Russell Hoban - Kleinzeit

‘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 cruel 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.

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.

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.