Suction. Juno pumped something up the tube. Took the tube out.
‘Swallow this.’ Something the size of a football. Ulp.
‘Elbows back, stomach out.’ Thump. Click.
‘Take off your pyjama top, please.’ Electrodes. Here, here, here, here, and here. Respirator. Treadmill. Gauges. Roll of paper with a stylus. ‘Run till I tell you to stop.’
‘I rummilenahalf evmorng,’ said Kleinzeit inside the respirator.
‘Lovely,’ said Juno. ‘Keep going like that. Stop. Clothes on. Thank you.’
‘My pleasure,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘Dit go?’ said Schwarzgang when Kleinzeit got back to the ward.
‘Beautifully,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Nothing like a Shackleton-Planck to start the day off right.’
Blip, went Schwarzgang. Kleinzeit had the back plate off the pump before he heard what Schwarzgang was saying.
‘Plug,’ said Schwarzgang. The cleaning lady had just knocked out the monitor plug with her mop. Kleinzeit plugged the monitor in again. Blip, blip, blip, blip.
‘So nervous?’ said Schwarzgang.
‘I’ve always been high-strung,’ said Kleinzeit.
He slept for a while after lunch, woke up with his heart beating fast, was careful not to remember his dreams. He picked up Ortega y Gasset, read:
If we examine more closely our ordinary notion of reality, perhaps we should find that we do not consider real what actually happens but a certain manner of happening that is familiar to us. In this vague sense, then, the real is not so much what is seen as foreseen; not so much what we see as what we know. When a series of events takes an unforeseen turn, we say that it seems incredible.
I haven’t got a foreseen any more, said Kleinzeit to Ortega. Psychical circumcision.
You’re better off without it, said Ortega. As long as you have your cojones.
Kleinzeit put down the book, concentrated on sexual fantasies. Juno and he. Sister and he. Juno and Sister. He and Juno and Sister. Juno and Sister and he. Tiring. Sex isn’t where it is right now, said Sex.
Kleinzeit took his glockenspiel to the bathroom, made music for a while. I don’t really feel like doing this, he said to the glockenspiel.
Believe me, said the glockenspiel, you were not my last chance. I could have had my pick. You are not doing me a favour.
Kleinzeit put the glockenspiel back in its case, put it under his bed.
Urngghh! said Hospital like a giant sweaty wrestler, squeezed Kleinzeit between its giant legs. Kleinzeit in agony thumped the canvas with his fist while his ribs cracked.
Supper came, went. Sister came on duty. She and Kleinzeit looked at each other. Aeroplanes flew across the evening sky. I didn’t mean what I said this morning, said the sky. I don’t think I’m eternal. We’re all in this together.
It’s all right, said Kleinzeit.
After lights out he took the glockenspiel to the bathroom, slowly played a tune with one beater. Sister came in with the helmet, laid it on the glockenspiel. Kleinzeit stood up and kissed her. They both sat down, looked at the glockenspiel and the helmet.
‘Shackleton-Planck results tomorrow?’ said Kleinzeit.
Sister nodded.
‘There’ll be quanta,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Plus stretto trouble at the very least’
Sister squeezed his knee.
‘Meet me tomorrow afternoon?’ said Kleinzeit.
Sister nodded.
‘At the bottom of the fire stairs,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Right after lunch.’ They kissed again, went back to the ward.
Firkin? Pipkin?
Kleinzeit was between sleeping and waking when he became aware of Word for the first time. There was a continual unfolding in his mind, and the unfolding, continually unfolding, allowed itself to be known as Word.
Doré was the one, said Word. Who since him has had a range like that! Don Quixote is the best thing he ever wrote, but the Bible is a strong contender, and of course Auntie’s Inferno.
Dante’s, not Auntie’s, said Kleinzeit. Doré didn’t write. He was an illustrator.
Of course, said Word. It’s been so long since I’ve had a really intellectual discussion. It’s that other chap who wrote the Bible. Firkin? Pipkin? Pilkin? Wilkins.
Milton, you mean? said Kleinzeit.
That’s it, said Word. Milton. They don’t write like that any more. As it were the crack of leather on willow. A well-bowled thought, you know, meeting a well-swung sentence. No, the pitches aren’t green the way they were, the whites don’t take the light the same way. It mostly isn’t writing now, it’s just spelling.
It wasn’t Milton wrote the Bible, said Kleinzeit.
Don’t come the heavy pedant with me, said Word. Don’t make a fetish of knowing who said what, it doesn’t matter all that much. I have seen minds topple like tall trees. I have heard the winds of ages sighing in the silence. What was I going to say? Yes. Get Hospital to tell you about what’s-hisname.
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.