The Morning Star

by Karl Ove Knausgaard

  She looked rather stooped, her movements slower than I seemed to remember.

  “Well, if it isn’t Asle and Heming!” she said, receiving them each with a hug. They squirmed a bit, but they liked it too, I could tell.

  “Have you got anything for us?” said Heming.

  “Let me see, I think I might just have something, yes,” she said, glancing up at me with a nod.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Have you been in an accident?” she said.

  “Nothing serious,” I said.

  She turned and looked at the car.

  “When did that happen?”

  “Yesterday. But I think the boys are more interested in what you’ve got for them.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing to get excited about,” she said. “Just some sweets.”

  She opened her bag and took out a bag of Twist.

  I saw their hearts sink in their chests.

  “You’ll have to share,” she said. “You can manage that, though, I’m sure!”

  “Thanks, Gran,” said Heming.

  “Thanks,” said Asle.

  “You can sit down at the table over there and eat a few now, if you want,” I said. “I need to talk to Gran.”

  They did as I suggested.

  “I’m sorry to have to call on you like this,” I said. “Bit of a crisis on, as I said. It looks to me as if she might be psychotic. It’s impossible to get through to her.”

  “Where is she now?” Mum said, putting her sunglasses on again in the glaring light.

  “Walking around somewhere. I don’t know exactly. I’ll soon find her, though. Do you think I could borrow your car? Not sure I want to risk it with mine.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Is Ingvild here?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m afraid they haven’t had any breakfast yet. Do you think you can fix them something? I’ll be back as soon as I can. It’ll take about an hour to get there, but then I’ve no idea how long it’ll take after that. Hopefully no more than an hour or so. That should mean you’ll be able to get back tonight, if you want. But I’d better get going now. Have you got the car key?”

  She handed it to me.

  “I’ll see you later, then!”

  “Aren’t you taking anything with you?” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “A bag with some things she’s going to need. Clothes, for instance.”

  “Good idea. I hadn’t thought of that,” I said, and went inside, opened the biggest of the suitcases and rummaged through the piles. Underwear, a pair of sweatpants, some T-shirts, a pair of jeans, a sweater, some socks. I emptied a bag I’d filled with bathing costumes and swimming trunks, and crammed it all inside, fetched a deodorant from the bathroom and told myself that should do it, not really knowing what else she might need.

  Some ID would probably be a good thing.

  I opened her bag that was hanging from the peg in the passage. It was full of medication, pills in their hundreds. Why had she left them there? I wondered, unzipping the front pocket where her driving license and credit cards were.

  I didn’t like nosing into her things at all, but I had no choice with her being as ill as she was, so I tucked her driving license away quickly in my own wallet and went back into the garden, where Mum had sat down with the boys.

  “Right,” I said. “I’ll get going, then.”

  She looked tired and pasty. But her eyes were bright and keen, and as willful as ever.

  She smiled. At the same time, Tove appeared over by the gate.

  It was the last thing I needed. If she wouldn’t come with me of her own accord, I’d have to force her, something I didn’t want to do with the boys watching.

  I went toward her.

  “Tove,” I said, “I think it’s best we go to the hospital now.”

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Tentatively, I took her hand. She let me do so, and went with me as I started to walk toward the car.

  “Can you say good-bye to the boys?” I said under my breath.

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  I put my hand in the air and waved to them, as if from us both.

  “We’ll be off, then,” I said, lifting my voice again. “Have a nice time with Gran!”

  “Bye,” they said.

  We stopped at the car. I opened the door without letting go of her hand. She was about to get in when suddenly she stiffened.

  “It’s all right, you can get in,” I said. “We’re going to the hospital now.”

  She looked at me.

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  Her voice was calm, but her eyes were filled with terror.

  “Get in, Tove,” I said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Sensing she was about to walk off again, I put my hands on her shoulders, pressed her gently down into the seat, lifted her feet inside and closed the door. As casually as I could, I then walked round to the driver’s side, opened the door and got in without so much as glancing up.

  I leaned over and pulled her seat belt out, fastened it, started the car, fastened my own seat belt and reversed out, waving to them, only to notice they were no longer looking in our direction.

  She said nothing on the way into town, but simply stared straight ahead. I still wasn’t sure if we were doing the right thing. They could refuse to take her on the grounds that she wasn’t ill enough. After all, she was basically only wandering about and giving the same answers whenever she was asked a question.

  I don’t know. Are you sure? Sorry.

  That was what she said in the car too, if I asked her something.

  It was like a tool she’d discovered, something she could keep at hand in the knowledge that no matter what she was asked she would always have an answer at the ready.

  But she’d decapitated the cat.

  The sun shone from the middle of the sky, dousing the landscape with cascading light. The blue sea glittered, the green hills were radiant, even the tarmac sparkled.

  I pulled up at the traffic lights at the top end of the town, by the lake, the park teeming with sunbathers, accelerating away when red changed to green, preparing to join the freeway on the other side. Tove gripped the door with one hand, the other reaching toward the glove compartment, bracing as if we were going to crash.

  I put my foot down as we went down the slip road, flicking the indicator for us to merge.

  “Stop!” she shouted. “I want to get out! We’re going to crash!”

  “Are you sure?” I said, casting a quick glance at her. If she got the irony, it would all have been a charade.

  “Stop!” she shouted again, her hand now groping for the door handle.

  “It’s all right, Tove,” I said. “We’re not going to crash. We’re on the freeway now, that’s why we’re going fast. That’s what it’s there for.”

  She fell back in her seat.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” I said, and picked up my phone, checking to make sure Bluetooth was activated before connecting to the radio and tapping the last album I’d been playing.

  Bowie, Blackstar.

  “No, no,” said Tove as the music started.

  “But you like Bowie,” I said.

  “It’s evil,” she said.

  I looked at her.

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “Death,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “But it’s a fantastic album.”

  “TURN IT OFF!” she yelled.

  “OK, OK,” I said, picking up the phone again and scrolling down as I tried to keep my eye on the road in front of us, which fortunately was deserted.

  I put Lod
ger on instead.

  “I’d just dropped the boys off at school when I found out Bowie had died,” I said. “For some reason, it was Lodger I played that day. Of all his albums. I didn’t think I liked it that much.”

  She said nothing, just kept staring straight ahead.

  “Tove?” I said.

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  OK, I thought, signaling and pulling into the outside lane to overtake a truck. It was laden with timber, and as we passed it I noticed she gripped the door again.

  She’d never been scared of driving before.

  I signaled again and pulled back into the slow lane. The forest was thick on both sides, rising up here and there with the hills, sinking occasionally and opening itself toward the sea.

  If she wasn’t ill enough to be admitted, they’d think I was trying to offload her. The thought had occurred to me every other time too, that I’d be looked on with suspicion, as someone trying to do her harm by having her put away in the madhouse.

  But Mum had been in no doubt.

  The music receded abruptly and a ringtone took its place.

  I could see it was Egil, and tapped the screen to answer.

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

  “OK,” he said. “How is everything?”

  I looked at Tove. She was sitting the same as before and didn’t seem to react to his voice at all.

  “We’re on our way to the hospital,” I said.

  A sign said thirty-two kilometers. If I drove at ninety, that meant it’d take a third of an hour. But how much was that?

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

  “No idea,” I said. “Why?”

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

  Viktor?

  I didn’t know who he was talking about to begin with.

  Then I remembered. Viktor was the son he never saw. Wasn’t that what he was called?

  “Viktor? Is that your son?” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

  Twenty minutes, I made it.

  “Did you know Egil had a son?” I said.

  She didn’t answer. I hadn’t thought she would either.

  Ingvild was right. I was glad to get rid of her. I had to be honest with myself. But it wasn’t for the reason she probably thought. It was just that everything became so difficult, chaos grew up around her, and the thought of her not being there was a relief. Everything would be easier then. Breakfast, no problem. School in the morning, no problem. Work, no problem. Dinner, no problem. Homework and TV in the evenings, no problem.

  That was why I felt guilty and felt like I was having her put away, because things were so good when she wasn’t there, which wasn’t the way it was supposed to be at all.

  The empty forest through which we’d been driving for some time gradually thinned out into industrial estates, shopping centers, car showrooms. A few trees were all that remained, scattered here and there like ruins in a now disrupted topography.

  Strange, Egil having a son. I couldn’t imagine him as a father. Obliging and submissive as he was, a breath of wind and he’d blow away. How would that work in a family?

  I want to fuck Egil.

  What had he got that I hadn’t?

  He could barely look after himself. I looked after everyone. He had no job, lived on his father’s handouts. I was a university professor, with a responsibility toward hundreds of students.

  Did she think there was some kind of depth to him that wasn’t there in me?

  If she did, she was wrong.

  I could see how it might look that way. He was shy and unassuming, and held himself back, which made it easy to think there was a lot more to him than met the eye. She’d once said he had an artist’s nature, and being an artist herself that meant she felt some kind of affinity between them.

  But what had he ever done?

  Nothing of artistic merit as far as I knew. His films were documentarism. Journalism.

  Whereas I’d written just over 150 pages of a novel.

  Perhaps I should let her read it.

  Yes, I would. As soon as she got better and they let her out again. She wouldn’t underestimate me anymore then. At least not in the same way.

  It was a good thought, and I turned to her and smiled.

  She was staring into space, as if hardly even aware that I was there.

  I picked up my phone and scrolled down through Bowie’s music, selecting Hunky Dory, my favorite album of his.

  Up ahead, the bridge arced over the strait. After that, we’d be at the hospital in minutes.

  It wasn’t Egil’s fault though, I thought, skipping “Changes,” which I’d listened to so many times, and going straight to “Oh! You Pretty Things.” She was the one who’d written that she wanted to fuck him, he’d had nothing to do with it. Anyway, I liked him.

  “Do you remember when I first played you this?” I said. “And you hadn’t even heard the album?”

  I wasn’t anticipating any answer, but I had no way of knowing how much she took in.

  “You were so out of my league. You knew that was how I felt, didn’t you? A student of the National Academy of the Arts on her way to becoming an artist, and beautiful as a dream. And yet you thought Bowie started with ‘Let’s Dance.’ You’d never heard of Nick Cave, and you thought ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ was by Paul Young!”

  I laughed to myself.

  She was as mute and as withdrawn as before.

  “That was the first time I got the feeling I might just be all right. That there was a chance. It sounds silly, doesn’t it? Just because you hadn’t a clue when it came to music. But that’s how it was.”

  We’d entered the outskirts of the town now. Housing blocks strewn over the flatland through which we passed, schools and the odd supermarket. The first signs appeared for the hospital. On the other side of the river, after coming through the tunnel, I turned off to the right and carried on a few hundred meters until it was there in front of us, a large, recently built complex comprising an array of different buildings.

  I found a parking space and looked at her.

  “Are you ready?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  I went round to the passenger side and opened the door for her. She let me take her hand, her eyes quite vacant, and I led her over toward what I took to be the main building, where there was an infographic showing where the various departments were located.

  The psychiatric department was round the other side. We walked between two buildings that were joined by a corridor that hung like a bridge above us. Tove walked slowly, still wearing her clogs. But something about her had changed, for when I looked at her, a wry smile appeared on her face.

  The door at the rear of the building was locked. I rang the bell. Tove stood looking at the river, quite uninterested in what I was doing. The lock buzzed and I pushed the door open, holding it for her, but having first to put my hand on her shoulder and guide her cautiously forward before she stepped inside.

  There was a small waiting room, a few chairs and tables, a reception office behind a glass partition. A young, dark-haired man with a beard sat talking to himself, next to him another man, likewise bearded, though a little older, family of some sort. I went over to the reception, where a woman s
at looking at the computer screen in front of her. Tove remained in the middle of the room, standing behind me.

  “Hello,” I said, bending toward the little hatch.

  The woman, in her late fifties, with glasses, her hair tied up in a bun, narrow-lipped and with tired eyes, looked up at me without reply.

  “I’m here with my wife,” I said. “She’s been manic for some days now and I can’t get through to her anymore. She can’t look after herself.”

  I spoke in a low voice, not wanting Tove to hear me talking about her in such a way.

  “I think she might be a bit psychotic. I’m wondering if someone might have a look at her.”

  “Have you phoned?” the woman said.

  “No,” I said. “We came straight here.”

  “You should have phoned first,” she said.

  “Yes, sorry about that,” I said, turning back to Tove. She was standing motionless with her head bowed, staring at the floor with a little smile on her lips. It was a smile that had nothing to do with what was being said, but seemed rather to stem from somewhere deep inside her.

  The woman made a few clicks of the mouse.

  “Name?” she said.

  “Mine or hers?”

  She sighed.

  “Hers,” she said. “Your wife’s. What’s her name?”

  “Tove Hovin Larsen,” I said.

  “Has she got any ID with her?”

  “Of course.”

  Where was the bag?

  I looked around. It wasn’t there.

  I couldn’t remember bringing it in with us.

  It had to be still in the car.

  Damn it.

  “She’s got her driving license, only we’ve left it in the car,” I said. “Do you want me to go and get it now?”

  “We’ll do it later,” she said. “Date of birth?”

  Once I’d given her all the particulars, she told us to sit down and wait. I looked at Tove and she looked back at me with a little smile, giggling almost. I wondered what was going through her mind. The way she was smiling made it look like we were up to something. Something that to her mind was exciting and good, whose effects would be far-reaching.

  The young man with the beard was speaking English to himself, I heard now. His brother, if that’s who he was, ignored him.