Kleinzeit

  ‘Good God,’ said Kleinzeit. He gathered up the bedroll and the carrier-bags, hustled Redbeard out into the street.

  ‘You still haven’t said why you drop the yellow paper and pick it up and write on it and drop it again,’ said Kleinzeit.

  Redbeard grabbed the bedroll, swung it, knocked Kleinzeit down. Kleinzeit got up and hit Redbeard.

  ‘Right,’ said Redbeard. ‘Ta-ra.’ He disappeared into the Underground.

  By Hand

  Kleinzeit got back to the ward in time for three 2-Nup tablets and his supper. He smelled his supper, looked at it, Something pale brown, something pale green, something pale yellow. Two slices of bread with butter. Orange jelly. He stopped looking, stopped smelling, ate a little. It may not be health, he thought, but it’s national.

  Faces. Two rows of them in beds. He smiled at some, nodded at others. Comrades in infirmity.

  ‘What’s new, Schwarzgang?’ he said. Blips going all right, he noticed.

  ‘Be new?’ said Schwarzgang.

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. Everything.’

  ‘D’you go?’ said Schwarzgang.

  ‘Here and there in the Underground. Coffee shop.’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Schwarzgang. ‘Coffee shops.’

  Kleinzeit lay back on his bed thinking about Sister’s knee. Brown velvet sky again. An aeroplane. You’re missing what’s going on down here, he said to the plane. He extended his thoughts downward from Sister’s knee, then upward from her toes. He fell asleep, woke up when Sister came on duty. They smiled big smiles at each other.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘Hello,’ said Kleinzeit. They smiled again, nodded. Sister continued on her round. Kleinzeit felt cheerful, hummed the tune he had played on the glockenspiel in the bathroom. It didn’t sound original, but he didn’t know whose it was if it wasn’t his. C#, C, C#, F, C#, G# …

  THRILL, sang his body as intersecting flashes illuminated its inner darkness. C to D, E to F, with two hyperbolas. LUCKY YOU.

  That’s it, thought Kleinzeit. My asymptotes. His throat and his anus closed up as if two drawstrings had been pulled. He drank some orange squash, could scarcely swallow it. Another aeroplane. So high! Gone.

  MINE! sang Hospital, like Scarpia reaching for Tosca.

  Aaahh! sighed the bed.

  SEE ME, roared Hospital, SEE ME GREAT AND HIGH UPON MY BLACK HORSE, GIGANTIC. I AM THE KING OF PAIN. LOOK ON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR.

  That’s Ozymandias, said Kleinzeit.

  You mind your mouth, said Hospital.

  Asymptotes hyperbolic, sang Kleinzeit’s body to the tune of Venite adoremus.

  Tomorrow’s the Shackleton-Planck, he thought. Will there be quanta? Three guesses. And if the 2-Nup clears up my diapason they’ll probably find that my stretto is blocked. It feels blocked right now. And of course the hypotenuse is definitely skewed, he didn’t even bother to be tactful about that. What time is it? Past midnight all of a sudden. Half of us are dying. The groans, chokes, gasps and gurgles around him seemed repetitive, like the Battle of Trafalgar soundtrack at Madame Tussaud’s. Cannon booming, falling spars, shouts and curses. The orlop deck of the Victory every night, with oxygen masks and bedpans.

  Blip, blip, went Schwarzgang, and stopped.

  Sister! yelled Kleinzeit in a hoarse whisper. Darkness, dimness all around. Silence. Cannon booming, spars falling, bedpans splatting, shouts and curses, chokes and gurgles.

  Kleinzeit checked the monitor, saw that it was plugged in. ‘It’s the pump,’ said Sister. The pump was humming but not going. The back of it was hot. Kleinzeit slid off the back plate, found a wheel, a broken belt. He turned the wheel by hand. Blip, blip, blip, blip, went Schwarzgang.

  ‘Pull out the plug,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘before something burns out.’

  Sister pulled out the plug. One of the nurses rang up for a new belt. Kleinzeit turned the wheel. Blip, blip, blip, blip, went Schwarzgang a little faster than before. He had just awakened.

  ‘Tea already?’ said Schwarzgang.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Get some sleep.’

  ‘Doing?’ said Schwarzgang.

  ‘Nurse spilled something on your pump,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Wiping it up.’

  Schwarzgang sighed. The blips slowed down again.

  ‘They’re looking for the key to the spare parts locker,’ said Sister. ‘Shouldn’t be long.’

  Schwarzgang was choking. ‘The drip thing stopped,’ said Kleinzeit. Sister jiggled the tube, took off a clogged fitting, held two tubes together, bound them with tape, sent a nurse for a new fitting. Schwarzgang stopped choking. The blips picked up again. The wheel grew harder to turn, the burbling of the filter stopped. ‘Filter,’ said Kleinzeit as the blips slowed down again. Sister took out the filter, put gauze over the frame. The nurse came back with the new fitting.

  ‘Filter,’ said Sister as she installed the fitting.

  ‘They’ve gone to the annexe for a belt,’ said the nurse, and went off to get the filter.

  ‘I can turn it for a while,’ said Sister.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Blip, blip, blip, blip, went Schwarzgang, slow and steady.

  The nurse came back with the new filter, installed it.

  Sister sat by the bed looking at Kleinzeit. Kleinzeit turned the wheel looking at Sister. Nobody said anything.

  A memory came to Kleinzeit. From fifteen, twenty years ago. Married. First flat, basement. Hot summer, windows open all the time. Every day a big battered tomcat came in and peed on the bed. One evening Kleinzeit killed him, trapped him behind a chest and smothered him with a pillow. He took the corpse to the river in a pillowslip, dumped it in.

  The sky was growing light. Mario Cavaradossi paced the battlements of the Castel Sant’ Angelo, sang E lucevan le stelle. Kleinzeit wept.

  ‘Here’s the belt,’ said Sister, fitted it to the wheels while Kleinzeit turned. Sister plugged in the pump. The regular sounds of Schwarzgang’s machinery resumed. Kleinzeit looked at his hand, smiled.

  Blip, blip, blip, blip, went Schwarzgang.

  Hat

  The black howled in the tunnels, the tracks fled crying before the trains. Whatever lived walking upside-down in the concrete put its paws against the feet of the people standing on the platform, its cold soft paws. One, two, three, four, walking softly in the chill silence upside-down with great soft cold paws. Underground said words to itself, names. No one listened. Footsteps covered the words, the names.

  Sister in the Underground, walking about in corridors. Approached at varying intervals by three middle-aged men and two young ones she declined all offers. There used to be more young ones, she thought. I’m getting on. Soon be thirty.

  The red-bearded man came along, took a bowler hat out of one of his carrier-bags, offered it to her with the brim uppermost. Passers-by looked at him, looked at Sister.

  ‘Magic hat,’ said Redbeard. ‘Hold it in your hand like this and count to a hundred.’

  Sister held the hat, counted. Redbeard took a mouth organ out of his pocket, played The Irish Rover. When Sister reached ninety-three a man dropped iop in the hat.

  ‘Stop that,’ said Sister to Redbeard. 5p more dropped in.

  Redbeard put the mouth organ back in his pocket. ‘15p already,’ he said. ‘I could make a fortune with you.’

  ‘You’ll have to make it without me,’ said Sister, handing him the hat.

  Redbeard took it in his hands but did not put it back in the carrier-bag. ‘It blew my way on a windy day in the City,’ he said. ‘Expensive hat, as new. From Destiny, from Dame Fortune. A money hat.’ He shook it, made the 15p clink. ‘It wants to be held by you.’

  ‘But I don’t want to hold it.’

  Redbeard let his eyes become like the eyes of a doll’s head on a wintry beach. ‘You don’t know,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘You don’t know.’

  ‘What don’t I know?’

  ‘Morrows c
ruel mock.’

  ‘I suppose they do. But they always have done, and people go on living,’ said Sister.

  ‘Cruel,’ said Redbeard. His eyes looked their ordinary way, he put the 15p in his pocket, the hat on his head. ‘Ridiculous,’ he said, lifted the hat to Sister, walked away.

  Sister walked the other way, took a train on the northbound platform.

  As she came out of the Underground and was walking towards the hospital she passed a building under construction. There was a little shack against which leaned tripods of iron pipes and blue and white signs with arrows pointing in various directions. Red bullseye lanterns huddled like owls. A shining helmet lay on the pavement.

  Sister kicked the helmet without looking at it particularly. She kicked it again, noticed it. What’s a shining helmet doing all by itself in the middle of the pavement? said Sister. She picked it up, put it under her arm, looked round, heard no shouts. Some days it’s nothing but hats, she said, went on to the hospital with the helmet under her arm.

  Shackleton-Planck

  An intolerably calm placid smiling cheap vulgar insensitive neo-classical blue sky. Sappho! boomed the sky. Homer! Stout Cortes! Nelson! Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! David! Napoleon! Francis Drake! Industry! Science! Isaac Newton! Man’s days are few and full of sorrow. Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?

  Rubbish, said Kleinzeit. Rubbish rubbish rubbish.

  Depends on your point of view, said the sky. As far as I know I’m eternal. You’re nothing really.

  Poxy fat idiot sky, said Kleinzeit, took his 2-Nup tablets, ate his medium-boiled egg.

  A CALL FOR YOU, said his mind. WE HAVE PLEASURE IN ANNOUNCING THAT YOU ARE THE WINNER OF:

  FIRST PRIZE,

  A HANDSOMELY MOUNTED FULL-COLOUR

  MEMORY.

  STAND BY PLEASE. WE ARE READY WITH YOUR PARTY AT THIS END, MEMORY.

  Hello, said Memory. Mr Kleinzeit?

  Kleinzeit here, said Kleinzeit.

  Here is your memory, said Memory: Blue, blue, blue sky. Green grass. Green, green, green. Green leaves stirring in the breeze. Your blue serge suit prickles, your starched white collar rubs your neck. Raw earth around the grave of your father. Flashback: he doesn’t look asleep, he looks dead. Smell the flowers. Got it?

  Got it, said Kleinzeit.

  Right, said Memory. Congratulations. Second Prize was two memories.

  I always knew I was lucky, said Kleinzeit, finished his medium-boiled egg.

  Hurrah! The X-Ray room Juno, boobs bobbling, bottom bouncing, young blood circulating perfectly, not missing a single curve.

  Hurrah! Shackleton-Planck for Mr Kleinzeit. Here he goes, anus quivering.

  ‘Luck,’ said Schwarzgang.

  ‘Keep blipping,’ said Kleinzeit.

  The hard cold machinery room again. ‘Up your nose, down your tummy,’ said Juno. A tube writhed in her hands like a snake.

  ‘Aarghh!’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Ugg-ggg-hh!’

  ‘Quick,’ said Juno, putting ice in his mouth, ‘chew it.’

  ‘Crungg-ggg-hhh!’ chewed Kleinzeit as the tube snaked into his stomach. ‘Cor!’

  Suction. Juno pumped something up the tube. Took the tube out.

  ‘Swallow this.’ Something the size of a football. Ulp.

  ‘Elbows back, stomach out.’ Thump. Click.

  ‘Take off your pyjama top, please.’ Electrodes. Here, here, here, here, and here. Respirator. Treadmill. Gauges. Roll of paper with a stylus. ‘Run till I tell you to stop.’

  ‘I rummilenahalf evmorng,’ said Kleinzeit inside the respirator.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Juno. ‘Keep going like that. Stop. Clothes on. Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ said Kleinzeit.

  ‘Dit go?’ said Schwarzgang when Kleinzeit got back to the ward.

  ‘Beautifully,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Nothing like a Shackleton-Planck to start the day off right.’

  Blip, went Schwarzgang. Kleinzeit had the back plate off the pump before he heard what Schwarzgang was saying.

  ‘Plug,’ said Schwarzgang. The cleaning lady had just knocked out the monitor plug with her mop. Kleinzeit plugged the monitor in again. Blip, blip, blip, blip.

  ‘So nervous?’ said Schwarzgang.

  ‘I’ve always been high-strung,’ said Kleinzeit.

  He slept for a while after lunch, woke up with his heart beating fast, was careful not to remember his dreams. He picked up Ortega y Gasset, read:

  If we examine more closely our ordinary notion of reality, perhaps we should find that we do not consider real what actually happens but a certain manner of happening that is familiar to us. In this vague sense, then, the real is not so much what is seen as foreseen; not so much what we see as what we know. When a series of events takes an unforeseen turn, we say that it seems incredible.

  I haven’t got a foreseen any more, said Kleinzeit to Ortega. Psychical circumcision.

  You’re better off without it, said Ortega. As long as you have your cojones.

  Kleinzeit put down the book, concentrated on sexual fantasies. Juno and he. Sister and he. Juno and Sister. He and Juno and Sister. Juno and Sister and he. Tiring. Sex isn’t where it is right now, said Sex.

  Kleinzeit took his glockenspiel to the bathroom, made music for a while. I don’t really feel like doing this, he said to the glockenspiel.

  Believe me, said the glockenspiel, you were not my last chance. I could have had my pick. You are not doing me a favour.

  Kleinzeit put the glockenspiel back in its case, put it under his bed.

  Urngghh! said Hospital like a giant sweaty wrestler, squeezed Kleinzeit between its giant legs. Kleinzeit in agony thumped the canvas with his fist while his ribs cracked.

  Supper came, went. Sister came on duty. She and Kleinzeit looked at each other. Aeroplanes flew across the evening sky. I didn’t mean what I said this morning, said the sky. I don’t think I’m eternal. We’re all in this together.

  It’s all right, said Kleinzeit.

  After lights out he took the glockenspiel to the bathroom, slowly played a tune with one beater. Sister came in with the helmet, laid it on the glockenspiel. Kleinzeit stood up and kissed her. They both sat down, looked at the glockenspiel and the helmet.

  ‘Shackleton-Planck results tomorrow?’ said Kleinzeit.

  Sister nodded.

  ‘There’ll be quanta,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Plus stretto trouble at the very least’

  Sister squeezed his knee.

  ‘Meet me tomorrow afternoon?’ said Kleinzeit.

  Sister nodded.

  ‘At the bottom of the fire stairs,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Right after lunch.’ They kissed again, went back to the ward.

  Firkin? Pipkin?

  Kleinzeit was between sleeping and waking when he became aware of Word for the first time. There was a continual unfolding in his mind, and the unfolding, continually unfolding, allowed itself to be known as Word.

  Doré was the one, said Word. Who since him has had a range like that! Don Quixote is the best thing he ever wrote, but the Bible is a strong contender, and of course Auntie’s Inferno.

  Dante’s, not Auntie’s, said Kleinzeit. Doré didn’t write. He was an illustrator.

  Of course, said Word. It’s been so long since I’ve had a really intellectual discussion. It’s that other chap who wrote the Bible. Firkin? Pipkin? Pilkin? Wilkins.

  Milton, you mean? said Kleinzeit.

  That’s it, said Word. Milton. They don’t write like that any more. As it were the crack of leather on willow. A well-bowled thought, you know, meeting a well-swung sentence. No, the pitches aren’t green the way they were, the whites don’t take the light the same way. It mostly isn’t writing now, it’s just spelling.

  It wasn’t Milton wrote the Bible, said Kleinzeit.

  Don’t come the heavy pedant with me, said Word. Don’t make a fetish of knowing who said what, it doesn’t matter all that much. I have seen minds topple like tall
trees. I have heard the winds of ages sighing in the silence. What was I going to say? Yes. Get Hospital to tell you about what’s-hisname.