Kleinzeit (18 page)

‘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.

‘Yes,’ said Nox. ‘We pretty well have to take what comes,
the rest of us here. We’re not all free to come and go like you.’

‘What makes you think I’m free to come and go,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I walk out and I come back in an ambulance. I keep trying but I don’t make it.’

‘You will though,’ said Nox, and went back to
All-Star Wank.

Kleinzeit thought briefly of Wanda Udders, Miss Guernsey, who’d always known there were big things ahead of her. Only a photo in a newspaper, but part of his past. For whom did the china mermaid smile now, he wondered. Nobody seemed terribly friendly today. He reached under the bed. You there? he said.

No answer. No hairy black hand. He rolled over to face Schwarzgang and Redbeard again. Schwarzgang was busy blipping, keeping up with his machinery, had no glance for him. Redbeard nodded, looked away again.

Piggle didn’t come back.

The smell of clean linen, little fresh breezes from the nurse whipping about making the once-Piggle now empty bed. Another nurse with a wheelchair. ‘Can you stand up? she said to Kleinzeit.

‘Not physically,’ he said. The nurse helped him sit up, gave him an earful of freshly laundered bosom as she got him into the chair. Strong girl, smelled good too.

‘What’s all this?’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Dr Pink wants these beds for two new patients,’ said the nurse. ‘We’re moving you to a different part of the ward.’

That’s how it is, thought Kleinzeit. Now that Pink’s not going to operate on me he’s lost interest and I’m to be put away in a dark corner. Here were unknown faces, faces glimpsed only in passing till now. It’s like that point at a cocktail party, thought Kleinzeit, when one gets tired of introducing oneself. At least here we don’t have to stand about with drinks in our hands. He got another earful of bosom, rolled into bed.

Not another one, said the bed.

Sorry, said Kleinzeit. I’ll try not to stay long. ‘What about my blip screen?’ he said to the nurse.

‘Dr Pink said you don’t need it any more,’ she said, breezed away.

From the bed on his left an oxygen mask nodded to him. From the bed on his right a pair of horn-rimmed glasses smiled over the top of
The Oxford Book of English Verse.
That one’s going to be a problem, thought Kleinzeit.

The horn-rimmed glasses focused on him sociably. ‘I’m Arthur Tede,’ they said. ‘Tede but I hope not tedious, ha ha.’

Kleinzeit introduced himself, expressed with his face that he was not up to much conversation.

‘Hospital’s a great place to study character,’ said Tede. ‘I can tell a lot about a chap just by looking. I’d guess you’re a writer. Am I right?’

Kleinzeit half nodded, half shrugged.

‘Poetry?’

‘Little,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘now and then.’

‘I’m very keen on poetry,’ said Tede. ‘I do Burns in Scots dialect.’ He gave Kleinzeit a card:

ARTHUR TEDE COMEDIAN – COMPERE – M.C.POETRY RECITATIONS
(With Piano Accompaniment)

‘My wife does the piano part,’ said Tede. ‘There’s a lot in poetry, “more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” ha ha. During the day I’m an electrical engineer, but at night, you know, poetry.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Kleinzeit. He groaned tactfully to show that although interested he was probably enduring more pain than Tede dreamt of.

‘You’re looking thoughtful,’ said Tede.‘“
Il Penseroso”,
the thoughtful one. Keep smiling is my motto.
“L’ allegro”.
Milton, you know. “Hence loathèd Melancholy, etcetera.”‘

Kleinzeit closed his eyes, nodded.

‘Actually I’m doing that one now,’ said Tede. ‘Memorizing it. I keep adding to my repertoire. Do you mind following in the book while I try it aloud, see if I get it right. I’ve been wanting to do it for several days, but there’s been no one I could ask till now, and one feels foolish reciting poetry alone.’ He gave the book to Kleinzeit. Kleinzeit saw his hands holding it, didn’t know how to let go. Tede was away:

‘Hence loathèd Melancholy

Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born,

In Stygian Cave forlorn

’Mongst horrid shapes, and shreiks, and sights unholy,

Kleinzeit fell asleep, woke up at ‘Orpheus self.’ ‘What’s that?’ he said.

‘What’s what?’ said Tede. ‘Have I got it wrong?’

‘I’ve lost my place,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Page 333, near the bottom,’ said Tede.

Kleinzeit read:

Lap me in soft Lydian Aires,

Married to immortal verse

Such as the meeting soul may pierce

In notes, with many a winding bout

Of linckèd sweetnes long drawn out,

With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,

The melting voice through mazes running;

Untwisting all the chains that ty

The hidden soul of harmony.

That Orpheus self may heave his head

From golden slumber on a bed

Of heapt Elysian flowres, and hear

Such streins as would have won the ear

Of Pluto, to have quite set free

His half regain’d Eurydice.

These delights, if thou canst give,

Mirth with thee, I mean to live.

‘Found it?’ said Tede.

Kleinzeit nodded. Tede began again where he had left off, Kleinzeit tried to shut out the voice so that he could hear the words he was reading. Tede came to the end, his voice stopped. Kleinzeit read the lines again, heard in his mind

the voice of the words alone going from the lapping of the soft Lydian Aires to:

Untwisting all the chains that ty
The hidden soul of harmony.

Inside him he felt a pause, as of an uplifted hand. Then it was as if a fat brush drew with black ink in one perfect sweep a circle, fat and black on yellow paper. Sweet, fresh, clear and simple. His whole organism was strong and sweetly rhythmic with the perfect health of it. Stay that way! he thought, felt it go as he thought it. Gone. Here he was again, sick, heavy, weak, full of 2-Nup, Zonk, Angle-Flex, Fly-Ova, and Lay-By. He began to cry.

‘Moves you, doesn’t it,’ said Tede. ‘Did you notice how I held “halfregain’d” and sort of slid away on “Eurydice”, then a pause to leave it in the air, then “These delights” etcetera; quiet but very up?’

‘I have to be quiet for a while,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Sorry,’ said Tede. ‘Didn’t mean to overtax you.’

‘What is harmony,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘but a fitting together.’ He wasn’t saying it to Tede but he had to say it aloud.

‘That’s an awfully good line,’ said Tede. ‘What’s it from?’

‘Nothing,’ said Kleinzeit, and cried some more.

Evening. Sister not on duty yet. Tede in the TV room. Kleinzeit listened to the words repeating themselves in his mind:

Untwisting all the chains that ty
The hidden soul of harmony.

It’s hidden, right enough, said Kleinzeit.

You still here? said Hospital.

As soon as I can possibly go I will, I promise you, said Kleinzeit.

What’re you waiting for, said Hospital. You’ve remembered yourself, haven’t you.

I suppose I have done, said Kleinzeit. But it came and went so fast.

How long do you expect a moment to last, said Hospital.

But to have only one moment! said Kleinzeit.

Rubbish, said Hospital, and rang up Memory.

Memory here, said Memory.

Hall of Records, please, said Hospital.

Ringing for you now, said Memory. Here they are.

Hall of Records here, said Hall of Records.

The name is Kleinzeit, said Hospital. Could we have a few moments please. A random selection.

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.