Kleinzeit by Russell Hoban
Who? said Kleinzeit.
It’ll come to me, said Word. Or you. Barrow full of rocks and all that.
What about barrow full of rocks? said Kleinzeit.
Quite, said Word.
Over the Side
Morning, very early. Redbeard, bowler-hatted, bedrolled, carrier-bagged, slanting through the corridors of the Underground on the breath of the chill, on the silence of the speaking walls and posters. Very few people about as yet. The lights looking plucky but doomed, the trains looking puffy-eyed, sleep-ridden. With a howling in his head he went from station to station sowing his yellow paper, came back harvesting it, feeling faint and dizzy.
Write it, said the yellow paper.
No, said Redbeard. Nothing. Not a single word.
Write it, said the yellow paper. You think I’m playing games?
I don’t care what you’re doing, said Redbeard.
Write it or I’ll kill you, said the yellow paper. And the story of you will come to an end this morning.
I don’t care, said Redbeard.
I’ll kill you, said the yellow paper. I mean it.
Go ahead, said Redbeard. I don’t care.
All right, said the yellow paper. To the river.
Redbeard took a train to the river.
Out, said the yellow paper. Up to the embankment.
Redbeard got out, went up to the embankment, looked over the parapet. Low tide. Mud. The river withdrawn to its middle channel.
Over the side, said the yellow paper.
Low tide, said Redbeard.
Over the side anyhow, said the yellow paper.
Redbeard took all the yellow paper out of the carrier-bag, flung it out scattering wide, fluttering down to the low-tide mud.
You, not me, yelled the paper. Gulls wheeled over it, rejected it.
Redbeard shook his head, took a bottle of wine out of the other carrier-bag, retired to a bench, assumed a bearded-tramp-with-bottle pose.
This was your last chance, said the paper lying on the mud. No more yellow paper for you.
Redbeard nodded.
What we might have done together! said the paper, its voice growing fainter.
Redbeard shook his head, sighed, leaned back, drank wine.
Stretto
‘You’re doing marvellously well on the 2-Nup,’ said Dr Pink. Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna seemed as pleased as he was. ‘Diapason’s just about normal.’
Here they were together, the curtains drawn around Kleinzeit’s bed, the rest of the world shut out. They’re all on my side really, thought Kleinzeit in his adventurous pyjama bottoms. They’re like a father and three brothers to me. He smiled gratefully, overcome with affection for Drs Pink, Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna. ‘What about the Shackleton-Planck results?’ he said.
‘Hypotenuse not being very cooperative, I’m afraid,’ said Dr Pink. ‘Hypotenuse obstinate, more skewed than ever.’ Fleshky and Potluck shook their heads at the futility of trying to reason with hypotenuse. Krishna shrugged as if he thought hypotenuse might be more skewed against than skewing.
But you’ll talk to hypotenuse, won’t you, said Kleinzeit with his eyes. You’ll make him be nice.
Snap, said Memory. You win another one: the bully with the ugly face who shook his fist at you every day and waited for you after school. Once you fought him but you gave up quickly. Here he is, not lost any more: Folger Bashan, yours again from now on. Folger grimaced, showed his yellow teeth, shook his fist, mouthed silently, I’ll get you after school.
Thank you, said Kleinzeit. I am indeed rich in memories: my father’s funeral, the tomcat I killed, Folger Bashan. There was more, wasn’t there? Something, when was it? The day the fat man, the day M. T. Butts died.
Don’t be greedy, said Memory. You weren’t meant to have that yet.
‘And of course,’ said Dr Pink, ‘with a hyperbolic asymptotic intersection your loss of pitch and the 12 per cent polarity are now accounted for.’ The faces of Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna showed that they were not surprised.
‘And the quanta,’ said Dr Pink. Kleinzeit now saw the quanta as a marching army of soldier ants consuming everything in their path. ‘Where you have asymptotic intersection you can be sure that quanta won’t be far off,’ said Dr Pink. More like those awful hunting dogs that ate wildebeeste alive, thought Kleinzeit. Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna took notes.
‘Yes,’ said Dr Pink. ‘Everything falls into place now, and the stretto blockage is to be expected. If it weren’t blocked at this stage I’d be surprised.’
I may be a coward, thought Kleinzeit, but I’m a man after all and I can’t take this stretto business lying down. He made a feeble stand. ‘Nobody said anything about stretto before this,’ he said. What’s the use, he thought. I myself predicted stretto and I don’t even know where it is or what it does.
No one bothered to answer. Out of common decency they turned away as one man from Kleinzeit’s funk.
‘Right, then,’ said Dr Pink. ‘If you were, say, twenty years older … How old are you?’
‘Forty-five.’ The tomcat came into his mind again. Dead for twenty years.
‘Right,’ said Dr Pink. ‘If you were twenty years older I’d say live with it, you know. Diet and all that. Why get rough with your insides at that age. But as it is I don’t mind coming to grips with the thing sooner if it means we’re in a better position to avoid infinite regress later.’
Sooner, later, thought Kleinzeit. I can feel myself infinitely regressing right now. ‘What thing?’ he said.
‘That’s what I’m coming to,’ said Dr Pink. ‘I’m for making a clean sweep: hypotenuse, asymptotes and stretto out before they do any more acting up. They want to play rough, very well, we’ll play rough.’ Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna showed by the light in their eyes that Dr Pink had the kind of boldness that commanded their respect.
‘Out,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘What do they do? I mean, weren’t they put there for something?’ They’ve been with the organization for forty-five years, he thought. Now all of a sudden it’s Thank you very much and all the best. On the other hand there’s very little doubt they’re out to get me.
‘We don’t know an awful lot about hypotenuse, asymptotes and stretto,’ said Dr Pink. The three younger doctors expressed with one collective look that Dr Pink was a deep one. ‘The hypotenuse of course is the AB connection that keeps your angle right. Subtention. Well and good I say, for as long as you can keep it up. With hypotenuse going twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, you oughtn’t to be surprised if there’s some strain as time goes on. You may experience flashes from A to B as hypotenuse, while maintaining right angle, begins to skew. That’s when I say, you know, Time, gentlemen. Time for hypotenuse to go. Some of my colleagues have pointed out that obtuseness or acuteness invariably follows its removal. My answer is So what. You can jolly well keep your angle right while everything else collapses around it and then where are you.’
Nowhere, said the faces of Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna.
‘Asymptotes,’ said Dr Pink, ‘seem purely vestigial, having no function other than not meeting the curve they continually approach. I don’t hold with that sort of thing. What I say is If you’re not going to meet the curve why bother to approach it. Naturally there’s going to be tension, and some of us tolerate it better than others. If we try to lean away from the tension there’ll be changes in axis and pitch until eventually there’s a double divergence and there you are with asymptotic intersection. That’s when people come to me and say, “My goodness, Doctor, that doesn’t feel good at all, I can’t get any sleep at night.” You can guess what my answer is: no asymptotes, no intersection.’
That certainly follows, said the smiles of the three young resident doctors.
Dr Pink lowered his eyes tactfully, picked up his stethoscope as if he might sing into it, put it down again. ‘The stretto, old man, you know, well, there it is. Perhaps we’re no longer quite in the first flush of youth and
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.
Now Playing
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
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.