Russell Hoban - Kleinzeit

Sister went to Kleinzeit’s bed by the window. ‘Good morning,’ she said.

‘Good morning,’ said Kleinzeit. Sister and he both looked at Flashpoint’s bed. There was a fat man asleep in it now. Ullage case. No monitor.

Well? said Sister’s face.

Kleinzeit pointed to the glockenspiel under his bed. ‘Yarrow,’ he said. ‘Fullest stock.’

Sister opened the case, touched silver notes softly with her fingers.

Remember, said the glockenspiel.

Remember what? said Sister.

Remember, said the glockenspiel.

Sister closed the case, sat in a chair, looked at Kleinzeit, smiled, nodded several times without speaking.

Kleinzeit smiled back, also nodded several times without speaking.

Nothing but large beautiful girls here, thought Kleinzeit as he took off his pyjamas and put on a gown that tied airily behind. So healthy, too. Each one seems to confine her energy with difficulty inside her close-fitting skin. Such rosy cheeks! The room was bleak with cold hard surfaces, heavy machinery.

‘Right,’ said the X-Ray Room Juno. ‘We’re going to do a Bach-Euclid on you. We do it two ways.’

‘You mean …’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Down your throat and up your bum,’ said the comely handmaiden of the see-through machine. ‘Drink this, all of it. Cheers.’

Kleinzeit drank, shuddered.

‘Now lie here on the table on your side and spread your cheeks.’

Kleinzeit shrank, spread his cheeks, was buggered by a syringe and pumped full of something. Role-reversal, he thought. Kinky. He felt blown-up to the bursting point.

‘Stay on your side. Deep breath. Hold it,’ said Juno. Thump. Click.

‘I’m going to crap all over this table,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Hold it, not yet,’ said Juno. Thump. Click. ‘There’s a loo next door. Not long now.’ Thump. Click. ‘Right. You can relieve yourself now, then come right back.’

Kleinzeit exploded in the loo, came back a shadow of himself.

‘Stand up here,’ said Juno. ‘Elbows back, deep breath.’ Thump. Click. ‘Side view now.’ Thump. Click. ‘All finished. Thank you, Mr Kleinzeit.’

‘My pleasure,’ said Kleinzeit. Must it end like this, he thought. After such intimacy!

He went back to his bed all worn out, fell asleep. While he was asleep the red-bearded man from the Underground got into his head.

Nice place you’ve got here, he said inside Kleinzeit’s head.

I don’t know you, said Kleinzeit.

Don’t come the innocent with me, mate, said Redbeard. He took a sheet of yellow paper out of a carrier-bag, wrote something on it, offered it to Kleinzeit. Kleinzeit took the paper, saw that it was blank on both sides.

Remember? said Redbeard.

Remember what? said Kleinzeit, and woke up with his heart beating fast.

Six o’clock in the morning, and Hospital had had enough of sleep. Drink tea, it said. Patients sighed, cursed, groaned, opened or closed their eyes, came out from behind oxygen masks, drank tea.

The fat man in the bed next to Kleinzeit sat up, smiled, nodded over his teacup. From his bedside locker he took four fruity buns, sliced them in half, spread them with butter, loaded four of the halves with marmalade and four with blackcurrant jam, lined them up in a platoon, and ate them seriously, sighing and shaking his head from time to time.

‘Interesting case,’ he said when he had finished.

‘Who?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Me,’ said the fat man. He smiled modestly, proprietor of himself. Behind him the shade of Flashpoint sat up, shook its head, said nothing. ‘I’m never full,’ said the fat man.

‘Chronic ullage. Medical science can make nothing of it. The dole can’t begin to cope with it. I’ve applied for a grant.’

‘From whom?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Arts Council,’ said the fat man. ‘On metaphorical grounds. The human condition.’

‘The fat human condition,’ said Kleinzeit. He hadn’t expected to say that. The fruity buns had provoked him.

‘Cheek,’ said the fat man. ‘Where are your friends and relations?’

‘What do you mean?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘What I said,’ said the fat man. ‘I’ve been here for three visiting periods. Everyone else in the ward but you either gets visited or neglected in a bona fide way. You’ve seen old Griggs regularly not visited by three daughters, two sons, and fifteen or twenty grandchildren. You’ve seen me regularly visited by my wife, son, daughter, two cousins, and a friend. Now, what have you to say to that?’

‘Nothing,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Not good enough,’ said the fat man. ‘Won’t do. I’m not one of those who see a foreign menace lurking under every bush, mark you. Nothing like that. I don’t care if you’re an atheist or a communist or a wog of any description whatever. But I’m curious, you see. The more I pry, the more I want to pry. I’m simply never full. You’re not visited and you’re not neglected. There’s something about you that’s not quite the ticket, not quite the regular human condition, if you follow me.’

‘Not quite the regular fat human condition,’ said Kleinzeit. Again he hadn’t expected to say it.

‘Not good enough,’ said the fat man. He took three sausage rolls from his store, ate them judicially. ‘No, no,’ he said, wiping the crumbs from his mouth, ‘I’m patently too many for you, and you’re simply being evasive. Childhood memories?’

‘What about them?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Name one.’

Kleinzeit couldn’t. There was nothing in his memory but the pain from A to B, getting the sack at the office, seeing Dr Pink, coming to the hospital. Nothing else. He went pale.

‘You see?’ said the fat man. ‘You simply won’t bear examination, will you? It’s almost as if you’d made yourself up on the spur of the moment. It’s nothing to me, really. It’s only that I happen to be an unusually acute observer. Never full. We’ll let it be for now, shall we?’

Kleinzeit nodded, quite defeated. He lay low, looked away when anyone passed his bed.

He left the hospital again, went into the Underground, stood on the platform, read the walls, the posters. KILL JEW SHIT. Angie & Tim. CHELSEA. My job is stultifying. ODEON. KILL COMES AGAIN. They were all dying to come with him! CLASSIC. COME KILLS AGAIN. When he came, they went! KILL WOG SHIT. My stult is ramifying. Uncle Toad’s Palmna Royale Date Crunch. Whole milk chocolate, big date pieces, Strontium 91. Pretty Polly Tights. My wife refuses to beat me.

He looked into the round black tunnel, listened to the wincing of the rails ahead of the oncoming train, saw the lights on the front of the train, then windows, people. NO SMOKING, NO SMOKING, NO SMOKING, no NO SMOKING. He got in, smoked. ARE YOUSITTING OPPOSIT THE NEW MAN IN YOUR LIFE? said an advert. Trust Dateline Computer to find the right person for you. The seat opposite Kleinzeit was empty. He declined to look at his reflection in the window.

He came out of the Underground, turned into a street, walked up a hill. Grey sky. Chill wind. Brick houses, doors, windows, roofs, chimneys, going slowly up the hill one step at a time.

Kleinzeit stopped in front of a house. Old red brick and rising damp. An old shadowy ochre-painted doorway. Old green-painted pipes clinging to the housefront, branching like vines. Old green area railings. Worn steps. The windows saw nothing. Crazed in its brick the old house reared like a blind horse.

Be the house of my childhood, said Kleinzeit.

Wallpapers. wept, carpets sweated, the smell of old frying crusted the air. Yes, said the house.

Kleinzeit leaned on the green spikes of the area railings, looked up at the grey sky. I’m not very young, he said. Probably my parents are dead.