The Morning Star

by Karl Ove Knausgaard

  “It’s just the way he and I talk to each other,” I said. “We pretend to be stupider than we are. It’s a bit hard to explain. It’s called irony.”

  He didn’t even turn round.

  There was no reason for him not to believe me. It was true as well, in a way; Tore could have forgotten I’d told him, or he could have been joking. It would be like him.

  We went down the steps onto the jetty. Viktor came to a halt by the boat without looking back at me.

  “I’m impressed,” I said. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d recognize it.”

  It struck me immediately that what I’d said undermined our relationship. Of course he recognized it.

  “There are so many boats here,” I said. “And so many that look the same.”

  I put the luggage down on the ground, drew the boat in and stepped aboard.

  “Will you hand me the suitcase?” I said.

  He picked it up and handed it to me.

  “And the rucksack?”

  He handed that to me too, then got into the boat himself. His face was serious, determined almost. But at least he was no longer refusing to go with me. That was always something, I thought, loosening the mooring.

  “I want a life jacket,” he said.

  “I haven’t got one,” I said. “Sorry about that. But I promise to take care. You’ll be fine. You can swim, can’t you?”

  “It’s against the law not to have a life jacket,” he said.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “It’s not the smartest thing to do, but if we go easy, it’ll be all right, you’ll see. Then we can buy you a life jacket tomorrow. OK?”

  He said nothing and I started the motor and backed out a bit before turning and heading off. The sun was high in the sky, beating down without a cloud in sight. Its rays glittered and twinkled from windows and cars, bikes, outboards, railings, benches and tables, the water in the harbor a scintillating display of tiny, trembling flecks, while farther out, toward the horizon, they seemed to pool in great, sweeping rivers of light.

  Viktor sat with his back to the prow, staring at the gradually diminishing town as we picked up speed and the boat planed.

  He could manage a smile, surely?

  The salty wind that ruffled his hair, the warm air and the blue, blue world that surrounded us.

  My own childhood hadn’t been that easy either. Fat and repugnant as I was then. But I couldn’t recall being aggressive. I liked being on my own, and I’d been shy too. Definitely. But not angry. Not impudent like that. And I couldn’t have hurt anyone if I’d tried.

  I had to treat him kindly and be patient with him.

  He was only ten.

  I looked up at the new star. It seemed more distant now, in the great glare of day, but it still shone brightly.

  I pointed to it.

  “Have you seen the new star?” I shouted.

  He stared up at it. But his face revealed no interest, and again he turned his attention to the landscape we left behind.

  Twenty minutes later, we drew into the marina.

  “Are you coming into the shop with me?” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “Are you going to be all right sitting here on your own, do you think?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “OK. There’s not much that can happen to you here, I suppose,” I said, and stepped ashore, mooring the boat before going inside the freezing cold supermarket where there wasn’t another customer in sight. I tried to make do with buying as little as possible, basically potatoes and vegetables to go with the fish I caught, and then some crispbread and cheese, and I’d need cigarettes, of course. But what was I meant to get for him?

  I wondered what he might like.

  Leaving my basket in the shop, I went back outside to ask him. He was sitting with his arm on the gunwale, his cheek resting on top. Seeing me come toward him, he straightened up.

  “Is there anything in particular you’d like me to buy?” I said.

  “No,” he said.

  “What do you like?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Crisps? Chocolate? Pizza? You can have what you want, it’s up to you.”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Anything at all?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll see if I can find something nice.”

  Back in the supermarket, I tried to remember what sort of things I’d liked when I was his age. I put a bag of paprika-flavored crisps in the basket, then another kind, salt and vinegar, some salted peanuts and popcorn. A couple of bottles of fizzy drink for him, a few beers for me. A steak for each of us. Béarnaise sauce. Chocolate bars. Chocolate pudding, raspberry jam, vanilla sauce. And half a dozen raisin buns.

  After I went to the checkout and started putting my items onto the conveyor, it occurred to me I should get a couple of pizzas in as well. I put the basket down, went back and got four different ones from the frozen counter.

  “Any cigarettes today?” the assistant at the checkout said, a young guy of about eighteen with pale skin and dark hair, a red zit on his cheek, bursting with yellow pus. I seemed to remember his name was Simon.

  “Oh yes,” I said. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “No need to thank me,” he said, and smiled hesitantly, the way he often did. “Every cigarette you smoke takes two minutes off your life, isn’t that what they say?”

  “I believe so,” I said, bagging my items as they came down the line. “They never say which two minutes, though, do they? It could be the ones we could do without.”

  He smiled again, and turned to open the cigarette display behind him.

  “How many? Three as usual?”

  “That’ll be fine, yes,” I said. “Thanks.”

  Behind me, the door opened and a slight woman of about sixty came in, removing her sunglasses and putting them away in the bag that hung from her arm.

  “Hello, kiddo,” she said. “How’s it going here?”

  Her voice was throaty, her skin rather blotched. It was clear that she smoked a lot.

  Simon, if that was his name, pushed the card reader toward me.

  “Fine,” he said. “Not exactly busy, though.”

  “No one can be bothered in this weather,” she said.

  “Not in the middle of the day, they can’t,” he said.

  I inserted my card and keyed in my PIN. I was surprised by the familiarity of the tone between them, and reasoned that she was his mother, in which case I might have expected him to be more reserved there in public, only he wasn’t.

  “Thank you,” he said when the transaction was approved, and I picked up the two carrier bags.

  “Thanks a lot,” I said. “See you again.”

  The heat outside was a shock even if I did know it was coming. The air shimmered here and there over the empty car park. The woods, extending all the way down to its far end, were green and dry. But the air smelled of salt, not of the woods, and it wafted toward me as I turned the corner, the jetty stretching out into the still and blinking water.

  Viktor had sat down at the edge and was tossing small stones into the water. When he saw me coming, he got up without a word and climbed into the boat again. I stepped past him, a bag in each hand, and when the boat rolled more than I’d anticipated under my additional weight, I crouched and put them down. The bottles chinked, and Viktor looked first at the bags, then at me, with narrow, peering eyes.

  “How many beers did you buy?” he said.

  “Just a couple,” I said. “To go with the dinner. And some pop for you.”

  “Mum says you’re a sad alky,” he said.

  Another chill ran through me.

  I tried to contain myself, mustering all my willpower as I stowed the bags away, one on each side
, making sure they weren’t going to tip over, before sitting down on the thwart in the stern.

  Viktor stared at me.

  “Is that what she says to you?” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “She said so to Milo. She didn’t know I was listening.”

  “Who’s Milo?” I said.

  “Her boyfriend, I suppose,” he said.

  “She’s got a boyfriend?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Milo.”

  “And she told him I was an alcoholic?”

  “No. She told him you were a sad alky.”

  “Well, I’m not, Viktor. It’s very important that you understand that. It’s not true.”

  He said nothing, but leaned over the side and dipped his hand in the water.

  “I may have a beer with my meal now and then,” I said. “But that doesn’t make me an alcoholic.”

  Nothing suggested that he was listening. I started the outboard and backed out. The boat came to an abrupt halt.

  I’d forgotten the mooring line.

  I put the motor into neutral and stepped forward into the bow, knelt down next to Viktor and drew us in, undid the knot, shoved off, went back and sat down on the thwart again, then shifted into forward gear and opened the throttle. I didn’t care what the speed limit was inside the harbor, all I wanted was to get back home as fast as possible.

  Not long after, we were there. If Jesus had not where to lay his head, as it said in the Gospel, because he wanted to be completely free and be just a human being, unconnected to anything or anyone, something I totally understood, I could not let go of this. I loved the sight of the storehouse at the jetty, in its coat of thick red paint, nestled in the little inlet, the smell inside it, of tar and salt, as I loved my house itself, yellow ochre in color, long and low on the crest of the rise, and of course the woods, the smooth, bare rock of the shore, the jetty. The decked veranda, the living room with its wood burner, the little kitchen.

  Without that anchor, I’d be lost. I wasn’t strong enough to drift about, even if it really was what I wanted. But the world had opened itself up to me anyway, and it was here that it had opened.

  With a carrier bag in each hand, I followed Viktor’s delicate frame up the path to the house. He wasn’t exactly agile; the rough terrain seemed to be difficult for him to manage, there was something awkward and uncoordinated about his whole body, he was rather knock-kneed, and his arms never quite seemed to be under control.

  It broke my heart to see it.

  After I’d put the groceries away in the kitchen, I went back down to the boat and got his case and rucksack, while Viktor stood on the veranda and pretended I didn’t exist.

  “Don’t you want to sit down?” I said as I came back toward him and saw him still standing in the corner.

  He shook his head.

  He’ll come round after a bit, I reasoned, and left him in peace, putting his things on the floor in the little bedroom, where I paused and lifted the duvet to my nose. It was clean, but it had been ages, perhaps six months, since I’d changed the bed clothes, so it didn’t exactly smell fresh.

  But kids didn’t care about stuff like that, the important thing was that it was clean. If he complained, there were several sleeping bags in the loft in the garage.

  I pulled the curtain aside and looked out at the woods. Shafts of sunlight slanted down from bough to bough, the way water might run from rock to rock as it made its way down a fellside, though only the fewest beams penetrated into their deepest depths, the light therefore seeming that much brighter there, in the darkness and gloom of the woodland floor.

  They could say what they wanted about me, but I wasn’t an alcoholic.

  Why had she said that?

  To come across as a victim in the eyes of her new boyfriend?

  Milo. It sounded like a detergent.

  I straightened up. It didn’t concern me. It didn’t concern me in the slightest.

  I was the person I was.

  Let it go. It makes no odds. Don’t rise to it.

  I went out onto the veranda and lit a cigarette. Viktor had gone down to the shore and was sitting on the rock prodding a stick at something by his feet.

  In the blue sky high above him, three gulls soared. They were sent, to that place, to that time.

  Yet they brought no message but their presence.

  Which was mysterious enough in itself.

  I turned round and looked up at the star.

  What message did it bring?

  The Morning Star was important in the Bible. But in conflicting ways.

  Now it was important in our world.

  I needed to check what the Bible said about it once Viktor was asleep.

  I went into the kitchen and got him a bread roll, thinking it would be good to offer him something when I went down to see what he was doing. Maybe a soft drink as well?

  No, that would be overdoing it. He’d think I was pandering to him.

  A roll was fine.

  He looked up at me as I came back out onto the decking. Then, as I went down toward him, he looked away again.

  “Hi, Viktor!” I said, crouching down beside him. “I brought you a bread roll, in case you fancied something.”

  “I’m not hungry,” he said.

  “Come on,” I said. “You’ve got to eat. And you might as well enjoy yourself now you’re here. Sulking’s not much fun. It’s a dead end.”

  I put the roll down next to him and stood up.

  “I reckon this must be the finest day of the year so far,” I said. “Do you fancy a swim? Or maybe we could fish for some crabs? Or we could go out somewhere in the boat, if you want. To one of the islands. The lighthouse!”

  “I want to go home,” he said.

  “This is home,” I said. “But if you’d rather sit and sulk, that’s fine by me.”

  He looked up at me with that narrow-eyed smile.

  Was that what he wanted, for me to get angry? Was he goading me on purpose?

  If he was, he was in for a disappointment. I wasn’t going to lose my temper with him, it didn’t matter what happened.

  I went back up to the house, and as I reached the veranda again I had an idea. Arne’s twins were about the same age as Viktor. We could go over there. They could play together. Maybe he could even stay the night there. Arne owed me more than one favor.

  I pressed his number, leaned my elbows on the rail and looked out at the sea.

  “Hello, Egil,” he said. “I’m in the car and you’re on speakerphone. Tove’s with me.”

  “OK,” I said. “How is everything?”

  “We’re on our way to the hospital.”

  “OK. When are you going to be back, do you think?”

  “No idea. Why?”

  “Viktor’s here,” I said. “Surprise visit.”

  “Viktor? Is that your son?”

  “That’s it. I was thinking maybe he and the twins could hook up?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Arne. “They’re at home, as far as I know. My mother’s there to keep an eye on them.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “In that case, perhaps tomorrow would be better?”

  “Up to you,” he said. “I’m sure she’d be happy to see someone.”

  “I’ll have a think about it,” I said. “But thanks, anyway. Speak to you soon.”

  For a few seconds, I thought about mixing myself a drink, an ice-cold gin and tonic would have done rather nicely, but I went and got myself a Pepsi Max instead, pressed some ice cubes out into a glass, cut a slice of lemon and put that in too, before pouring the drink and taking it out with me onto the veranda.

  “Viktor!” I shouted. “Come and get something to drink!”

  I hadn’t expected him to react, but he did, getting to his feet and trudgin
g back up toward the house.

  “What would you like?” I said as he stepped onto the decking. “There’s Villa Farris, Solo and Pepsi Max.”

  “Solo,” he said.

  “Bottle or glass?”

  “Bottle,” he said.

  I opened a bottle for him in the kitchen. He gulped a mouthful before going back down to the shore with the bottle in his hand.

  Was he going to stay there all week?

  I sat down in the chair outside with the Bible in my lap and began skimming through Isaiah until I found the quote I was looking for.

  The volume had belonged to my paternal grandfather, it was as heavy as a small child and wonderfully elaborate, but now it was mine and bestrewn with my underlinings and comments.

  It turned out I’d already underlined the passage about the Morning Star.

  How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

  Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

  The Morning Star was called Lucifer in Latin, which meant “bearer of light.” Here in Isaiah, Lucifer was the son of the morning, and the son of the morning could normally hardly be anything else but God, the creator of all things. Lucifer was thus aspiring to become His equal, but was banished from heaven into the kingdom of the dead, over which traditionally he was then considered to rule.

  On the face of it, the passage would have us believe that Lucifer was the son of God. But in the oldest parts of the Bible, the relationships between the different characters are often unclear, the nature of the angels being particularly inscrutable; in one place we are told that the angels mingled with the daughters of men, who begat them children who for a time wandered the earth as giants, while elsewhere the distinction between God and the angels is often fluid and uncertain. Moreover, the word “son” could of course be construed in a looser sense meaning “created by.” But it was striking nonetheless that in other passages Jesus, who was the son of God, was likewise referred to as the Morning Star, which is to say Lucifer.