Kleinzeit (3 page)

Excuse me, said the moon. I’ll just put the kettle on.

Kleinzeit nodded. The day knocked three times at his eyeballs.

Morning for Mr Kleinzeit, said the day.

I’m Mr Kleinzeit, said Kleinzeit.

Sign here, please.

Kleinzeit signed.

Thank you very much, sir, said the day, and handed him the morning.

Right, said Kleinzeit. The square was wide-awake with people, had a hum of cars around it. Backdrop of buildings, rooftops, sky, traffic noises, world.

Right, said Kleinzeit, and stalked across the road to YARROW.

‘Can I help you?’ said the man behind the counter.

‘I don’t know what I want, really,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Had you a particular instrument in mind?’ said the man. Kleinzeit shook his head.

‘Have a look round,’ said the man. ‘Perhaps it’ll come to you.’

Kleinzeit smiled, nodded. Not a horn, he was sure of that much. He looked at piccolos, flutes, and clarinets. There aren’t enough fingers in the world for all those keys, he thought, let alone the blowing part of the work. He looked at violins, cellos, and basses. At least keys are definite things, he thought. You open a hole or you close it. With strings you could get lost entirely. A glockenspiel came to him.

How do you do, said Kleinzeit.

Don’t be coy, said the glockenspiel. It’s me you’re looking for. £48.50. I’m the real thing, same kind they use in the London Symphony Orchestra.

I don’t know, said Kleinzeit.

All right, said the glockenspiel. £35 without the case. Plain cardboard box. Still the same instrument.

Expensive case, said Kleinzeit.

Professional, said the glockenspiel. Distinctive. How many truncated-triangle-shaped black cases do you see? People think what is it. Not a dulcimer, not a zither, not a machine-gun. Meet girls. They’ll be dying to know what kind of instrument you’ve got.

Tell you something, said Kleinzeit. I can’t even read music.

Look, said the glockenspiel, flaunting its two tiers of silver bars, every note is lettered: G, A, B, C, D, E, F and so forth.

G#, A#, C#, D#, Kleinzeit read on the upper tier. How do you pronounce#?

Sharp, said the glockenspiel.

Kleinzeit picked up one of the two beaters, struck some notes. The glockenspiel made silver sounds that hung quivering in the air, the first ones still resounding as the lata ones were heard. Magical, thought Kleinzeit. Spooky. I could make up tunes, he said, and write down the letters so I could play them again.

There you go, said the glockenspiel. You’re musical. Some are, some aren’t. You are.

‘I’ll have this,’ said Kleinzeit to the man. ‘What is it?’

‘£48.50 with the case,’ said the man. ‘Silly to pay so much for a case. Have it in a cardboard box for £35.’

‘I mean what is
it
?’ said Kleinzeit. ‘The instrument.’

‘Glockenspiel,’ said the man, tilting his head for a better look at Kleinzeit.

Kleinzeit nodded. Glockenspiel. He wrote out the cheque, carried away the glockenspiel in its case. Girls in the square looked at the case, looked at him.

Sister lay in bed on her day off, sleeping in but not asleep. Not dreaming, not awake. Drifting. She heard halting silver notes, saw herself in a corridor in the Underground. I wonder why, she thought. Sometimes it seems as if I am entirely inside the world and can’t get out.

Talk to me, said God.

I believe in one God the Father Almighty, said Sister, Maker of heaven and earth, And of all things visible and invisible: And in one Lord Jesus Christ…

For Christ’s sake,
talk
to me, said God.

Last night, said Sister, when that boy died, the hendiadys case, I wanted to run to Kleinzeit afterwards and hug him, I wanted him to hug me.

How come? said God.

You know, said Sister. You know everything.

No, I don’t, said God. I don’t know anything the way people know it. I am what I am and all that, but I don’t know anything really. Tell me about wanting to hug Kleinzeit.

It’s too tiresome to explain, said Sister. I can’t be bothered to talk all the time. He wasn’t there when I got back to the ward. If he’s run away I don’t like to think about it.

Why not? said God.

You really
don’t
know anything, said Sister. Bath time, she said to her feet. Naked they took her to the tub.

Later, not wearing her Sister uniform but in a tight trouser-suit, she went to the ward. Chokings, gasps, oglings. Kleinzeit was back in his bed by the window at the far end of the row, staring at her down the width of the ward and seeing through her clothes as before. Dr Pink, followed by
two nurses, the day sister, and young resident Doctors Fleshky, Potluck, and Krishna, was just finishing his round at the penumbra case in the last bed in A4.

‘Well, Mr Nox,’ said Dr Pink, ‘you’re looking a good deal brighter than you were the other day

Nox smiled politely. ‘Feeling better, I think,’ he said.

‘Oh yes,’ said Dr Pink, ‘I should think so. Your combustion’s much more regular than it was. We’ll keep you on the same dosage of Flamo and see how it goes.’ The group filed into Sister’s office, followed by Sister.

‘He’s got a history of partial eclipse, that one,’ said Dr Pink. ‘We may have to do another refraction.’ Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna took notes.

‘What about Kleinzeit?’ said Sister. ‘The hypotenuse case.’

‘There’s dedication,’ said Dr Pink. ‘Comes in on her day off, can’t keep away from the job.’

‘What about him?’ said Sister. ‘Kleinzeit. Hypotenuse.’

‘Well, you see what his polarity is,’ said Dr Pink. ‘Could go either way.’

‘Down?’ said Fleshky.

‘Up?’ said Potluck.

‘East?’ said Krishna.

‘West?’ said Sister.

‘Quite,’ said Dr Pink. ‘And bear in mind that when you get this kind of hypotenusis there’ll generally be some kind of bother with the asymptotes as well. We don’t want him to lose axis but at the same time we’ve got to watch his pitch. We’ll run a Bach-Euclid Series on him, see how he tests.’

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.

He went to a cemetery. Old, askant, tall grass growing, worn-out stones. A dead cemetery. I’m not that old, he said, but never mind.

The greyness had stopped, the sunlight was coming down so hard that it was difficult to see anything. The wind seethed in the grass. The letters cut in the stones were black with time, dim with silence, could have spelled any names or none.