Russell Hoban - Kleinzeit

It just goes round again, said Hospital. Orpheus mourns, mopes about, won’t go to parties any more, won’t make love with the local women, they say he’s queer, one thing leads to another, they tear him apart, and there’s the head going down the river again, heading for Lesbos.

What does it all mean? said Kleinzeit.

How can there be meaning? said Hospital. Meaning is a limit. There are no limits.

Night, night, night. An immanence of night. Unlimited hoarded reserves of night in the clock. Implacable, the clock, its hands never tiring. Pompous in its unremitting precision: sixty seconds to the minute, sixty minutes to the hour, twenty-four hours to the day. Same for the pauper and the millionaire, the old and the young, the sick and the well.

That’s a damned lie, said Sister to the clock. Many’s the time I’ve seen you double the bad hours and halve the good ones.

Many’s the time, ho ho, said the clock.

Sister looked away from the gloating face, listened to the ward beyond the lamplight, wrote slowly on a notepad:

E-U-R-Y-D-I–C-E

Ah, said Hospital. Our not-very-long-ago conversation.

You too, said Sister. Bloody-minded brute.

Not at all, said Hospital. You and I, we’re professionals, aren’t we. We are past illusion and the filmy flimsy curtains of romance, are we not.

Bugger off, said Sister.

What was it you were saying to God, said Hospital. All men are sick. Yes. God didn’t understand you. He wouldn’t.

You do, I suppose, said Sister.

It was from me you got that thought, said Hospital.

Thanks so much, said Sister.

You’re welcome, said Hospital. It is truly a large valuable lovely thought. I don’t pass it about indiscriminately. I tucked it inside your bra one day, placed it in your bosom. A pleasant grope.

Dirty old Hospital, said Sister.

I am what I am, said Hospital. As we were saying, all men are sick. Life is their sickness. Life is the original sickness of inanimate matter. All was well until matter messed itself about and came alive. Men are rotten clear through with being animate. Women on the other hand have not quite lost the health of the inanimate, the health of the deep stillness. They’re not quite so sick with life as men are. I’ll tell you something I didn’t tell Kleinzeit. The Thracian women didn’t tear Orpheus apart. He fell apart, keeps falling apart, will fall apart. Hell-bent on falling apart. Tiresome, though I admire his pluck I must say. A strong swimmer.

I’ll tell you something, said Sister. You’re a dreadful bore. I don’t care about Orpheus and Eurydice and all that. I just want Kleinzeit to get well.

He’ll get well all right, said Hospital. He’ll recover from life. As I said, I keep you. He doesn’t get you.

Rubbish, said Sister, put her head on the desk, cried quietly in the lamplight.

Action lounged against the front of the hospital, took a deep drag on his cigarette, flipped it into the gutter, looked at his watch, looked at passing taxis, spun on his heel, went into the hospital.

Standing by the reception desk were two policemen. Who’ve you come to see? they said.

Kleinzeit, said Action, and headed for the stairs.

The two policemen each grabbed an arm, hustled him outside, into a police van, took him away.

Morning, Kleinzeit’s first morning back in hospital. Blip blip blip blip, here he was. Black night outside, and here’s the morning tea trolley. Those who walk to the bathroom pee in the bathroom, those who pee in bottles pee in bottles, those whose specimens are collected make specimens for collection.

Nox drank his tea, cleared his throat. ‘That about the coffins,’ he said to Kleinzeit. ‘You mustn’t pay any attention to that catalogue or what I was saying.’

‘Why not?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘You’ve better things to think about.’

He must’ve heard me and Sister last night, thought Kleinzeit. ‘What do you mean?’ he said.

‘You walked out of here before,’ said Nox. ‘Maybe you’ll do it again. I hope you’ll do it again. Not all of us, you know … You take my meaning?’

‘Perfectly,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘But why do you care so much about me, you know, all of a sudden?’

‘One thinks at first that if one can’t make it oneself …’ said Nox. ‘But then thinking about it again one wants someone, you know, to … Surprising, really. I wouldn’t have thought it but there it is.’

‘Thank you,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘It’s nothing,’ said Nox.

‘No,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘It’s something.’ He raised himself on his elbows, looked past Piggle, Raj, McDougal. Schwarzgang, looking his way, made a thumbs-up sign. Kleinzeit thumbs-upped back. Redbeard, sitting up among his pulleys and counterweights, passed a note to Schwarzgang, who passed it down the line to Kleinzeit. White paper:

DON’T STAY HERE. GET OUT.

Kleinzeit got some foolscap from Nox, wrote back:

HOW CAN I GET OUT? I CAN’T EVEN TAKE A CRAP BY MYSELF. WHY DOES EVERYBODY CARE ABOUT ME ALL OF A SUDDEN?

Redbeard answered:

ONE OF US HAS GOT TO MAKE IT.

Kleinzeit wrote:

WHY DON’T YOU GET OUT? A SLIPPED FULCRUM’S NOTHING MUCH.

Redbeard wrote:

DON’T TALK ROT. I HAVEN’T GOT A CHANCE.

Kleinzeit had no answer, looked away from Redbeard, turned to Piggle. ‘You’ll be out soon, didn’t you say? About a week now?’

Piggle shook his head, looked ashamed. ‘It seems not,’ he said. ‘They tell me now that the imbrications have reified, and I’m scheduled for surgery.’

‘Anybody else due for discharge?’ said Kleinzeit.

Piggle shook his head again. ‘You’re not staying though, are you?’ he said.

‘What makes you think I’m special?’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Why should I get out?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Piggle. ‘You’re the one who got up and walked out before.’

The nurse came by with the medicine trolley. ‘Kleinzeit,’ she said, gave him five tablets in a paper cup. Kleinzeit recognized the three 2-Nups. ‘What’re the other two?’ he said.

‘Zonk,’ said the nurse. ‘For the pain.’

That’s right, thought Kleinzeit. I haven’t noticed any pain for a while. ‘Have I had this before?’ he said.

‘Big injection when you came in,’ said the nurse. ‘Tablets yesterday.’

‘Would it make me feel weak?’

‘It may do a little. We haven’t been using this very long. It’s new.’

‘Does it say Napalm Industries on the bottle?’ said Kleinzeit.

The nurse looked. ‘So it does,’ she said. ‘How’d you know?’

‘Just a guess,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Cheers,’ he said, pretended to swallow the Zonk but didn’t. He put the tablets in his locker drawer, thought I can always take them if I need them. I said I was going to remember myself. Sounds lovely. How do I do it? Yoga maybe? I’ll ask Krishna next time I see him.

The bosom approached I, the undesigned. Cry now? said the bosom.

Not yet, said Kleinzeit.

‘Well?’ said the bosom lady. ‘Have you signed it yet, luv?’

‘No,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I think I won’t.’

‘Please yourself,’ said the bosom lady. ‘That’s how it is with the National Health. If you had to pay for a lovely operation like that it’d come to a great deal of money and you’d appreciate it properly, but as it doesn’t cost anything you think oh well, what’s the odds. It’s nothing to me either way, but I should think Dr Bashan will have something to say.’ Don’t expect to cry on me , said the bosom as it turned round and bore off.