Russell Hoban - Kleinzeit

From deep down, from far below, Underground said, Listen.

I’m listening, said Kleinzeit.

Remember, said Underground.

I’m doing my best, said Kleinzeit. The deep chill and the silence flowered from him like heat from a radiator. The deep chill and the silence flowed through him, glazed the air, made frost flowers of silence on the air, filmed pools of sound with clear thin ice of silence.

Listen, said Underground.

I’m listening, said Kleinzeit. From the tune for whatever walked upside down in the concrete he went on to a tune for the silence.

Not necessary, you know, said Underground.

Only for the money, said Kleinzeit. My apologies. His bottom felt frozen, one with the concrete, the silence and the rock below.

Sister stood holding the helmet, listening to the clink of money falling into it. I don’t know if this is right, she said to God.

What’s wrong with it? said God.

Is it, I don’t know, heathenish? said Sister.

You’ve got to move with the times, said God.

Are we talking about the same thing? said Sister.

One usually does, said God. I mean how much is there to talk about really. It’s pretty much all one thing, isn’t it.

I said is it heathenish, said Sister.

I know you did, said God, and I said you’ve got to move with the times.

Thank you very much, said Sister. It’s been a great help talking to you. I really mustn’t keep you from your work any longer.

I welcome interruptions really, said God. Creation isn’t the cut-and-dried thing people think it is. You don’t do it once and then it’s all done, like in that Hadyn oratorio. It’s a day-in, day-out thing. You stop for the blink of an eye and it’s all come undone, all to do again. And goodness knows I’ve blinked from time to time. And of course there are bad days and good ones just like what goes on in a world. Some days I don’t get a good idea for millennia. But you were saying.

I was saying Goodbye for now, said Sister.

Till soon, said God. It’s always a pleasure chatting to you. As people go you don’t talk badly. Mostly all I get from people is nonsense. For anything like reasonable conversation you have to go to stones or oceans.

‘I don’t think I can get myself out of this position any more.’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Next time I’m going to bring something to sit on. How much have we taken in?’

Sister counted. ‘£1.27,’ she said.

Kleinzeit looked at his watch. ‘Two hours,’ he said. ‘That’s not bad at all. Let’s have a tea break.’

They went to the coffee shop where Kleinzeit had had coffee and fruity buns with Redbeard. Sister and he had coffee and fruity buns, neither of them saying anything.

Kleinzeit’s bottom was still numb, and thinking of things to sit on he found in his mind his chair at the office where he’d been sacked. With the chair came the names of the accounts he’d worked on: Bonzo Toothpaste, Anal Petroleum Jelly, Spolia Motors International, Necropolis Urban Concepts Ltd and Uncle Toad’s Palmna Royale Date Crunch. Uncle Toad roared briefly through his mind driving the Spolia Genghis Khan Mark II on the broad clearways of the Necropolis complex scheduled to replace most of the city north of the river. Uncle Toad’s broad mouth opened and closed rhythmically on Palmna Royale Date Crunch. Uncle Toad was gone, the clearways empty. Back at the hospital the form lay on his locker: Hypotenectomy, Asymptoctomy, Strettoctomy.

‘Shall we go to my place?’ said Sister.

Kleinzeit nodded, stood up, knocked over his coffee cup, knocked over his chair, picked up the chair, hit his head on the table as he straightened up, grabbed his glockenspiel, knocked over the chair again. Sister steered him to the door.

In the train they held hands, rubbed knees. KLEINZEIT WINS, said all the headlines on everybody’s newspapers. He averted his eyes modestly, gripped Sister’s thigh. Going up out of the Underground on the escalator he looked at the girls in the underwear posters with easy indifference, mentally dressed those who did not meet his standards.

Sister’s place. Kleinzeit sighed as time expanded. Books, yes. Records, yes. Poster from the Tate: Caspar David Friedrich, 1774–1840. Dark ships, sad sunset sky, figures in the foreground. Chinese kite. Sacred Heart, yes, there it was. Small brass Shiva Nataraja, Lord of the Dance. Indian print bedspread. Krishna’s beautiful dark face flashed into Kleinzeit’s mind. Turkoman cushions. A velvet elephant, floral pattern. A woollen rabbit. Photo of Sister with two nurses in front of the hospital. Photo of Sister with parents. Old round clock with a pendulum inside the case, stopped.

Sister lit the gas fire, lit incense, put on a Mozart quartet. Sacred Heart and Mozart, well there they were. Sacred Heart kept quiet. ‘Gin or whisky?’ said Sister.

‘Whisky, please,’ said Kleinzeit. He walked to the window. The sky, as before, was grey, the chimney pots patient. ‘I wish it would rain,’ he said.

Rain started.

‘Thank you,’ said Kleinzeit. The gas fire purred. He lifted the bedspread, the blankets. Flowered sheets and pillowslips, fresh and new, never used before. Sister brought his drink, bent her neck as Kleinzeit stroked it. Kleinzeit put down his drink. It’ll be weeks before I can actually take this in, he thought. It’s more than I can believe.

Sister by owl-light, Sister zipping out of the tight trouser-suit, stepping out of her knickers in the glow of the gas fire. Sister pearly in the dusk, silky on the flowered sheets, tasty in the mouth, opulent to the touch, Kleinzeit, overwhelmed, became nothing, disappeared, reappeared, from nowhere entered, inventing himself as theme, as subject. Answered by Sister he sounded deep chill, silence, all beneath him, raised Atlantis, golden domes and oriental carpets, central heating, dates and pomegranates, mottled sunlight, stereo. Far below them Underground said, Are you Orpheus?

No question about it, said Kleinzeit, in time extending infinitely forward, backward. Who else could be this harmonious, this profound?

Easy by the gas fire, easy on the flowered sheets, said Underground. On Sister very easy.

Easy easy easy, Kleinzeit answered.

Not so easy later maybe, Underground said. Try you later, see if you remember.

I’ll remember, Kleinzeit said. How could I ah, how could I uh …

Forget, said Underground.

Ah yes, said Kleinzeit, lost in domes and pomegranates, sunlight in Atlantis, deaf to distant Hospital that roared and bellowed like a minotaur. They slept, awoke, hugged each other. The record player was silent, watching with one red eye.

Sister put on Ein feste Burg ist unset Gott, they smoked by the light of the gas fire. Sister darned one of Kleinzeit’s socks. Kleinzeit opened the case of the clock, released the overwound spring, set the clock going again, went out, bought champagne. Sister made scrambled eggs, left to go on duty at the hospital.

Kleinzeit stayed at Sister’s place. What were my memories? he said. Tomcat, funeral, Folger Bashan. Was there anything else?

Here, said Memory, and vomited. Now clean it up like everyone else, said Memory. You’re no better than anyone else. You have a whole life.

I didn’t know when I was well off, said Kleinzeit alone at Sister’s place. O God, the detail of it all, the overwhelming weight of the detail of a life remembered.

I can’t be bothered with details, said God. I’ve told you that before. Kleinzeit didn’t hear him.

O God, said Kleinzeit. I was born, I had a mother and a father and a brother, I lived in a house, I had a childhood, I was educated, did military service, got married, had a daughter and a son, bought a house, got divorced, found a flat, lost my job, here I am. Is this a record?