Kleinzeit (8 page)

Dr Pink’s voice had become a long and massive Sunday afternoon through which Kleinzeit drowsed like a fly in amber. At the end of his remarks it was Monday morning, a change not necessarily for the better. Kleinzeit felt breathless and as if everything was piling up inside him from behind while at the same time he was quite unable to move forward to get away from it. It’s marvellous the way Dr Pink knows exactly how it feels, he thought. I wish I’d never met him. God knows what’ll come into his head next and I’ll feel it.

I
don’t
know, said God. I’m not a doctor. This is between you and Pink. Kleinzeit couldn’t hear him.

‘There’s a good deal to be said on both sides of the question, I think,’ said Kleinzeit to Dr Pink. But all the doctors had gone. The curtains around his bed had been pushed back. ‘His pyjama top was on again. He checked the sky for aeroplanes. Nothing.

‘Purgery,’ said a voice.

Well of course that’s one way of looking at it, thought Kleinzeit. Or had the voice said ‘Perjury’?

‘Surgery,’ said the voice of a lady with a large firm bosom at his bedside. ‘If you’ll just fill in this form we can proceed with surgery.’

Kleinzeit read the form:

I, the undesigned, hereby authorize Hospital to proceed with the work indicated: Hypotenectomy, Asymptoctomy, Strettoctomy

I understand that while first quality materials and equipment will be used and every effort made to give satisfaction, Hospital can take no responsibility in the event of death or other mishap.

Person to be notified, etc.

‘ “Undesigned”,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘That may be your opinion, but I’m God’s handiwork just as much as anyone else.’ His voice broke on the last word. ‘Else,’ he said again as baritonally as possible.

‘My goodness,’ said the lady, ‘nobody said you weren’t, I’m sure.’

Kleinzeit showed her the form, pointed to the word.

‘Undersigned,’ she said.

‘That’s not what’s printed there,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Dear me,’ said the lady. ‘You’re right, they’ve left out the r. It’s meant to be “undersigned”, you know. Legal, like.’ Her large firm bosom shelved at a good angle for crying on. Kleinzeit did not cry.

‘I’d like to think about this for a bit before I sign it,’ he said.

‘Please yourself, luv,’ said the bosom lady, and returned to the Administration Office.

Well? said Kleinzeit to Hospital.

Hospital said nothing, had no quips and cranks and wanton wiles. Hospital huge, bigger than any sky, grey-faced, stony-faced in the rough clothes of the prison, the madhouse, Tom o’Bedlam. Hospital waiting, treading its bedlam round in thick boots. Hospital mute, gigantic, with thick empty hands.

Kleinzeit standing at the bottom of the fire stairs with the glockenspiel. Suddenly he couldn’t think what time of year it was.

What’s the difference, said the traffic sounds, the sky, the footsteps on the pavement. Winter is always either just ahead or just behind.

Kleinzeit said nothing, wound his self-winding watch that no longer wound itself. The sky was an even grey, could have been morning or evening. I happen to know it’s just after lunch, said Kleinzeit.

Sister from a distance in the tight trouser-suit, looking worried, the helmet in a carrier-bag. Sister close, face cold like an apple. Autumn, thought Kleinzeit. Winter soon.

‘You know about the Shackleton-Planck results?’ he said.

Sister nodded. Kleinzeit smiled, shrugged. Sister smiled and shrugged back.

They went into the Underground, took a train, got off at the station where each of them had spoken to Redbeard. With the glockenspiel and the helmet they walked through the corridors as in a dream in which they were naked and nobody paid attention.

They stopped in front of a film poster advertising BETWEEN and THE TURNOVER. ‘I don’t know if this is a good station,’ said Kleinzeit, thinking of Redbeard, ‘but it seems to be the place I have in mind.’ He was nervous, opened the glockenspiel case clumsily. ‘You need a table for this thing, really,’ he said, sat down cross-legged, glockenspiel in his lap. The floor of the corridor was hard and cold. Autumn maybe, up on the street. Winter here.
He took out of his pocket the tune he had written in the hospital bathroom.

Are we going to do it
here?
said the glockenspiel.

Here, said Kleinzeit, started plinking. Sister stood across from him with the shining helmet in her hand. The silver notes piled up like an anatomically ignorant skeleton putting itself together. Passers-by grimaced, shuddered, looked at Sister, dropped money into the helmet. Kleinzeit and Sister didn’t look at each other. Kleinzeit concentrated on reading the notes he had written. The inside of his head chattered and squeaked like a speeded-up tape, but he did not slow it down to listen. Sister held the helmet as money dropped in, said Thank you, wondered about the tune Kleinzeit was piling up, wondered when Redbeard was going to appear.

Kleinzeit finished the tune, played it again with fewer mistakes.

Not again, said the glockenspiel. I don’t feel well. I have a headache.

Kleinzeit improvised. Miscellaneous parts of skeletons accumulated in the corridor. Passers-by groaned. Kleinzeit got into a
Dies Irae
motif, depression hung like a fog over the jumbled bones, Sister ground her teeth, money dropped into the helmet. The glockenspiel, crazed, abandoned itself.

‘There was a chap with bagpipes in the street, but nothing like as bad as this,’ said a man to his wife as he dropped money into the helmet.

‘One doesn’t know what to make of it,’ she said. ‘What drives them out of doors like this?’

A young man with a guitar looked at Kleinzeit, looked at Sister, inquired with his eyes.

No, answered Sister’s eyes.

Redbeard came along smelling of wine, of urine, of rising damp and mildew, not wearing the bowler hat. He looked at Sister, looked at Kleinzeit. ‘Oh, aye,’ he said. ‘Huftytufty.
Yum Yum, music, everything laid on. So fast, so quick.’

‘What?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘I’m out,’ said Redbeard. ‘You’re in. Just like that. The poster hasn’t even changed yet. Now playing: BETWEEN, THE TURNOVER, and you.’

‘That’s how it is,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘That’s how it is,’ said Redbeard. He seemed about to say more but didn’t. Ponging and lumpy with his bedroll and carrier-bags he lurched away.

Kleinzeit improvised some more. He made up a tune for whatever walked upside down in the concrete and placed its cold paws against his bottom.

From deep down, from far below, Underground said, Listen.

I’m listening, said Kleinzeit.

Remember, said Underground.

I’m doing my best, said Kleinzeit. The deep chill and the silence flowered from him like heat from a radiator. The deep chill and the silence flowed through him, glazed the air, made frost flowers of silence on the air, filmed pools of sound with clear thin ice of silence.

Listen, said Underground.

I’m listening, said Kleinzeit. From the tune for whatever walked upside down in the concrete he went on to a tune for the silence.

Not necessary, you know, said Underground.

Only for the money, said Kleinzeit. My apologies. His bottom felt frozen, one with the concrete, the silence and the rock below.

Sister stood holding the helmet, listening to the clink of money falling into it. I don’t know if this is right, she said to God.

What’s wrong with it? said God.

Is it, I don’t know, heathenish? said Sister.

You’ve got to move with the times, said God.

Are we talking about the same thing? said Sister.

One usually does, said God. I mean how much is there to talk about really. It’s pretty much all one thing, isn’t it.

I said is it heathenish, said Sister.

I know you did, said God, and I said you’ve got to move with the times.

Thank you very much, said Sister. It’s been a great help talking to you. I really mustn’t keep you from your work any longer.

I welcome interruptions really, said God. Creation isn’t the cut-and-dried thing people think it is. You don’t do it once and then it’s all done, like in that Hadyn oratorio. It’s a day-in, day-out thing. You stop for the blink of an eye and it’s all come undone, all to do again. And goodness knows I’ve blinked from time to time. And of course there are bad days and good ones just like what goes on in a world. Some days I don’t get a good idea for millennia. But you were saying.

I was saying Goodbye for now, said Sister.

Till soon, said God. It’s always a pleasure chatting to you. As people go you don’t talk badly. Mostly all I get from people is nonsense. For anything like reasonable conversation you have to go to stones or oceans.

‘I don’t think I can get myself out of this position any more.’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Next time I’m going to bring something to sit on. How much have we taken in?’

Sister counted. ‘£1.27,’ she said.

Kleinzeit looked at his watch. ‘Two hours,’ he said. ‘That’s not bad at all. Let’s have a tea break.’

They went to the coffee shop where Kleinzeit had had coffee and fruity buns with Redbeard. Sister and he had coffee and fruity buns, neither of them saying anything.

Kleinzeit’s bottom was still numb, and thinking of things to sit on he found in his mind his chair at the office
where he’d been sacked. With the chair came the names of the accounts he’d worked on: Bonzo Toothpaste, Anal Petroleum Jelly, Spolia Motors International, Necropolis Urban Concepts Ltd and Uncle Toad’s Palmna Royale Date Crunch. Uncle Toad roared briefly through his mind driving the Spolia Genghis Khan Mark II on the broad clearways of the Necropolis complex scheduled to replace most of the city north of the river. Uncle Toad’s broad mouth opened and closed rhythmically on Palmna Royale Date Crunch. Uncle Toad was gone, the clearways empty. Back at the hospital the form lay on his locker: Hypotenectomy, Asymptoctomy, Strettoctomy.

‘Shall we go to my place?’ said Sister.

Kleinzeit nodded, stood up, knocked over his coffee cup, knocked over his chair, picked up the chair, hit his head on the table as he straightened up, grabbed his glockenspiel, knocked over the chair again. Sister steered him to the door.

In the train they held hands, rubbed knees. KLEINZEIT WINS, said all the headlines on everybody’s newspapers. He averted his eyes modestly, gripped Sister’s thigh. Going up out of the Underground on the escalator he looked at the girls in the underwear posters with easy indifference, mentally dressed those who did not meet his standards.

Sister’s place. Kleinzeit sighed as time expanded. Books, yes. Records, yes. Poster from the Tate: Caspar David Friedrich, 1774-1840. Dark ships, sad sunset sky, figures in the foreground. Chinese kite. Sacred Heart, yes, there it was. Small brass Shiva Nataraja, Lord of the Dance. Indian print bedspread. Krishna’s beautiful dark face flashed into Kleinzeit’s mind. Turkoman cushions. A velvet elephant, floral pattern. A woollen rabbit. Photo of Sister with two nurses in front of the hospital. Photo of Sister with parents. Old round clock with a pendulum inside the case, stopped.

Sister lit the gas fire, lit incense, put on a Mozart quartet.
Sacred Heart and Mozart, well there they were. Sacred Heart kept quiet. ‘Gin or whisky?’ said Sister.

‘Whisky, please,’ said Kleinzeit. He walked to the window. The sky, as before, was grey, the chimney pots patient. ‘I wish it would rain,’ he said.

Rain started.

‘Thank you,’ said Kleinzeit. The gas fire purred. He lifted the bedspread, the blankets. Flowered sheets and pillowslips, fresh and new, never used before. Sister brought his drink, bent her neck as Kleinzeit stroked it. Kleinzeit put down his drink. It’ll be weeks before I can actually take this in, he thought. It’s more than I can believe.

Sister by owl-light, Sister zipping out of the tight trouser-suit, stepping out of her knickers in the glow of the gas fire. Sister pearly in the dusk, silky on the flowered sheets, tasty in the mouth, opulent to the touch, Kleinzeit, overwhelmed, became nothing, disappeared, reappeared, from nowhere entered, inventing himself as theme, as subject. Answered by Sister he sounded deep chill, silence, all beneath him, raised Atlantis, golden domes and oriental carpets, central heating, dates and pomegranates, mottled sunlight, stereo. Far below them Underground said, Are you Orpheus?

No question about it, said Kleinzeit, in time extending infinitely forward, backward. Who else could be this harmonious, this profound?

Easy by the gas fire, easy on the flowered sheets, said Underground. On Sister very easy.

Easy easy easy, Kleinzeit answered.

Not so easy later maybe, Underground said. Try you later, see if you remember.

I’ll remember, Kleinzeit said. How could I ah, how could I uh …

Forget, said Underground.

Ah yes, said Kleinzeit, lost in domes and pomegranates, sunlight in Atlantis, deaf to distant Hospital that roared and
bellowed like a minotaur. They slept, awoke, hugged each other. The record player was silent, watching with one red eye.

Sister put on
Ein feste Burg ist unset Gott,
they smoked by the light of the gas fire. Sister darned one of Kleinzeit’s socks. Kleinzeit opened the case of the clock, released the overwound spring, set the clock going again, went out, bought champagne. Sister made scrambled eggs, left to go on duty at the hospital.

Kleinzeit stayed at Sister’s place. What were my memories? he said. Tomcat, funeral, Folger Bashan. Was there anything else?

Here, said Memory, and vomited. Now clean it up like everyone else, said Memory. You’re no better than anyone else. You have a whole life.

I didn’t know when I was well off, said Kleinzeit alone at Sister’s place. O God, the detail of it all, the overwhelming weight of the detail of a life remembered.

I can’t be bothered with details, said God. I’ve told you that before. Kleinzeit didn’t hear him.

O God, said Kleinzeit. I was born, I had a mother and a father and a brother, I lived in a house, I had a childhood, I was educated, did military service, got married, had a daughter and a son, bought a house, got divorced, found a flat, lost my job, here I am. Is this a record?