Russell Hoban - Kleinzeit

‘What do you mean, his name means hero?’ said Krishna.

‘Kleinzeit, his name is. In German that means hero.’

‘Kleinzeit in German means smalltime,’ said Krishna, thrusting a little.

Sister laughed. ‘Only a hero would say that Kleinzeit means hero,’ she said.

Dr Krishna shrank, withdrew, put his clothes on. Sister lay naked on the bed like a horizontal winged victory. Krishna’s mind heaved with longing. He took his clothes off again, threw himself feebly on her. ‘This is goodbye,’ he said. ‘One for the road.’

Sister nodded with closed eyes, thought of Kleinzeit’s blood in the phial she had held, warm in her hand. The tests had shown a decibel count of 72, a film speed of 18,000 and a negative polarity of 12 per cent. She didn’t like the polarity, it might go either way, and the decibels were on the dodgy side. But his film speed! She’d never had an 18,000 before. You can see it in those tired eyes of his, she thought as Krishna came.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ said Sister, standing at the window alone, suddenly aware that Krishna had gone more than an hour ago. It was raining gently. There’s nothing like a gentle rain, she thought. Her mind showed her a corridor in the Underground. Why that? she said, listening to the echoing footfalls, the hesitating chimes of a melody full of error. It is my opinion, she said to God, that nobody is healthy.

Look at you, said God. Who could be healthier?

Oh, women, said Sister. I’m talking about men. One way and another they’re all sick.

You really think so? said God. He rained a little harder. What did I do wrong? How have I failed?

I can’t say exactly what I mean, said Sister. It just sounds stupid. What I mean is, it isn’t a matter of finding a well man, it’s a matter of finding one who makes the right use of his sickness.

In Kleinzeit’s office the man pushing the barrow full of rocks on the yellow paper felt himself crumpled up by the Creative Director. It’s dark all of a sudden, he said as he dropped into the wastebasket, still feeling the tube of Bonzo in his pocket.

Ah! said the walls, listening to the footfalls, it’s the silence that we like, the lovely shapes of silence between the shapes of the footfalls.

There was a clean sheet of yellow paper, A4 size, lying on the floor of the corridor. None of the footsteps had made it dirty yet.

A ragged man came along, lumpily dressed, with a full red beard and bright blue eyes. He had a bedroll slung on his shoulder with a rope and carried two carrier-bags. Probably half a bottle of wine in one of them. He looked at the sheet of paper lying on the floor of the corridor, walked all round it, then picked it up, looked at both sides of it. No writing on either side. He felt it. He took a black Japanese nylon-tip pen out of his pocket. He sat down, leaned against the wall, took a clipboard out of one carrier-bag, put the paper in the clipboard, and wrote on it in a bold black hand:

MAN WITH HARROW FULL OF CROCKS

He took the paper out of the clipboard, laid it on the floor of the corridor and walked away echoing.

Here is the world, said the man on the paper. Here is greatness in me. Why a harrow full of crocks? Will there be music?

Yes, said the music. It was a little way ahead down the corridor. It was mouth-organ music, edgy, wonky, sometimes trotting like a three-legged dog and sometimes striking like a rattlesnake. It was a medley of Salty Dog, Cripple Creek, and The Rose of Ballydoo. It was put together as if the first tune had run smack into a lamp-post with the other two following close behind it.

When the red-bearded man got to where the music was he played it. He played it on a mouth organ he took out of his pocket. Out of a carrier-bag he took a filthy little peaked cap of corduroy, dropped it on the ground with the greasy lining looking up.

What a sound track, said the man on the paper with the harrow full of crocks.

Plink, said 2p dropping into the cap.

When? said a glockenspiel in a music shop.

Later, said the walls of the corridor.

Night, crepitating slowly, beat by beat. Sister on nights now, glowing in the lamplit binnacle of her office, overlooking the ward as a captain on his bridge, watching the black bow cleave the white wave, watching the compass eye, jewelled in the dark. Thrum of the engines, heave of the sea, silent-roaring, seething and sighing. Dimness of the ward. Groans, gurgles, choking, gasping, splatting in bedpans. Stench. Groans. Curses.

Sister, not writing her report. Not reading a book. Not smoking. Not thinking. Feeling the night rise in the lamplight beat by beat.

Talk to me, said God.

No answer from Sister, tuned to the night, beat by beat ascending.

Kleinzeit awake, watching the blips on Flashpoint’s monitor: blip, blip, blip, blip. Flashpoint asleep. The distant horn sounding in Kleinzeit’s body. Not yet, O God. The stench of bedpans. A sky like brown velvet, the red wink of an aeroplane. So high, so going-away! Gone!

Suddenly the hospital. Suddenly crouching. I am between its paws, thought Kleinzeit. It is gigantic. I had no idea how long its waiting, how heavy its patience. O God.

I can’t be bothered with details, said God. Blip, blip. Blip …

‘Bowls and gold!’ cried Flashpoint, twisting in the dark. ‘Velvet and hangings, youth and folly.’

It’s happened, thought Kleinzeit. Hendiadys.

Sister was there, Dr Krishna, two nurses. The curtains were drawn round Flashpoint’s bed.

There was a terrible rushing tumbling gurgling sound ‘Burst spectrum.’ said Dr Krishna.

‘Arrow in a box.’ said Flashpoint quietly.

Nurses wheeled in a starting gate. The bellows heaved and sighed.

‘Nothing,’ said Krishna behind the curtain. ‘That’s it’

Kleinzeit closed his eyes, heard wheels, footsteps, opened his eyes. The curtains were pushed back, Flashpoint’s bed

was empty, the screen dark. Nobody.

NOW, said Hospital. HERE I AM. FEEL ME AROUND YOU. I HAVE BEEN HERE ALWAYS, WAITING. NOW. THIS. YOU.

Aaahh! groaned the bed, holding Kleinzeit tight as it came.

No, said Kleinzeit, cowering in the dark. Not a star to be seen in the brown velvet. Not an aeroplane.

What? said Kleinzeit.

Be dark, said the dark. Don’t show. Be dark.

In the middle of the night WAY OUT led to iron gates that were locked. The escalators did not go up and down, they were only steps. No one walked up them, down them. No one looked at the girls in their underwear, perpetual on the posters, THIS EXPLOITS WOMEN, said round stickers stuck on crotches, breasts. No one read the stickers.

KILL WOG SHIT, said a wall. KILL IRISH SHIT. KILL JEW SHIT. SHIT KILL. PEE KILL. FART KILL. SWEAT KILL. THINK KILL. BE KILL. LIVE KILL. KILL LIVES.

On a LEARN KARATE poster one man flung another to the mat, said in handwriting, Go on, let me fuck you.

On an Evening Standard poster a cartoon man rode an escalator on which everyone but him looked at the posters of girls in underwear. My job is stultifying, he said in handwriting.

The chill, the damp, the night rose from the black tunnels, from the concrete platforms, from the steel rails through the darkness. No one read the posters.

GRACE & BOB, said a wall. IRMA & GERRY. SPURS. ARSENAL.

ODEON, said a film poster. NOW SHOWING: ‘KILL COMES AGAIN’. They were all dying to come with him! On the poster a man in tight-fitting clothes aimed a double-barrelled shotgun from between his legs. Behind him naked girls lay stacked like cordwood. Around him ships at sea exploded, trains strafed by helicopters ran off rails, castles blew up, motorcyclists rode off cliffs, there was underwater gunplay between frogmen. Starring PRONG STUDMAN, MAXIMUS JOCK, IMMEANSA PUDENDA, MONICA BEDWARD. Also starring GLORIA FRONTAL as ‘Jiggles’. Directed by DIMITRI ITHYPHALLIC. Screenplay by Ariadne Bullish based on the novel Kill for a Living by Harry Solvent. Additional dialogue by Gertrude Anal. Music composed and conducted by Lubricato Silkbottom. Theme, ‘Suck My Lolly’, composed and arranged by Frank Dildo, performed by THE PUBIC HARES by permission of Sucktone Recording Inc. Executive Producers Harold Sodom, Jr. and Sol Spermsky. Produced by Morton Anal, Jr. Photographed in Spermo Vision, a Division of Napalm Industries. Recorded by Sucktone, a Division of Sodom Chemicals, in association with Napalm Industries, a Division of Anal Petroleum Jelly. A Napalm-Anal Release. Certified ‘X’ For Mature Audiences Only.