‘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 we’re under pressure of one sort or another, and one morning we wake up and suddenly we’re aware of stretto. As we get on, you see, the fugal system has a little more trouble spacing out subject and answer, and if entries come too fast it’s rather like Sunday traffic on the M4. And there you jolly well are with a blocked stretto. Now, the only known function of the stretto being to channel entries, it’s of no use whatever if it’s blocked. You’ll feel a little breathless and as if everything is piling up inside you from behind while at the same time you’re quite unable to move forward to get away from it. Naturally that’s distressing, not to mention the possibility of worse trouble later on. What I say is Do it to stretto before stretto, you know, does it to you.’
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.