‘Shall we go to my place?’ said Sister.
Kleinzeit nodded, stood up, knocked over his coffee cup, knocked over his chair, picked up the chair, hit his head on the table as he straightened up, grabbed his glockenspiel, knocked over the chair again. Sister steered him to the door.
In the train they held hands, rubbed knees. KLEINZEIT WINS, said all the headlines on everybody’s newspapers. He averted his eyes modestly, gripped Sister’s thigh. Going up out of the Underground on the escalator he looked at the girls in the underwear posters with easy indifference, mentally dressed those who did not meet his standards.
Sister’s place. Kleinzeit sighed as time expanded. Books, yes. Records, yes. Poster from the Tate: Caspar David Friedrich, 1774-1840. Dark ships, sad sunset sky, figures in the foreground. Chinese kite. Sacred Heart, yes, there it was. Small brass Shiva Nataraja, Lord of the Dance. Indian print bedspread. Krishna’s beautiful dark face flashed into Kleinzeit’s mind. Turkoman cushions. A velvet elephant, floral pattern. A woollen rabbit. Photo of Sister with two nurses in front of the hospital. Photo of Sister with parents. Old round clock with a pendulum inside the case, stopped.
Sister lit the gas fire, lit incense, put on a Mozart quartet. Sacred Heart and Mozart, well there they were. Sacred Heart kept quiet. ‘Gin or whisky?’ said Sister.
‘Whisky, please,’ said Kleinzeit. He walked to the window. The sky, as before, was grey, the chimney pots patient. ‘I wish it would rain,’ he said.
Rain started.
‘Thank you,’ said Kleinzeit. The gas fire purred. He lifted the bedspread, the blankets. Flowered sheets and pillowslips, fresh and new, never used before. Sister brought his drink, bent her neck as Kleinzeit stroked it. Kleinzeit put down his drink. It’ll be weeks before I can actually take this in, he thought. It’s more than I can believe.
Sister by owl-light, Sister zipping out of the tight trouser-suit, stepping out of her knickers in the glow of the gas fire. Sister pearly in the dusk, silky on the flowered sheets, tasty in the mouth, opulent to the touch, Kleinzeit, overwhelmed, became nothing, disappeared, reappeared, from nowhere entered, inventing himself as theme, as subject. Answered by Sister he sounded deep chill, silence, all beneath him, raised Atlantis, golden domes and oriental carpets, central heating, dates and pomegranates, mottled sunlight, stereo. Far below them Underground said, Are you Orpheus?
No question about it, said Kleinzeit, in time extending infinitely forward, backward. Who else could be this harmonious, this profound?
Easy by the gas fire, easy on the flowered sheets, said Underground. On Sister very easy.
Easy easy easy, Kleinzeit answered.
Not so easy later maybe, Underground said. Try you later, see if you remember.
I’ll remember, Kleinzeit said. How could I ah, how could I uh …
Forget, said Underground.
Ah yes, said Kleinzeit, lost in domes and pomegranates, sunlight in Atlantis, deaf to distant Hospital that roared and bellowed like a minotaur. They slept, awoke, hugged each other. The record player was silent, watching with one red eye.
Sister put on Ein feste Burg ist unset Gott, they smoked by the light of the gas fire. Sister darned one of Kleinzeit’s socks. Kleinzeit opened the case of the clock, released the overwound spring, set the clock going again, went out, bought champagne. Sister made scrambled eggs, left to go on duty at the hospital.
Kleinzeit stayed at Sister’s place. What were my memories? he said. Tomcat, funeral, Folger Bashan. Was there anything else?
Here, said Memory, and vomited. Now clean it up like everyone else, said Memory. You’re no better than anyone else. You have a whole life.
Late Coffee
I didn’t know when I was well off, said Kleinzeit alone at Sister’s place. O God, the detail of it all, the overwhelming weight of the detail of a life remembered.
I can’t be bothered with details, said God. I’ve told you that before. Kleinzeit didn’t hear him.
O God, said Kleinzeit. I was born, I had a mother and a father and a brother, I lived in a house, I had a childhood, I was educated, did military service, got married, had a daughter and a son, bought a house, got divorced, found a flat, lost my job, here I am. Is this a record?
If it is I wish you’d stop playing it, said God. Kleinzeit still didn’t hear him.
Memories are bad enough, said Kleinzeit. I also have insurance policies, a lease, birth, marriage, and divorce certificates, a will, passport, driver’s license, cheque account and savings account, bills paid and unpaid, letters unanswered, books, records, tables, chairs, paperclips, desk, typewriter, aquarium, shaving cream, toothpaste, soap, tape recorder, clocks, razor, gramophone, clothes, shoe polish. I have neckties I’ll never wear again.
Excuse me, said God. I’ve got the whole wide world in my hand and I’d like to put it down for a while.
The telephone rang. Kleinzeit answered.
‘Kleinzeit?’ said a voice.
‘Yes,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Who’s this?’
‘Krishna. Are you hiding out?’
‘I don’t know. I’m thinking things over.’
‘Good luck.’
‘Thank you. Any message for Sister?’
‘No, I was calling you. Cheerio.’ Krishna rang off.
Why should he call me just to say good luck? thought Kleinzeit. He looked at Shiva Nataraja. Two right hands, two left. The upper right hand held an hourglass-shaped drum, the upper left held a flame. The other right and left hands made gestures. Shiva was dancing on a prostrate little crushed-looking demon. Kleinzeit consulted a book on Indian sculpture that lay nearby, found a picture of a Shiva like the one before him. ‘The lower right hand is in the Abhaya position, signifying “Fear not.” ’ said the book. Very good, said Kleinzeit. Fear not. What about it? he said to Shiva.
There’s nothing to be afraid of, said Shiva.
Right, said Kleinzeit. Nothing’s what I am afraid of, and there’s more nothing every day.
Whatever is form, that is emptiness, said Shiva. Whatever is emptiness, that is form.
Don’t come the heavy Indian mystic with me, said Kleinzeit. ‘Creation arises from the drum,’ he read. Or glockenspiel, I would have thought, he said. ‘From the fire proceeds destruction.’ Well, there you are: smoking. ‘From the planted foot illusion; the upraised foot bestows salvation.’ Ah, said Kleinzeit, how to get both feet off the ground, eh?
Try it with one for a starter, said Shiva. The whole thing is to feel the dance going through you, let it get moving, you know. Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, all-hail!
Quite, said Kleinzeit. He tried to get into the position Shiva was in. His legs felt weak.
Look here, said God, are you mucking about with strange gods? For the first time Kleinzeit heard him.
Make me a better offer, said Kleinzeit.
I’ll think about it, said God.
You know about the Shackleton-Planck results? said Kleinzeit.
Tell me, said God.
Kleinzeit told him.
Right, said God. Leave it with me. I’ll get back to you later.
You know where to reach me? said Kleinzeit.
I have your number, said God, and rang off.
Sister would be gone until morning. Kleinzeit looked at the trouser-suit hanging over a chair, picked up the trousers, kissed them, went out.
He went into the Underground, took a train to a bridge, walked across it, saw a little old ferret-faced man playing a mouth organ, gave him 10p. ‘God bless you, guv,’ said the little old man.
Kleinzeit turned around, walked back. The little old man thrust his cap towards him again.
‘I gave,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I’m the same man who just passed you going the other way.’
The little old man shook his head, scowled.
‘All right,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Maybe it never happened.’ He gave him another 10p.
‘God bless you again, guv,’ said the little old man.
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Kleinzeit went into the Underground again, rode to the station where he had last seen Redbeard. He walked back and forth through the corridors for a long time without seeing him, looked for new messages on the tiled walls, read ALL THINGS NO GOOD, thought about it, read elsewhere: EUROPE NO GOOD ONLY TOP ¼ OF FINLAND AND TOP HALF SEA COAST NORWAY, thought about it. On a film poster a famous prime minister, shown as a youthful army officer, pistol in hand, glared about him, said in handwriting, I must kill someone, even British workers will do. KILL WOG SHIT, answered the wall. Kleinzeit finally found Redbeard sitting on a bench on the northbound platform with his bedroll and carrier-bags, sat down beside him.
‘What do you think about the top quarter of Finland?’ said Kleinzeit.
Redbeard shook his head. ‘I don’t care about current events, I don’t read the papers or anything.’ He held up a key. ‘They changed the lock.’
‘Who?’ said Kleinzeit. ‘What lock?’
‘STAFF ONLY,’ said Redbeard. ‘I’ve been dossing there all year. Now it’s locked. I can’t open the door.’
Kleinzeit shook his head.
‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ said Redbeard. ‘As long as I kept doing what the yellow paper wanted I could unlock that door. I had a place to lay my head, make a cup of tea. No more yellow paper, no more door.’
‘Where’d you get the key?’ said Kleinzeit.
‘From the last yellow-paper man.’
‘What do you mean, “the last yellow-paper man”?’
‘Thin bloke, looked as if he might go up in flames at any moment. Don’t know what his name was. Used to go busking with a zither. Yellow paper got to be too much for him, same as it did for me. Don’t know what’s happened to him since.’
‘What was he doing with the yellow paper? What were you doing with it?’
‘Curiosity’ll kill you.’
‘If not that, something else,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘What were you doing?’
Redbeard looked cold, shaky, scared, hugged himself. ‘Well, it wants something, doesn’t it. I mean yellow paper isn’t like trees or stones, minding its own business, is it. It’s active, eh? It wants something.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Kleinzeit, feeling cold and shaky, feeling the deep chill and the silence, the cold paws against his feet.
Redbeard looked at him, eyes blue and blank like the eyes of a lost doll’s head rotting on a beach. The rails cried out wincing, stinging, a train roared up, opened its doors, shut its doors, pulled out. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Rubbish. Wasn’t it you that told me it made you write a barrow full of rocks and you got sacked?’
‘All right then, what does it want?’ said Kleinzeit with fear in his bowels. What was there, for heaven’s sake, to be afraid of.
Nothing at all, said a black hairy voice from somewhere. Hoo hoo. The pain opened in Kleinzeit like wondrous carven doors. Lovely, he thought, looked beyond the doors. Nothing.
‘It wants something,’ said Redbeard. ‘You write a word on it, two words, a line, two, three lines. Where are you. The words aren’t …’ He trailed off.
‘Aren’t what?’
‘What’s wanted. Aren’t bloody what’s wanted.’
Like lightning Kleinzeit thought, Maybe not your words. Maybe somebody else’s.
‘What is there to do with paper?’ said Redbeard. ‘Write, draw, wipe your ass, wrap a parcel, tear it up. I tried drawing, that wasn’t it. Right, I said to the paper, I’ll let you find the words, let you get out in the world a bit, see what you come back with. So I started dropping it around. Surprising how few people step on a sheet of paper that’s lying on the ground. Mostly they’ll walk around it, sometimes they’ll pick it up. The paper began to talk to me a little, rubbish as far as I could make out, nasty little short sentences I wrote down. Then it tried to kill me but it was low tide and I bloody wasn’t going to walk half a mile through mud to drown myself.’ He laughed feebly, not much more than a wheeze.
‘Where’d the other yellow-paper man get the key he gave you?’ said Kleinzeit.
‘Don’t know,’ said Redbeard, hugging himself, making himself small. ‘I’m scared.’
‘What of?’
‘Everything.’
‘Come on,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘I’ll buy you coffee and fruity buns.’
Redbeard followed him up to the street still looking small. ‘No fruity buns, thanks,’ he said at the coffee shop. ‘No appetite.’ He looked nervously about while he drank his coffee. ‘The lights in here don’t seem bright enough,’ he said. ‘And the street’s so dark. Nights usually look brighter than this with the street lights on and all.’
‘Some nights are darker than others,’ said Kleinzeit.
Redbeard nodded, hunched his shoulders, huddling away from the night outside the window.
‘You live on straight busking?’ said Kleinzeit.
Redbeard nodded. ‘Mostly,’ he said. ‘Plus I nick a few groceries and the odd thing here and there. Keep going, you know.’ He nodded several times more, shook his head, shrugged.
‘The yellow paper,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘is it a special kind? Where do you get it?’
‘Ryman. 64 mill hard-sized thick din A4. Duplicator paper, it says on the wrapper. Best leave it alone, you know. It’s nothing to muck about with.’
‘Lots of people must do, though,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘People in offices. If it’s duplicator paper it’s being used all the time to duplicate things, I should think.’
‘Duplicating!’ said Redbeard. ‘No danger in that. Listen, I want to tell you about it …’
‘No,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘you mustn’t.’ He hadn’t expected to say that. For a moment the lights didn’t seem bright enough to him either. ‘I don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter, doesn’t make any difference.’
‘Please yourself,’ said Redbeard. He turned to look out of the window again. ‘Where am I going to sleep tonight?’ he said. ‘I’m not used to sleeping rough any more.’
Kleinzeit almost broke down and cried, he was suddenly so full of pity for Redbeard. He could see that he was afraid even to go out into the street, let alone sleep out of doors. ‘My place,’ he heard himself say. Strange that he hadn’t thought of it lately, hadn’t gone there in his excursions from the hospital. His flat. Clothes on hangers, things in drawers. Shoe polish, soap, towels. Silent radio. Things growing quietly bearded in the fridge and no one to open the door and make the light go on. Good job there were no fish in the aquarium, only a china mermaid. He heard the click of a key on the table top, saw his hand putting the key there, heard himself tell the address. ‘Drop the key through the letter box when you go,’ he said. ‘I’ve a spare one in my pocket.’
‘Thank you,’ said Redbeard.
Kleinzeit was thinking about his aquarium, the waving of the plants and the shimmer of the green sea-light on the stones when the bulb was lit, the steady hum and burble of the pump and filter system, the blank mysterious smile of the voluptuous china mermaid. He had set it up soon after getting the flat but had never got round to putting fish in it. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said, noticed that he was speaking to an empty chair. What have I done? he thought. He’ll steal everything in the place. He doesn’t know I’m at Hospital. Will he stay more than one night?
He went out into the street. It was too dark, ought to have been lighter. There’s less of everything, he thought. There’s a constant reduction going on. As he walked he looked down at steel plates of various sizes and patterns let into the pavement, quietly reflecting the blue light of the street lamps. North Thames Gas Board. Post Office Telephones. There was none that said Kleinzeit.
He went into the Underground, back to Sister’s place, proudly unlocked the door with the key she had given him, lit the gas fire, sighed with comfort. The bathroom smelled like naked Sister. When he looked in the mirror Hypotenectomy, Asymptoctomy, Strettoctomy moved in between him and his face. O God, he said.
God here, said God. Please notice that it wasn’t Shiva that answered.
About what? said God.
You know, said Kleinzeit. All this at the hospital. The operation.
Right, said God. Dichotomy, was it? I’m sorry, I seem to have forgotten your name.
Kleinzeit, said Kleinzeit. Hypotenectomy, Asymptoctomy, Strettoctomy.
My word, said God. That’ll take a lot out of you, won’t it.
Is that all you’ve got to say? said Kleinzeit.
Well, Krankheit, old chap …
Kleinzeit, said Kleinzeit.
Quite. Kleinzeit. It’s your show of course, but if I were you I’d simply not bother with it.
Not go ahead with the operation, you mean?
Precisely.
But what if I have more pains and things?
Oh, I should think you’ll have those in any case, with or without surgery. It’s a gradual falling-apart process, one way or another. Entropy and all that. Nobody lives forever, you know, not even Me. What you need is an interest. Find yourself a girlfriend.
I have done, said Kleinzeit.
That’s the ticket. Take up the glockenspiel.
I’ve done that too.
Well then, said God. There you are. Give the yellow paper a whirl. Let me know how it goes, Klemmreich, will you.
Kleinzeit, said Kleinzeit.
Of course, said God. Don’t hesitate to call if I can help in any way.
Kleinzeit looked up at the bathroom light. Must be a 10-watt bulb, I swear, he said, brushed his teeth with Sister’s toothbrush, went to bed.
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