The Morning Star

by Karl Ove Knausgaard

  They came running with a stretcher and two big cases. I couldn’t watch as they attended to him, but went outside instead, calling Jostein’s number repeatedly.

  A few minutes later they came out with Ole on the stretcher, an oxygen mask over his face, a catheter in his arm, and slid him into the ambulance. One of them got in the back with him, the other turned to me.

  “You can sit in the front,” he said.

  JOSTEIN

  I didn’t tell anyone either from the desk or the editors’ office what case I was on. I just sat down on my chair and started writing, not even bothering to take my jacket off, even if it was covered in crap, and of course it soon got noticed that I was sitting there stinking of drink and sex, typing away like mad, because not many minutes passed from Ellingsen clocking in to him standing in front of my desk.

  I didn’t look up.

  “What are you writing?” he said.

  “A piece of major importance,” I said.

  “About what?”

  “Wait and see,” I said.

  “I don’t recall you mentioning anything at the editorial meeting? Or to me?”

  “I didn’t,” I said. “Listen, do you mind going away now? I’ve got to get this done. It’s urgent.”

  “I don’t care for your attitude,” he said, trying to big himself up by sitting down on the edge of my desk with his arms across his chest. “Have you come straight from a party?”

  I shook my head. I’d got a royal flush, and they could go to hell.

  “This won’t do,” he said, standing up again. “It’s not the eighties or nineties now, you know. We need to talk. The two of us together. Shall we say one o’clock in my office?”

  “You can say what you like,” I said, and looked up at him with the widest smile I could muster.

  By one o’clock, I’d be an arts journalist no more, that much was certain.

  Half an hour later I was done and went to find the news editor. He was sitting in one of the conference rooms, or glass cages as I called them—everything had to be so open and transparent now—and I knocked so hard on the pane it made him jump.

  “Not now, Lindland,” he said. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  He was only just in his early thirties, so his patronizing tone got my back up. But I kept my cool.

  “Got a piece for you,” I said. “You should read it, now.”

  He sighed.

  “Iver’s your chief, give it to him.”

  “It’s a news story,” I said. “And you should read it now. If you don’t, you’ll regret it.”

  He glared at me.

  “Have you gone mad? You stand here, reeking of alcohol and looking like I don’t know what, and dare to threaten me?”

  “For fuck’s sake, man,” I said. “What’s happened to this newspaper? I’ve got a massive scoop here, and you’re sticking to formalities and don’t want to know?”

  “All right, I’ll read it,” he said. “On past merit.”

  Past merit? Who did he think he was? To him, the past barely went back to last week. He had no idea who he was talking to.

  “But right now I’m in a meeting. Send it to me and I’ll get back to you this afternoon.”

  I shook my head.

  “You read it now. Is that too hard to understand? When I say it’s a scoop, it’s a fucking scoop, all right?”

  He glared at me again.

  “I don’t care for your attitude, Lindland,” he said.

  Un-fucking-believable.

  I spun round in anger and left him without a word. Went straight to the editor-in-chief and knocked on her door. She was about sixteen and I had zero faith in her, but the final word in the place was hers.

  She looked up at me from behind her enormous desk.

  “I’ve got something,” I said before she had time to speak. “The police have found those lads out of Kvitekrist. Three of them have been murdered. You can’t imagine the carnage. The bodies are up at Svartediket. I was there last night. Talked to the police. No one else knows. Kavli wouldn’t read my piece because I’m arts and culture.”

  She hadn’t said anything yet, but sat looking at me.

  “Send it to me,” she said.

  “OK,” I said, closed the door after me, went back to my desk and sent it.

  Five minutes later, she comes over with Kavli in tow.

  “We’re running it,” she said. “But it’s got to be checked first. Karsten and Hans are doing that now.”

  “Good,” I said. “But it’s my case. And I follow it up.”

  “We’ll have to see,” she said.

  I shook my head.

  “No, we won’t,” I said. “I’ve got the contacts, I know the satanist scene, and I was first to it. I’m not having some wet-behind-the-ears little squirt taking this on. It’s mine.”

  I saw the way they exchanged glances. I saw too that Kavli was saying no.

  Fucking idiot. Prestige, prestige, prestige.

  “All right,” she said. “But you cooperate with Hans and Karsten and Kavli. And it’s this case only.”

  “Fine by me,” I said, and got to my feet. “I’ll get off home and grab some sleep.”

  Outside in the street, the city flooded in sunlight, I lit a smoke and decided to go back to the little artist piece at the hotel. Technically, I was at work, and Turid would be asleep after her night shift, so she wouldn’t miss me or suspect anything. I could have a shower and we could have a nice little quickie before going home.

  I didn’t want to drag reception into anything, so I took the elevator straight up and knocked on her door.

  There was no one in. Either that or she didn’t want to see anyone.

  She was unstable, I had to remember that.

  I went out again, lighting another smoke while checking the news on my phone. Nothing yet. Maybe they couldn’t get hold of Geir or anyone else who could confirm it.

  Fifty-three notifications from Turid now. But the last one was over an hour ago.

  The best thing to say was that I’d run out of battery and had no idea she’d been trying to get in touch.

  I turned and went up the hill toward the theater, then got into a taxi there.

  “Can you stop for a minute at the Shell station?” I said as we headed toward Sandviken.

  “Right you are,” said the driver, who was so fat he could hardly fit in the seat; his two little eyes peered at me in the rear-view from out of his blubbery face.

  What a day.

  The fjord was blue and still as a millpond. The islands were lush green and dashed with orange or red where the houses were. One of the catamarans was on its way north. A thin wisp of white water trailed like a tail in its wake.

  The driver pulled in behind the pumps at the Shell station and I went in to buy a packet of chewing gum in case I happened to meet Turid before I got a chance to brush my teeth, and some more cigarettes, but as I stood at the till and was about to pay, I suddenly felt hungry, it was like a cavern opened up inside me, and I bought three hot dogs and a Coke to go with them. The driver eyed the food as I got in, maybe it even made him feel underfed. It was something of a meal, I’d give him that.

  I’d just got it down me as we approached the houses where we lived. I licked the dressing and ketchup off my fingers, wiped my hands on my trousers and got my card out.

  “You can stop here on the corner,” I said. I didn’t want her to see me coming home in a taxi, it’d only set off a chain of questions.

  Still, it felt a bit odd ambling up the road at this time of the morning when it wasn’t the weekend. Not a soul to be seen, of course.

  I opened the door quietly and went into the passage, stopped and listened. All was quiet, she was sleeping like the little baby she was. I went into the studio apartment we’d once rented out to a loony
and which afterward I’d nabbed for my own—I had my desk there, a sofa and a TV, a bathroom and a little cubbyhole I’d used as a darkroom eons ago—and got undressed, dumping my suit jacket, which reeked to high heaven now, at the bottom of the cupboard and making a mental note I’d have to get it dry-cleaned at some point, got in the shower, turned it on and stood under the hot water while I sighed with delight.

  I had a shave and brushed my teeth, and put a clean pair of undies on, then wondered for a minute if I should sleep there or upstairs in the bedroom. There was the most practical, seeing as how I was only going to grab a couple of hours before getting back to work, but it could raise questions, so I rolled some deodorant under my arms and went up to the first floor.

  Turid wasn’t in bed, and she hadn’t slept in it either, it was still made.

  Maybe she’d left me?

  Was that why she’d rung me all those times?

  Had someone seen me? One of her workmates? And tipped her off?

  For crying out loud.

  I pulled the duvet aside and crumpled the sheet so it looked like someone had slept there, in case she was just running late for some reason, then put on a pair of shorts and a shirt and went to the kitchen to make myself a coffee. If we were going to have a serious talk, I’d need coffee and cigarettes.

  Maybe her mother had died?

  It was possible.

  She’d have gone straight there in that case, and tried to get hold of me a million times.

  I couldn’t have been seen. It had all gone on in a hotel room!

  Maybe I didn’t need any sleep? Now I’d had a shower and got my summer clothes on, I felt rather fresh, on top of things even.

  I took the steaming mug with me into the garden and sat down at the table in the shade of the veranda. Stared for a bit at the water from the sprinkler as it sparkled in the sun. There was a hissing sound from somewhere along the hose, it probably meant there was a hole there, but not a big one, because the water pressure looked fine.

  Might as well grab the bull by the horns, I thought, switched my phone on and called her number.

  “Jostein,” she said.

  “I can explain everything,” I said. “I got this fantastic tip-off while I was out with that lot from work. It’s the story of the century. And it’s mine. I was out all night working on it, then went straight back to the office and wrote it up. It’s big. It’s going to be on CNN, Fox News, BBC, you name it. I’ve just popped home for a shower and a change of clothes and now I’m on my way out again. Looks like I’m going to get my old job back now too. So everything’s good.”

  I took a sip of my coffee and reached for my cigarettes.

  “Jostein,” she said again.

  I sensed the worst. There was something about her tone of voice.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Ole’s touch and go.”

  “Ole? What are you saying? What’s happened?”

  “Oh, Jostein. He’s shot himself.”

  “Ole? You mean he’s tried to kill himelf?”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  “Oh, Christ. The damn idiot,” I said.

  “Jostein,” she said. “You’ve got to come, now.”

  “Christ,” I said again. “But he didn’t succeed, is that what you’re telling me? He’s still alive?”

  “I think so. I don’t know. They’ve got him in surgery now.”

  “Shit,” I said. “What made him do it, do you think?”

  She started crying.

  “Come now. We need you.”

  “I’m on my way,” I said, nearly adding that I just needed to finish my coffee first, but fortunately I didn’t. She wouldn’t have understood.

  I needed time to take this in.

  The damn idiot. How could he do such a thing to his own mother?

  We didn’t kill ourselves in our family.

  We just didn’t.

  We put our troubles aside. And he was his mother’s only joy.

  Hadn’t he thought about that?

  Could he only think of himself and his petty little problems?

  Killing yourself because you’ve got no friends.

  How sad was that?

  And how wrong!

  Why couldn’t he give life a go?

  Sitting at home feeling sorry for himself.

  No wonder.

  I stood up and paced the patio while I smoked.

  Christ.

  The damn idiot.

  It was so stupid it could make you cry.

  Ahhhh!

  I threw my cigarette to the ground, trod on it and went back inside. I’d have to take her car, but where she’d put the key was anyone’s guess.

  Luckily it was on the table in the passage.

  Did I need to take anything with me?

  Credit cards and driving license in my back pocket.

  That was it.

  I locked the door behind me, went to the car and got in. It was boiling inside. The seat was burning hot against my thighs and I twisted round to see if there was a blanket in the back that I could sit on. And then I was blacking out. The darkness came washing over me, like a premonition at first, as if I knew what was going to happen before it happened. In that split second, I felt fear, the realization that the wave from before was coming back to consume me, but for some idiotic reason I put the key in the ignition and started the engine, as if somehow I could drive away from it.

  The darkness rose in me like water in a bottle being filled from a tap, and then everything became black.

  No, everything became nothing.

  How long it lasted, I don’t know. Time didn’t exist.

  But suddenly I was in a place.

  I recognized it.

  The darkness was all around. But far down in the depths before me was a shimmer of light. And there I was, in that light, in the car with the engine running.

  Only this time I wasn’t coming back. I didn’t want to come back.

  I looked around.

  A black abyss behind me.

  Could I get there?

  I was there already, I fell, and everything was darkness again.

  * * *

  —

  It didn’t feel like I fell through the darkness, it felt like I became as one with it. That I was the darkness. But without knowing until afterward, when I’d left it and opened my eyes, at first not knowing who I was, or where I was, only that I was.

  I was lying on the ground. The sky above me was gray, the air raw and cold. I could hear running water somewhere close by, but apart from that everything was completely still.

  I half expected someone to be there, trying to revive me. But I was all on my own.

  It was because I’d gone the other way, I thought, and sat up.

  I found myself by a rock face in a forest. The trees surrounding me were without leaves, the trunks glistening with moisture. The soft, damp cushion on which I sat was moss.

  For some reason, I was as thirsty as hell.

  I got to my feet, clutching the nearest tree trunk for support, and looked up at the dark branches that latticed against the gray sky.

  Was it something I was imagining? Was I actually still in the car, with everything I was seeing simply going on in my head?

  The tree was an oak, so tall and thick it could easily have been a thousand years old. The bark was at once rough and smooth, robust and disintegrating.

  No, there was no doubt I was actually here, by this tree, in this forest.

  I looked to where the sound of the water was coming from. Some slender tree trunks radiated white among the green and gray. Birch often grew by water or in wetlands. I remembered from when I’d been in the scouts.

  So there was probably a stream.

  But where was I, exactly?<
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  And what was I doing there?

  Christ.

  Could I be dead?

  Had I had a heart attack in the car?

  It would make sense, in a way. That it was my soul that had been out there in the darkness and gone another way to end up here.

  I looked down at my body.

  What was it doing here then?

  Belly and all.

  So many damn questions all at once.

  I needed something to drink first. Then I could think.

  I set out over the soft floor of the forest, leaving the great oaks and entering a thicket of much younger trees whose trunks were no fatter than my arms; densely they stood, their thin, smooth branches yielding to the pressure of my body, whipping back into place, the crowns swaying above me as I forged my path.

  I hated forests.

  Wet and cold and thirsty as hell, I came to the copse of birches. The sound of rushing water was loud and seemed to be so close by, but there was no river in sight, not even a stream.

  And yet the water rushed.

  I closed my eyes. It sounded like it was coming from below. A subterranean river?

  I opened my eyes again, lay down and pressed my ear to the ground.

  The sound was hollower now, as if the water were running through some great system of caves beneath me.

  I followed it, wondering if it might run out into a lake nearby, or well up into a pool somewhere, or a spring.

  I was cold. I tried to work some warmth into my body by going faster.

  Everything was still, no animals to be seen or heard, and no birds either. Only tree upon tree, bush upon bush, thicket upon thicket, bog upon bog, motionless in the mist that occasionally passed unhurriedly through the air, as if it were blind and were feeling its way forward.

  There were no signs of human activity anywhere, not a bottle top or a soggy orange peel, nor even the slightest imprint of a heel in the soil or moss.

  I was no pathfinder, my time in the scouts had extended only to a few weeks one autumn, until I’d had enough of their holier-than-thou ethos and packed it in, so there could quite easily have been tracks all around me, I just couldn’t see them.

  That said, I thought, rubbing my hands up and down my arms a few times, because I was getting seriously cold in my shorts and summer shirt, surely a person could sense if a place was deserted or not?