Russell Hoban - Kleinzeit

Moment, said Hall of Records: Spring, age something. Evening, the sky still light, the street lamps coming on. Harmony took place.

I remember, said Kleinzeit.

Moment, said Hall of Records: Summer, age something. Before a thunderstorm. Black sky. A piece of paper whirling in the air high over the street. Harmony took place.

I remember, said Kleinzeit But so long ago!

Moment, said Hall of Records: Autumn, age something. Rain. The sound of the gas fire, Sister naked. Atlantis. Harmony took place.

Ah! said Kleinzeit.

Moment, said Hall of Records: Winter, age something. In hospital. Feeling of circle inside self, sweet rhythm. Harmony took place.

Kleinzeit waited.

Will there be anything else? said Hall of Records.

Place of dismemberment? said Kleinzeit.

Everywhere, all the time, said Hall of Records.

‘Rather nicely stabilized, I should say,’ said Dr Pink. ‘I’m quite pleased with you actually.’ Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna seemed pleased too.

Kleinzeit smiled modestly, wondered if that was a spot of blood on Fleshky’s white coat. Probably some sort of chemical.

Dr Pink looked at the medication record on Kleinzeit’s chart. ‘Yes.’ he said, ‘I think we can take you off this lot’

‘Try something new, eh?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘No,’ said Dr Pink. ‘We’ll just see how you do without any drugs, see how things go.’ He’s a devil, said the faces of the three young doctors. He’ll try anything.

‘You mean I’m all right now?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘That remains to be seen,’ said Dr Pink, ‘and I’m not making any promises. We’ll see where we are in a few days.’ He smiled, moved on with Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna.

Can you move over a little, said the bed. I can’t seem to get comfortable.

Kleinzeit ignored it, huddled under the bedclothes. All at once the streets outside seemed one vast desolation, Underground the very abyss, the thought of sitting on that freezing floor with his glockenspiel was appalling. Fleets of Morton Taylor lorries thundered past, changing gears contemptously. No window nearby, but unseen aeroplanes soared high in utter silence, bound for golden otherwheres.

‘Good news, eh?’ said Tede. ‘That’s why I always say Keep smiling.’

Klenzeit made a gesture with two fingers on the side away from Tede, picked up some yellow paper, affected to be heavily absorbed in writing. What he wrote was:

Golden, Golden, Golden Virginia,

Be my tobacco, be my sin.

Not even original. Drogue’s, that was. Was Drogue still alive at the other end of the ward? Kleinzeit had been away from there for a week now. They were all fading into the past. What was there to say to Redbeard, Schwarzgang, and the others, even if he got the nurse to wheel him to the old neighbourhood.

The bed kept arching its back, trying to slide him off. Hospital had had nothing to say for a long time. Word hadn’t dropped in either. The yellow paper was inert and lifeless in his hands. Outside the hospital the winter sunlight walked slowly past as if leaning on a cane. How had he come to this with the yellow paper, like some dreadful marriage to a frog princess who would always be a frog.

For a time there had been mystery, complexities, excitement, riddles full of promise: the yellow-paper, foolscap, and Rizla men, the permutations of barrow full of rocks, the possibilites of STAFF ONLY and its key. None of it had been explained, none of it mattered, he had no questions. He reached under the bed. No one there. He thought of the getaway with Pain Company. Those had been the days! He yawned, fell asleep.

Walking like the winter sunlight but without a cane, Kleinzeit visited the other end of the ward. No drugs for five days now, and he felt simplified, economical, stripped-down and running on the cheapest possible fuel., His vision seemed plain and dull, lacking in colour. Everything looked smaller, sharper, shabbier. Astonishing how much paint was flaking off how many things. The chairs looked more secondhand than usual. The daylight in the ward seemed as if dispensed on a National Health prescription, slowly and with a numbered ticket, to the beds patiently queued up for it. The distant horn sounded as in the Beethoven overture, then a mild flash, A to B . Oh yes, said Kleinzeit. Everything is in good order now. We have laboured diligently and’ we are back where we started from.

Like Orpheus, said Hospital.

Yes indeed, said Kleinzeit. Orpheus on the National Health. A thrilling story, I’m surprised the B.B.C. haven’t serialized it. Maybe Napalm Industries will film it. With Maximus Jock and Immensa Pudenda.

Your sarcasm is inappropriate, said Hospital.

So is everything else, said Kleinzeit, nodding hello as he passed one by one his sometime comrades. Nobody new gone. He sat down in the second-hand chair by Redbeard’s second-hand bed. Redbeard looked like an abandoned car.

‘Well,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘That’s it,’ said Redbeard. ‘Well. You are and I’m not. The well can’t talk to the sick.’

‘But I’m not well,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I feel the same as when I came to hospital.’

‘That’s more than most of us can say,’ said Redbeard. You’re one of the lucky ones.’

‘I suppose I am.’

‘And you’ll be leaving.’

‘I suppose I shall be.’

‘There you are,’ said Redbeard. ‘Make the most of it.’

‘I suppose I must,’ said Kleinzeit. He walked slowly back to his bed, got there as Dr Pink arrived on his round with Fleshky, Potluck, and Krishna. All of them looked at him fondly, as an engine-driver might look at an engine that was being retired from service.

Pink examined him in a good-humoured way, clapped him on the shoulder when he had done. ‘Well, old chap,’ he said, ‘that’s it. We shan’t keep you much longer. You can go home at the end of the week.’

Should I tell him, Kleinzeit wondered. ‘That pain from A to B’, he said. ‘It’s back.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Dr Pink. ‘That’s to be expected, it’s nothing out of the way really. You’ll get that from time to time, but I shouldn’t worry about it. That’s just hypotenuse, you know, complaining a bit as we all do now and again.’

Well, that’s that, thought Kleinzeit. I’m not going to ask any more questions, I don’t want to know any more than I know now. ‘Thank you for everything,’ he said.

‘All the best,’ said Dr Pink. ‘Come in and let me have a look at you in six months’ time.’

‘Thank you,’ said Kleinzeit to Drs Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna. They all smiled broadly, seemed with their faces to say Thank you, like friendly waiters. But Kleinzeit felt as if he were the one who might be tipped.

Night. Kleinzeit asleep, Sister awake. The ward groaning, choking, sighing, snoring, splatting in bedpans. Sister in her lamplit binnacle, steadfastly pointing to her magnetic north. The sea rushing by on either side, the white bow wave gleaming in the dark.

Well, said God. Big day for you tomorrow, eh? Schwanzheit getting out.

Kleinzeit, said Sister. I don’t think I want to talk about it, I don’t want to do anything unlucky.

Not to worry, said God. You’ll have luck. You’re lucky.

Do you mean that, said Sister. Am I really? It hasn’t always seemed that way to me.

Well of course it never does, said God. I don’t say you’re especially lucky. Just a good ordinary everyday sort of luck. That’s as much as I’ve got myself, and I don’t know anyone who’s got more. Universe, History, Eternity, anybody you talk to these days, we’re all in the same boat.