Kleinzeit checked the monitor, saw that it was plugged in. ‘It’s the pump,’ said Sister. The pump was humming but not going. The back of it was hot. Kleinzeit slid off the back plate, found a wheel, a broken belt. He turned the wheel by hand. Blip, blip, blip, blip, went Schwarzgang.
‘Pull out the plug,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘before something burns out.’
Sister pulled out the plug. One of the nurses rang up for a new belt. Kleinzeit turned the wheel. Blip, blip, blip, blip, went Schwarzgang a little faster than before. He had just awakened.
‘Tea already?’ said Schwarzgang.
‘Not yet,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Get some sleep.’
‘Doing?’ said Schwarzgang.
‘Nurse spilled something on your pump,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Wiping it up.’
Schwarzgang sighed. The blips slowed down again.
‘They’re looking for the key to the spare parts locker,’ said Sister. ‘Shouldn’t be long.’
Schwarzgang was choking. ‘The drip thing stopped,’ said Kleinzeit. Sister jiggled the tube, took off a clogged fitting, held two tubes together, bound them with tape, sent a nurse for a new fitting. Schwarzgang stopped choking. The blips picked up again. The wheel grew harder to turn, the burbling of the filter stopped. ‘Filter,’ said Kleinzeit as the blips slowed down again. Sister took out the filter, put gauze over the frame. The nurse came back with the new fitting.
‘Filter,’ said Sister as she installed the fitting.
‘They’ve gone to the annexe for a belt,’ said the nurse, and went off to get the filter.
‘I can turn it for a while,’ said Sister.
‘It’s all right,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I’ll do it.’
Blip, blip, blip, blip, went Schwarzgang, slow and steady.
The nurse came back with the new filter, installed it.
Sister sat by the bed looking at Kleinzeit. Kleinzeit turned the wheel looking at Sister. Nobody said anything.
A memory came to Kleinzeit. From fifteen, twenty years ago. Married. First flat, basement. Hot summer, windows open all the time. Every day a big battered tomcat came in and peed on the bed. One evening Kleinzeit killed him, trapped him behind a chest and smothered him with a pillow. He took the corpse to the river in a pillowslip, dumped it in.
The sky was growing light. Mario Cavaradossi paced the battlements of the Castel Sant’ Angelo, sang E lucevan le stelle. Kleinzeit wept.
‘Here’s the belt,’ said Sister, fitted it to the wheels while Kleinzeit turned. Sister plugged in the pump. The regular sounds of Schwarzgang’s machinery resumed. Kleinzeit looked at his hand, smiled.
Blip, blip, blip, blip, went Schwarzgang.
Hat
The black howled in the tunnels, the tracks fled crying before the trains. Whatever lived walking upside-down in the concrete put its paws against the feet of the people standing on the platform, its cold soft paws. One, two, three, four, walking softly in the chill silence upside-down with great soft cold paws. Underground said words to itself, names. No one listened. Footsteps covered the words, the names.
Sister in the Underground, walking about in corridors. Approached at varying intervals by three middle-aged men and two young ones she declined all offers. There used to be more young ones, she thought. I’m getting on. Soon be thirty.
The red-bearded man came along, took a bowler hat out of one of his carrier-bags, offered it to her with the brim uppermost. Passers-by looked at him, looked at Sister.
‘Magic hat,’ said Redbeard. ‘Hold it in your hand like this and count to a hundred.’
Sister held the hat, counted. Redbeard took a mouth organ out of his pocket, played The Irish Rover. When Sister reached ninety-three a man dropped iop in the hat.
‘Stop that,’ said Sister to Redbeard. 5p more dropped in.
Redbeard put the mouth organ back in his pocket. ‘15p already,’ he said. ‘I could make a fortune with you.’
‘You’ll have to make it without me,’ said Sister, handing him the hat.
Redbeard took it in his hands but did not put it back in the carrier-bag. ‘It blew my way on a windy day in the City,’ he said. ‘Expensive hat, as new. From Destiny, from Dame Fortune. A money hat.’ He shook it, made the 15p clink. ‘It wants to be held by you.’
‘But I don’t want to hold it.’
Redbeard let his eyes become like the eyes of a doll’s head on a wintry beach. ‘You don’t know,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘You don’t know.’
‘What don’t I know?’
‘Morrows cruel mock.’
‘I suppose they do. But they always have done, and people go on living,’ said Sister.
‘Cruel,’ said Redbeard. His eyes looked their ordinary way, he put the 15p in his pocket, the hat on his head. ‘Ridiculous,’ he said, lifted the hat to Sister, walked away.
Sister walked the other way, took a train on the northbound platform.
As she came out of the Underground and was walking towards the hospital she passed a building under construction. There was a little shack against which leaned tripods of iron pipes and blue and white signs with arrows pointing in various directions. Red bullseye lanterns huddled like owls. A shining helmet lay on the pavement.
Sister kicked the helmet without looking at it particularly. She kicked it again, noticed it. What’s a shining helmet doing all by itself in the middle of the pavement? said Sister. She picked it up, put it under her arm, looked round, heard no shouts. Some days it’s nothing but hats, she said, went on to the hospital with the helmet under her arm.
Shackleton-Planck
An intolerably calm placid smiling cheap vulgar insensitive neo-classical blue sky. Sappho! boomed the sky. Homer! Stout Cortes! Nelson! Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! David! Napoleon! Francis Drake! Industry! Science! Isaac Newton! Man’s days are few and full of sorrow. Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?
Rubbish, said Kleinzeit. Rubbish rubbish rubbish.
Depends on your point of view, said the sky. As far as I know I’m eternal. You’re nothing really.
Poxy fat idiot sky, said Kleinzeit, took his 2-Nup tablets, ate his medium-boiled egg.
A CALL FOR YOU, said his mind. WE HAVE PLEASURE IN ANNOUNCING THAT YOU ARE THE WINNER OF:
FIRST PRIZE,
A HANDSOMELY MOUNTED FULL–COLOUR
MEMORY.
STAND BY PLEASE. WE ARE READY WITH YOUR PARTY AT THIS END, MEMORY.
Hello, said Memory. Mr Kleinzeit?
Kleinzeit here, said Kleinzeit.
Here is your memory, said Memory: Blue, blue, blue sky. Green grass. Green, green, green. Green leaves stirring in the breeze. Your blue serge suit prickles, your starched white collar rubs your neck. Raw earth around the grave of your father. Flashback: he doesn’t look asleep, he looks dead. Smell the flowers. Got it?
Got it, said Kleinzeit.
Right, said Memory. Congratulations. Second Prize was two memories.
I always knew I was lucky, said Kleinzeit, finished his medium-boiled egg.
Hurrah! The X-Ray room Juno, boobs bobbling, bottom bouncing, young blood circulating perfectly, not missing a single curve.
Hurrah! Shackleton-Planck for Mr Kleinzeit. Here he goes, anus quivering.
‘Luck,’ said Schwarzgang.
‘Keep blipping,’ said Kleinzeit.
The hard cold machinery room again. ‘Up your nose, down your tummy,’ said Juno. A tube writhed in her hands like a snake.
‘Aarghh!’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Ugg-ggg-hh!’
‘Quick,’ said Juno, putting ice in his mouth, ‘chew it.’
‘Crungg-ggg-hhh!’ chewed Kleinzeit as the tube snaked into his stomach. ‘Cor!’