The Morning Star

by Karl Ove Knausgaard

  They got to their feet and I carried on to the duty room. Torgeir was sitting in the corridor outside the open door, staring into the room like a dog waiting for a treat.

  “Tea’s ready,” I said to Berit, who was sitting on the sofa writing in the report book on her knee.

  “I’ve noted down that you were fifteen minutes late again today,” she said, and looked up at me.

  “I see,” I said.

  Wild horses wouldn’t make me apologize.

  She stood up.

  “Everyone was out anyway,” I said.

  “But you couldn’t have known that,” she said, stepping past me.

  Then Gunnar appeared.

  “Give me a hand with Georg, will you?” he said.

  I helped get him into his wheelchair, which Gunnar then wheeled in and positioned at the end of the table. I tied a bib under Georg’s chin and he grinned. He was in a good mood.

  Fortunately, Berit never had tea with us when she had the afternoon shift. After dispensing their medication, she went and got her bag from the office, said good-bye to the residents and carers at the table, and went off busily down the corridor. Not long after, I heard her start her car outside, and shortly after that the sound of its engine was gone.

  The residents tucked into their sandwiches and gulped down their juice and milk. I fed Georg, while Gunnar and Hans watched the others with apathy.

  They took me for granted. I might just as well have been a chair or a curtain.

  “Where did you go this afternoon, anyway?” I said.

  “Hellevangen,” said Hans. “They had hot dogs and ice cream. It was like Christmas, wasn’t it, Kenneth?”

  He put his strong arm around Kenneth and gave him a shake. Kenneth reached out for some more bread and shoved half a slice into his mouth. It was as if he was in a different room from us.

  “Sounds like a nice time,” I said.

  “Tea,” said Karl Frode.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “I forgot the tea.”

  I went into the kitchen and switched the kettle on again.

  Outside, the sun was going down. The trees on top of the hill were a reddish glow. A single pine, on its own on a small outcrop, looked like it was on fire. The sky was still blue, but lower down, above the grass and between the trees, the colors were dwindling.

  The air from the open window was warm and full of dry smells.

  As I turned round, Karl Frode was staring at me.

  “The Deevel’s out there,” he said.

  Gunnar and Hans laughed.

  “You and that Deevel,” said Gunnar.

  He didn’t look at them. He was looking at me.

  “The Deevel’s out there now,” he said, and pointed at the window.

  I took four plastic mugs from the cupboard and put a tea bag in each. As I began to pour the boiling water, he got to his feet.

  “Shut the window!” he shouted. “Shut the window!”

  “All right, Karl Frode, settle down,” said Gunnar.

  “Shut the window, woman!” he almost screamed, his arm outstretched as he came toward me.

  My heart pounded in my chest.

  All of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe.

  Gunnar got to his feet.

  “Stop, Karl Frode,” he said.

  But Karl Frode didn’t stop, and Gunnar darted after him, threw his arms around him and held him tight.

  “All right, Karl Frode,” he said. “Relax now. Settle down.”

  But Karl Frode was having none of it, shouting and writhing in Gunnar’s arms.

  “The Deevel’s coming!”

  I gripped the edge of the work surface with both hands as I heaved for air.

  Behind us, Torgeir dashed his plate to the floor, followed by his mug. Hans got to his feet. Torgeir launched himself from his chair, overturning it in the process and hurtling off down the corridor at top speed in the direction of the TV room. Hans ran after him. Kenneth began to howl. Olav glared at me and bared his teeth.

  “The Deevel’s there!” Karl Frode shouted again, spitting and spluttering, twisting to escape from Gunnar’s grip.

  “If you could just close that window,” Gunnar said to me firmly. “Just close it.”

  I turned round. The window seemed so very far away. Everything was a mist.

  “Do it now!” Gunnar said.

  I staggered a few steps toward it, reached out too early and almost lost my balance, but somehow managed to close it. And then, the deepest of breaths: there was nothing there, no barrier in the way, no cord tightening around my lungs.

  “There, you see, Karl Frode,” said Gunnar. “The window’s closed. The Deevel can’t get in now.”

  Karl Frode settled immediately.

  Gunnar looked at Olav and Kenneth.

  “You guys sit there nice and quietly, OK?”

  And he took Karl Frode by the hand and led him to his room.

  Olav was still glaring at me. I went over and closed the gate. In the TV room, Hans raised his voice.

  How terrible a place it was.

  I looked at the clock. Hans and Gunnar were due off in forty minutes, the same time as my night-shift colleague arrived. But they were so unsettled that night. If it carried on, we wouldn’t be able to cope on our own.

  Should I ask one of them to stay until they went to sleep?

  Or call in an extra hand?

  Kenneth howled, a low monotone, the way he did when he was dissatisfied with something.

  Thankfully, Gunnar came back.

  “Maybe they could have that tea now?”

  I took the tea bags out and dropped them in the bin, added milk almost to the brim of each of their mugs and carried two of them over to the table. Then I sat down and went back to feeding Georg, who seemed quite unperturbed by all the commotion.

  I was more relaxed now that my breathing had settled. Only my legs were still a bit wobbly.

  “What do you say, Olav, a nice cup of tea?” said Gunnar. “Calm the nerves?”

  Olav downed the lukewarm tea in one sip. Kenneth stared at his own mug, then tipped it over, spilling the contents all over the table.

  “All right, Kenneth, that’ll do,” said Gunnar. “There’s no need to touch it, if you don’t want it.”

  I fetched some kitchen roll and soaked up the mess while Gunnar took Olav and Kenneth into the TV room and Hans wheeled Georg back to his room. I began to clear the table, putting the food back in the fridge and the mugs and plates in the dishwasher. When I went to the laundry room after that, I saw Gunnar take Kenneth to his room.

  Apparently, everyone was settled.

  So the coast was clear.

  I went back through the corridor. Pausing outside Berit’s office, I made sure no one saw me before opening the door and going inside. The medicine cabinet was locked. She kept the key in the top drawer of the desk, and the key to that drawer on the top shelf next to her ring binders.

  I took it and unlocked the drawer.

  But the key wasn’t there.

  What?

  So where was it?

  Carefully, so as not to leave a sign, I lifted everything inside the drawer in case the key had somehow slid underneath.

  But no.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I checked the other drawers as swiftly as I could.

  Nothing.

  I could feel my pulse throbbing in my neck, like someone jabbing an index finger.

  I couldn’t spend much more time in there.

  I locked the drawer and put the key back on the shelf, slipping out into the corridor just as Gunnar emerged from Kenneth’s room.

  “Have you seen the report book?” I said in case he wondered what I’d been doing.

  But I didn’t seem to have awakened any suspicion.


  “Could be in the duty room,” he said.

  “I hope so,” I said, stepping past him.

  “It might be an idea to close all the other windows too,” he said as I walked away. “Before our friend notices.”

  Why can’t you do it? I thought to myself, but said nothing.

  I went into the laundry room again, unloaded the tumble dryer and dumped the dry clothes in a basket, took the wet ones out of the washing machine and put them in the dryer, then switched it on before loading the washing machine with more dirty laundry, putting a squishy pod of detergent in and starting the cycle.

  I looked out of the narrow window. The sky above the hill was flaming red and yellow. The trees were dark.

  Someone must have frightened him with stories about the Devil when he was little.

  Or the Deevel, as he called it.

  Where could she have put that key?

  Surely she hadn’t cottoned on? Had she found out and taken it home with her?

  No, she would have reported it, and I’d have been summoned.

  I went into the duty room and sat down on the sofa, then got my phone out of my bag. Nothing from Ole. Or Jostein.

  I texted Ole.

  Hello, love! I typed. Hope all’s well at home. Text me or phone before you go to bed. Thinking about you. Mum.

  Now that it looked like I wasn’t going to get hold of any pills, the unrest I’d started to feel got worse. It was all I could think about as I sat there.

  The door at the end of the corridor opened. That would be Sølve.

  I looked at the time.

  Ten minutes early, as always.

  Maybe she hadn’t locked the cabinet!

  I hadn’t checked.

  Please let it be true! I said to myself as Sølve came in.

  “Hi,” he said, bending his head slightly to take off the messenger bag he was wearing across his chest.

  “Hi,” I said.

  He put the bag down on the sofa, removed the bike clips from his trouser legs, opened the bag and put them inside as he let out a deep sigh.

  “Anything new?” he said, looking at me for the first time since he came in.

  “They were a bit unruly at tea.”

  “Oh?”

  “Karl Frode thought the Devil was in the woods.”

  “The Deevel, you mean. Nothing new there. Are they settled now?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  Sølve was in his early thirties. Dark hair and brown eyes, a narrow face with a scraggle of beard. He could have been attractive if he wasn’t so intense and always feeling sorry for himself. The first time we worked a shift together he told me all sorts of private things about himself and his wife, things I didn’t want to know. Things about people he’d worked with too. Everyone was against Sølve, so it seemed.

  I imagined he confided in me thinking I didn’t pose a threat to him. I hated it, hated his incessant moaning, it made me physically sick. While he, no doubt, thought his confidences were a gift he was giving me.

  “I’ll make a quick round, then,” I said, and got to my feet.

  “You do that,” he said. “Have the bodybuilders gone yet?”

  I already had my back to him and pretended not to have heard.

  The chances of her having forgotten to lock the cabinet were minimal, but as long as it was a possibility I couldn’t leave it untried.

  I felt a warmth in my chest just thinking about it.

  Both carers were out of sight as I opened the door of the office and went inside.

  It was locked. Of course it was.

  She’d probably just put it down somewhere without thinking.

  I paused in the middle of the room and looked around me.

  Nothing.

  Perhaps it had been on top of an envelope or something else she’d thrown out, I thought, and rummaged quickly through the waste-paper basket.

  But no.

  The bitch had taken the key home with her.

  On the other side of the window, Sølve came into view. He went into the kitchen without seeing me. I stepped out of the office and closed the door behind me, as if there was nothing untoward about it.

  “There’s fresh coffee in the thermos,” I said.

  “Oh, thanks,” he said.

  In the duty room, Gunnar sat hunched over the report book making an entry, while Hans was standing outside on the veranda gazing out. The white bark of the birch trees in the woods shimmered faintly in the fading light of the dusk.

  “Right,” said Gunnar, and stood up. “Have a good shift, then.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He put his leather jacket on and picked up his helmet from the table in the corner.

  “Any sign of the Deevel out there?” he said.

  Hans turned round.

  “No,” he said with a laugh. “He must be there somewhere, though, if Karl Frode says so!”

  They left together. Shortly afterward I heard Gunnar start up his motorbike. The evening was so still that the noise it made didn’t die away until he was somewhere up on the main road.

  I checked my mobile. Not a word from Ole.

  I phoned him.

  Why wasn’t he answering?

  Maybe he’d already gone to bed, I thought. Or maybe he’d run out of battery.

  I put the phone back in my bag and went out onto the ward. All the residents were now in their rooms. If I looked in on them to see if they were asleep, I ran the risk of waking them up, so normally I left them in peace.

  Sølve was sitting in the TV room watching TV, his mug balanced on the armrest.

  My throat was dry. I went to the kitchen and drank a glass of water.

  The skin of my upper arms stuck to the skin beneath my armpits and I lifted my elbows for ventilation.

  My brow was sticky too.

  Outside, the sun had gone down. The pine that shortly before had looked almost like it was ablaze on its rocky outcrop had receded into darkness.

  I cupped my hand under the tap and splashed my forehead and cheeks, then dabbed myself dry with a paper towel.

  An owl hooted.

  Where could she have put that damn key?

  A single Sobril was all I asked for.

  I went into the office again. There was still a tiny chance the medicine cabinet wasn’t locked at all and was only jammed, so I stuck my fingernail in the crack of the cabinet door and tried to work it open.

  When I couldn’t, I started looking for the key in places less logical than before. Inside ring binders, underneath piles of papers.

  I felt like crying.

  It was such a small thing to ask. Such a very small thing to ask.

  On my way back to the duty room it struck me there was another medicine cabinet downstairs on the ground floor. What routines might they have there? I wondered. For all I knew, it could have been left unlocked. Or the key could be lying in a drawer for anyone to take.

  I had to think of a pretext.

  It didn’t have to be much. Soap powder for the washing machine, milk, coffee.

  Suddenly, everything looked brighter.

  Sølve was still in his chair with his mug on the armrest.

  Had he fallen asleep?

  If he had, I wasn’t going to wake him.

  I switched the light off in the duty room and went out onto the veranda, where I sat down on one of the two chairs there.

  A thick darkness had descended among the trees in the woods. But above their crowns, a faint ray of light stretched away across the sky.

  The moon must have risen on the other side.

  It was so completely still out there.

  If I asked the downstairs night shift for soap powder, they’d only go and get me some. So I’d have to go in without making myself
known, and hope I wasn’t seen. If they saw me, I’d have to say what I was doing there. It would be a bit odd just walking in without a word, but it wouldn’t be suspicious, surely?

  I breathed deeply, slowly.

  A movement against the sky made me turn my head.

  An enormous bird came gliding toward the woods. It was barely visible in the darkness.

  What could it be?

  A heron or something?

  And then it was gone, vanished into the dark just above the trees.

  Another came sailing by, closer this time. It flapped its wings, a leathery, creaking sound. As it passed through the faint light from the building, it turned its head.

  A stab of terror went through me.

  It was a small human.

  The face of a child looked at me.

  Then, as it dissolved into the darkness to disappear like the first, I realized I’d been fooled, that of course it was just a trick of light and shade.

  But how dreadful it had been!

  The head had indeed seemed human, but there had been wings and feathers, and long, thin legs.

  How big could a heron be, anyway? Or a stork?

  They were big birds.

  I stared up at the sky, but there were no more to be seen.

  If only I had a cigarette.

  And then I thought about Ole.

  Maybe he’d answered by now.

  I went and got my phone.

  Nothing.

  I pressed his number as I sat down again.

  Come on, love, answer.

  I let it ring until the voicemail kicked in. I rang again, and again after that.

  And then I sat for a moment, staring into the darkness.

  Something was wrong. I knew it. I was his mother.

  He never ran out of battery. Not when he was at home, anyway.

  And he wouldn’t have switched it off, surely?

  Or would he?

  But why?

  I called Jostein.

  “What’s up?” he said.

  He was drunk.

  “Where are you?” I said.

  “Why do you want to know?” he said.

  I hesitated a few seconds, knowing he was going to make light of it.

  “Ole’s not answering his phone,” I said.