Russell Hoban - Kleinzeit

Why does he insist on naming everything, thought Kleinzeit. ‘See how it goes,’ he said.

‘Forget it,’ said Redbeard. ‘You can’t see how it goes. You’re in it now. This is it.’

‘Nothing is it,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Anything is whatever it happens to be at the time.’

‘No,’ said Redbeard, ‘this is it all right. It’s yellow paper and you now. Good luck.’

‘Thanks,’ said Kleinzeit, resisting an urge to tie a knot in Redbeard’s tube. ‘I’d better go now.’

He stopped at Schwarzgang’s bed. ‘How’s it going?’ he said.

‘It’s going, I’m going,’ said Schwarzgang. ‘What stays?’

‘Whole sentences now,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘You’re stronger than you were.’

‘Stronger, weaker,’ said Schwarzgang. ‘At my age there’s not a lot of difference. Actually I feel pretty good. They’re going to let me out for an afternoon next week.’

Kleinzeit took a piece of folded yellow paper out of his pocket so that Schwarzgang could see it, put it back again. No reaction from Schwarzgang. Of course it was nonsense, thought Kleinzeit. A ward of sick yellow-paper men!

‘You’re a writer?’ said Schwarzgang.

Kleinzeit shrugged, made a nothing-much gesture.

‘Published?’

‘No.’

‘At one time,’ said Schwarzgang, ‘I wrote a little. Nothing much.’

‘Yellow paper?’ said Kleinzeit. Out of the corner: of his eye he saw Redbeard listening.

‘Funny you should ask,’ said Schwarzgang. ‘As a matter of fact I did use yellow paper. That must have been what made me ask if you were a writer.’

‘Did anything,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘you know, happen?’

‘What should happen?’ said Schwarzgang. ‘A couple of chapters I still have in a box somewhere, that’s as far as it went. I’m a small businessman, a tobacconist, that’s all. It’s a living. The world is full of people who write a few chapters.’

‘On yellow paper,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Yellow paper, blue paper, white. What’s the difference.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘See you.’ Redbeard was laughing silently in his bed.

Kleinzeit stopped at Piggle’s bed. He’d never had much to say to Piggle, but they’d smiled occasionally. ‘How are you?’ he said.

‘Pretty well, thanks,’ said Piggle. ‘Out in a fortnight, I should think.’

‘Good,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Actually,’ said Piggle, ‘I wonder if you’d do me a favour?’

‘Certainly,’ said Kleinzeit.

Piggle took a scrap of yellow paper from the drawer of his bedside locker, wrote a telephone number on it. ‘They still won’t let me out of bed,’ he said. ‘Would you ring up my wife and ask her to bring Conrad’s The Secret Agent next time she comes? Here’s the 2p.’

Kleinzeit took the yellow paper carefully in his hand. Same kind.

‘Sure it’s quite all right?’ said Piggle. ‘You look a little odd. Oughtn’t to bother you with it, really.’

‘No, no,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘It’s all right.’ He could have picked it up anywhere, he thought. After all, they wouldn’t make yellow paper if it weren’t in general use. Maybe I should ask Ryman’s. Ask what? Don’t be silly. ‘All the best,’ he said to Piggle. ‘Cheerio.’

‘Cheerio,’ said Piggle. ‘Thanks for the phone call.’

‘It’s nothing at all,’ said Kleinzeit. He left the ward without talking to anyone else, said goodbye to Sister, hurried down the stairs with Hospital making lip-smacking noises after him, found himself in the Underground. He went to a telephone, stood in front of it with Mrs Piggle’s yellow-paper telephone number in his hand. Had Piggle meant anything by asking for that particular book? He dialled the number.

Ring, ring. ‘Hello,’ said Mrs Piggle.

‘Comrade here,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Secret agent.’

‘Who’s that?’ said Mrs Piggle.

‘This is Morton Taylor,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Mr Piggle asked me to ask you to bring a book next time you visit: The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad. Yellow paper.’

‘What do you mean, “yellow paper”?’ said Mrs Piggle.

‘Fellow patients is what I said,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I said we’d been fellow patients.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Piggle, ‘and that’s certainly a place where fellows have to be patient, isn’t it. Very difficult for Cyril, he wants to be up and doing.’

‘Yes indeed,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Doing his …’

‘Work, you know,’ said Mrs Piggle.

‘Of course,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘At …’

‘The office,’ said Mrs Piggle. ‘Thank you so much for giving me the message, Mr Fellows.’

‘Taylor,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Yellow paper.’

‘Fellow patient,’ said Mrs Piggle. ‘Quite. Thank you so much. Goodbye.’

Fellow patient, thought Kleinzeit. Fellows patient. Patient fellows. Code? He went to the platform, got into a train, read Thucydides, came to one of the places where he’d opened the book at random before beginning to read it. Demosthenes was talking to the Athenians at Pylos as they waited for the Spartans to attack the beach:

‘ … I call upon you, as Athenians who know from experience all about landing from ships on foreign shores and how impossible it is to force a landing if the defenders stand firm and do not give way through fear of the surf or the frightening appearance of the ships as they sail in — remembering this, stand firm now yourselves, meet the enemy right down at the water’s edge, and preserve this position and our own lives.’

Yes, said Kleinzeit as he escalated to the street, that’s it all right: ‘the frightening appearance of the ships as they sail in.’ The pain was big and smooth and quiet now, like a Rolls-Royce. My place, said Kleinzeit, and they drove off.

Right, said Kleinzeit as he lit the candle at the plain deal table. The frightening appearance of the ships as they sail in. Do not give way. He uncovered the yellow paper, it bit his hand.

Don’t do that, said Kleinzeit. You know me, we have a paragraph.

I never saw you before in my life, said the yellow paper. You’re absolutely bonkers.

It’s all right, said Kleinzeit, it’ll all come back to you.

Death began to hammer on the door. HOO HOO HOO! it yelled. LET ME IN!

Go away, said Kleinzeit. Not your time yet.

HOO HOO! yelled Death. I’LL BLOODY TEAR YOU APART. ANY TIME’S MY TIME, I WANT YOU NOW AND I’M GOING TO HAVE YOU NOW. NOW NOW NOW

Kleinzeit went to the door, double-locked it, fastened the chain. Go away, he said. You’re not real, you’re just in my mind.

IS YOUR MIND REAL? said Death.

Of course my mind’s real, said Kleinzeit.

THEN SO AM I, said Death. THERE I HAVE YOU, EH? It stuck its fingers through the letter box. Bristling black and hairy, with disgusting-looking long grey fingernails.

Kleinzeit grabbed the frying-pan from the kitchen, slammed the hairy black fingers with all his strength.

I’LL GET YOU LATER, said Death, SEE IF I DON’T.

Right, said Kleinzeit. He went back to the plain deal table to start the second paragraph.

You’re so brave, said the yellow paper. So strong, so virile. Take me.

In a minute, said Kleinzeit. He scratched his head, ruffled his hair, shook dandruff over the yellow paper and the plain deal table. What I need, he said, is to get things sorted out. Before I can get on with the second paragraph I have to have a better idea of where I am with things in general. He made a list:

A to B — The beginning. Of what?

Yellow Paper — Barrow full of rocks, Bonzo Toothpaste

Creative Director — ‘You’re fired.’