead with my jacket sleeve. Then, as I put another cigarette between my lips, I noticed a woman looking in my direction. She nodded and smiled half-heartedly, and raised a hand in a tentative wave. She had dark curly hair and was in her fifties, a bag strapped across her chest even though she was sitting down. I’d seen her before, but couldn’t remember who she was. I gave her a little nod in return, and then remembered, she was one of Turid’s former colleagues.

  In fact, the whole table were, I realized then.

  It’d be a bit odd if I didn’t go over.

  Only then I’d have to take my jacket off to keep my seat.

  Just then, a waiter appeared at my table. He was dressed like a proper waiter, white shirt and black trousers, but his face lacked the dignity. A teenager with an empty look and big lips he obviously couldn’t shut.

  “Lager,” I said.

  “Draft Hansa? A pint?” he said.

  “Of course,” I said. “What do you take me for?”

  He smiled. I didn’t smile back.

  While I waited for him to return, I got my mobile out and checked what they were doing on the paper. The top story was an explosives accident in Arna, one dead, one injured. It was barely worth the mention, but it had only just happened, so of course it had to go top. Next was local councilor Rafaelsen’s admission that he’d been fiddling his travel expenses.

  Who hadn’t?

  Only then had they got the disappearance, third from the top. SEARCH INTENSIFIES FOR FOUR YOUNG MEN, was the headline. In other words, nothing new.

  It was a case that had me itching, I had to admit. The missing kids weren’t just four young men, but four members of a death metal band. They posed with swastikas, claiming it was just an ancient Indian symbol. They used pigs’ blood at their concerts, and worshipped the Devil, but were so dense they worshipped Odin at the same time, and everything Norse.

  The fact of the matter was they were just a group of gangly, spotty-faced lads full of social anxiety and scared stiff of women, but the satanist black-magic drivel they dabbled in, the death symbols and the allusions to violence, worked, and people thought they were mean and evil.

  They’d been missing four days now. My guess was they’d collectively topped themselves and were lying dead in the forest somewhere. The paper had interviewed some of the parents, completely normal middle-class folk from out in Åsane, they were out of their minds with worry, of course, but I had to laugh when I saw it, because if those four lads were alive, their parents had destroyed everything they’d been trying to build up, just by that one story. Come home, Helge!

  My pint was put on the table in front of me, golden and mouth-watering.

  “Would you like to pay now?” the kid said, the empty tray clutched under his arm at his side, his mouth still open.

  “I’ll likely be having a few more,” I said, dropping the phone back into my pocket. “But listen, can I ask you something?”

  “Yes?” he said.

  “You’re from round here, right?”

  “Yes, from Loddefjord.”

  “Do you know the lads out of Kvitekrist?”

  “The ones who’ve gone missing?”

  “That’s them, yes.”

  He shook his head.

  “I know who they are. But I don’t know them myself.”

  “Do you know anyone who does?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m a journalist,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said. “I know someone who knows the brother of one of them.”

  “Which one?”

  “Jesper. The drummer.”

  “Can you get hold of his number?”

  He shook his head and glanced around a bit uncomfortably.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “You don’t think you can get hold o
f it, or you won’t because you don’t trust me?”

  “I’ve got nothing to do with it,” he said. “I don’t know why you’re asking me.”

  He turned and went back to the bar. I swallowed a mouthful of beer, wiped the froth from my lips and lit a cig.

  Was beer good, or was it good?

  I got the feeling it was going to be a decent night. There was so much expectation in the air, laughter and high spirits at the tables around me, so many people in the streets. It was like the whole town was out.

  And the sun was still high in the sky.

  Someone behind me put their hand on my shoulder. I turned my head and looked straight up into the smiling face of Geir Jacobsen.

  “So this is where you’ve been hiding,” he said, sliding onto the seat next to me.

  “Long time no see,” I said. “Been a while. Where have you been?”

  “Same place as always,” he said. “I should be asking you. Arts and culture now, isn’t it, from what I’ve heard?”

  “Afraid so,” I said, stubbing out my cig before taking a slurp. “Fancy a pint? I’m just about to order another.”

  “No, thanks all the same,” he said. “I’m on my way to work. Saw you from the street and thought I’d come over and say hello.”

  He got to his feet.

  “Still got the same number?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I’ll give you a buzz. We’ll have a pint then.”

  “OK,” I said. “Good to see you.”

  “Speak to you soon,” he said, and picked his way back between the tables and out onto the street.

  I looked over at a waitress and when I managed to catch her eye I held a finger in the air. She nodded and came over shortly after with a fresh pint. I emptied the first one and handed her the glass.

  Meeting Geir like that had given me an appetite for company, so I phoned John to hear if there was anyone still at work who might be up for it. He wasn’t sure, he said. He was on his way home himself, but he thought there might be a crowd meeting up later on, though he wasn’t sure where.