Russell Hoban - Kleinzeit

‘Dr Pink’s back!’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Where’s Bashan?’

‘Off racing his yacht somewhere,’ said Sister.

Kleinzeit sighed, drank his tea. Things were looking up a little. Not that there was much in it between Pink and Bashan, but at least Pink hadn’t bullied him as a boy and then forgotten him.

‘I brought your things,’ said Sister. ‘They’re in your locker. And Thucydides.’

‘Thank you,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘And I’m in my adventurous pyjamas. For the big adventure.’

Sister shrugged. ‘You never know,’ she said. ‘If you’re not dead yet you may go on living for a while.’

‘I’ll give it a try,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Bring some yellow paper and Japanese pens tonight, will you.’

Sister went off duty, the nurse came round with the medicine trolley. ‘Three 2-Nup, two Zonk, three Angle-Flex, three Fly-Ova, one Lay-By,’ she said.

‘I’m the darling of the National Health,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘What’s happened to the Greenlite?’

‘Dr Pink’s put you on Lay-By instead.’

‘That’s life,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘From Greenlite to Lay-By.’ He sighed, swallowed all the tablets. The nurse had pushed back the curtains. Raj was on his left, Schwarzgang on his right.

‘Neighbours again,’ said Schwarzgang.

‘Who’s gone?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘McDougal.’

‘Discharged?’

‘No.’

McDougal, thought Kleinzeit. I never even spoke to him. What was he, I wonder. Yellow paper? Rizla? Backs of envelopes?

Redbeard was still there on the other side of Schwarzgang. Kleinzeit nodded to him. Redbeard nodded back, looking at him through the funfair of Schwarzgang’s machinery. They ought to light the old man up at night, thought Kleinzeit. Then it occurred to him that he too might suddenly find Hospital growing on him like a mechanical man-eating vine. Already two thin tendrils bound him to the monitor. Would Redbeard and Schwarzgang ever break loose from their tubes and pipes and fittings, he wondered. He looked up and down the rows of beds. Drogue too, he noticed, now had scaffolding all over him like an unfinished building. Damprise, he of the funereal connexions, also sported sundry rigging. If the flies don’t come to the web the web comes to the flies, thought Kleinzeit. But of course all of them had come to the web, hadn’t they. Hospital had sat there waiting as one by one they had buzzed into its silky strands and stuck there.

‘Well?’ said Redbeard. ‘What’s new?’

‘You see what’s new,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Here I am. Blip blip blip blip.’

‘You didn’t really try,’ said Redbeard.

‘Bloody hell!’ said Kleinzeit. ‘That’s not fair. I went out of here like Prong Studman in a prison-break film. They’d never have brought me back if my chimpanzee friend hadn’t played his usual tricks. They almost didn’t bring me back alive.’

‘You’re protesting too much,’ said Redbeard.

‘It’s easy for you to talk,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I don’t see you making a break for it.’

‘I’m finished, all washed up,’ said Redbeard. ‘You aren’t, and you’re letting the side down.’

‘Cobblers,’ said Kleinzeit, feeling proud and guilty at the same time. ‘What do you want me to do? What can I do more than what I’m doing?’

Redbeard stared at him, said nothing.

Remember, said Hospital.

Ah! said Kleinzeit. He’d forgotten about that.

You see, said Hospital. You’ve forgotten.

I think I was going to try to remember just before that empty-glove feeling hit me, said Kleinzeit. Anyhow, whose side are you on? Aren’t you going to eat me up the way you’ve eaten up all the others? What’s so special about me?

I’ve taken time with you, said Hospital. I’ve taken pains with you, you might say.

You might say, said Kleinzeit.

But your understanding is still not very strong, said Hospital. Nothing is special about you. Nothing is special about everybody. That’s Nothing’s business, eh?

Don’t be clever, said Kleinzeit.

Not clever, said Hospital. Never clever. Am always simply what I am. An example to you, yes?

How? said Kleinzeit.

What are you? said Hospital.

I don’t know, said Kleinzeit.

Be that, said Hospital. Be I-Don’t-Know.

HOW? yelled Kleinzeit.

BY REMEMBERING YOURSELF, roared Hospital.

WHICH WAY IS THRACE? screamed Kleinzeit.

WHY ME? Find it, said Hospital. Because you can.

’You’re looking surprisingly fit,’ said Dr Pink. Dr Pink was deeply tanned, looked as if he’d always look fit, as if everyone could always look fit if only they’d make the effort.

‘I feel wonderful,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Except that I can’t sit up or anything.’

‘Are you sure it isn’t in your mind?’ said Dr Pink.

‘What’re you talking about?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘We don’t know an awful lot about the mind, do we?’ said Dr Pink. ‘On my holiday I was reading some books that were lying about in the villa we’d rented. Chap named Freud. Quite amazing stuff, really. Mind, you know, emotions. Mixed feelings about Mum and Dad, that sort of thing.’

‘What are you getting at?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Sorry,’ said Dr Pink. ‘I was just wondering whether perhaps you mightn’t be of two minds about sitting up. Wanting to and at the same time not wanting to, perhaps. What they call ambivalence nowadays. Have you tried?’

‘Look,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I’m trying.’ His mind sat up, the rest of him stayed lying down.

‘Hmm,’ said Dr Pink. ‘You’re still lying down, right enough.’ He picked up Kleinzeit’s chart from the foot of the bed. ‘I’ve put you on the new drugs to see if we can’t give your system some rest,’ he said. ‘The Greenlite, although it seems to have cleared stretto a bit, may have speeded up traffic more than one would like, so I’ve switched you to Lay-By. The Fly-Ova should give you a little less to cope with at the asymptotic intersection, and the Angle-Flex will take some of the strain off hypotenuse.’

‘That form the lady keeps bothering me about …’ said Kleinzeit.

‘We’ll put that to one side for a bit,’ said Dr Pink. ‘Let’s see where we are in a few days, talk about it then.’

‘Right,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Maybe things’ll sort themselves out, eh?’

‘We can but try,’ said Dr Pink. ‘As you’ve got your mind so set against surgery. The mind, after all, one can’t separate it from the body. One might almost say it’s an organ in its own right.’

‘My mind feels very strong,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘My mind sits up with no trouble.’

‘Quite,’ said Dr Pink. ‘We’ll just see how it goes.’ He smiled, walked on peacefully to the next bed, examined Raj. Where were Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna, Kleinzeit wondered.

He rolled on to his side, his back to Schwarzgang and Redbeard. Raj, buttoning up his pyjama top, smiled. Kleinzeit smiled back.

‘You are going away, you are returning,’ said Raj. ‘To and fro you go.’

‘I try to keep moving,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘You are going back to work soon?’ said Raj. ‘You are going back to your job?’

‘Haven’t got a job,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Ah!’ said Raj, passed him the Evening Standard. ‘Best classified adverts,’ he said.

‘Thanks so much,’ said Kleinzeit.

Beyond Raj Piggle’s bed was empty. Nox, in the next bed, looking over the top of the new All-Star Wank, caught Kleinzeit’s eye. ‘Surgery,’ he said, nodding towards Piggle’s bed. ‘He’s up there now. That’s where Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna are.’

Ah! said Kleinzeit with his face.