Kleinzeit

by Russell Hoban

  In the morning Sister got into bed, shoved her cold bare bottom at him.

  Right, thought Kleinzeit. I don’t care if God forgets my name.

  Ponce

  Kleinzeit went to the hospital, emptied his locker, packed his things.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ said the day sister.

  ‘Out,’ said Kleinzeit.

  ‘Where’re you going now?’

  ‘Out again.’

  ‘When’re you coming back?’

  ‘Not coming back.’

  ‘Who said you could leave?’

  ‘God.’

  ‘Be careful how you talk,’ said the sister. ‘There’s a Mental Health Act, you know.’

  ‘There’s a Church of England too,’ said Kleinzeit.

  ‘What about Dr Pink?’ said the sister. ‘Has he said anything about discharging you? You’re scheduled for surgery, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t said anything,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Yes, I’m scheduled.’

  ‘You’ll have to sign this form then,’ said the sister. ‘Discharging yourself against advice.’

  Kleinzeit signed, discharged himself against advice. He said goodbye to everybody, shook hands with Schwarzgang.

  ‘Luck,’ said Schwarzgang.

  ‘Keep blipping,’ said Kleinzeit.

  When he walked down the stairs his legs trembled. Hospital said nothing, hummed a tune, affected not to notice. Kleinzeit had the half-sick feeling he remembered from playing truant as a child. At school the other children were in the place where they were meant to be, safely encapsulated in their schedule, not alone like him under the eye of whatever might be looking down. The sunlight in the street was scary. Behind him Hospital preserved its silence, stretched out neither hand nor paw. Kleinzeit had nothing to hold on to but his fear.

  It’s not as if everything’s all right, he said to God. It’s not as if I’ve had the operation and now my troubles are over.

  And if you’d had the operation would your troubles be over? said God. Would everything be all right? Would you live forever in good health then?

  You’re too permissive, said Kleinzeit. It scares me. I don’t think you care all that much about what happens to me.

  Don’t expect me to be human, said God.

  Kleinzeit leaned on his fear, hobbled into the black sunlight with trembling legs, found an entrance to the Underground, descended. Underground seemed the country of the dead, not enough trains, not enough people in the trains, not enough noise, too many empty spaces. Life was like a television screen with the sound turned off. His train zoomed up in perfect silence, he got in. In the empty spaces his wife and children spoke, sang, laughed without sound, the tomcat shook his fist, Folger Bashan was smothered with a pillow, his father stood with him at the edge of a grave and watched the burial of trees and grass and blue, blue sky. The train could take him to the places but not the times. Kleinzeit didn’t want to get out of the train, there was no time there, nothing had to be decided. He dropped his mind like a bucket into the well of Sister. There was a hole in the bucket, it came up empty. He still had a month’s notice to work out at the office, he remembered suddenly. A month’s pay. He’d not even rung up to say he was at hospital. A boy and girl entered the train, wrapped their arms around each other, kissed. They have no troubles, thought Kleinzeit. They’re healthy, they’re young, they’ll be alive long after I’m dead.

  I could save myself a lot of pain if I stopped living now. It’s too hard. And yet, look at the Spartans, eh? Sat on the rocks and combed their hair at Thermopylae. Look at birds, look at green turtles, crossing thousands of miles of ocean and finding the right place to lay their eggs. Look at that chap, whatever his name was, who wrote a 50,000-word novel without using the letter e. Kleinzeit thought about green turtles again, shook his head in admiration.

  He got out of the train, went to WAY OUT, escalated. The girls on the underwear posters challenged with thighs, navels, bared their teeth, stared with their nipples through transparent fabrics, murmured with their eyes. Not today, said Kleinzeit. He kept his mind on green turtles, thought also about albatrosses.

  ‘5p more, luv,’ said the lady at the ticket-taking booth. ‘Fare’s gone up.’ That’s life, Kleinzeit noted. Yesterday it cost so much to get from here to there, today it costs more. Just like that. Who knows what it’ll cost me to wake up tomorrow.

  He went to a Ryman stationer, found the yellow paper. 64 mill hard-sized thick din. Wrapped in heavy brown paper. Solid blocks of it on the shelf, each one humming quietly to itself, unknown, unseen under the heavy brown paper. Kleinzeit walked away, looked at typewriter ribbons, file folders, coloured binders, bulldog clips, postage scales, came back, bought a ream of yellow paper and six Japanese pens, tried to look unconcerned.

  He went to Sister’s place, made love with Sister. After lunch they went into the Underground with the glockenspiel. Kleinzeit developed a green turtle theme. By supper time they had £2.43.

  ‘That’s only half a day,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Working a full day we could probably average between three and four pounds. Six days a week that’s eighteen to twenty-four pounds.’ The ‘we’ walked out of his mouth like a baby chick, wandered off across the corridor, pecked aimlessly at the floor, cheeped a little. Both of them looked at it.

  Oh, aye, said Underground. Ponce.

  What do you mean? said Kleinzeit.

  What do I mean, mimicked Underground. Do you think you’d have taken in anything like £2.43 alone? They look at her and they give money. Why not let them do more than look, they’ll give more money. Ponce. Do you think Eurydice passed the hat when Orpheus went busking?

  ‘I was making £6,500 a year!’ said Kleinzeit.

  A little old ferret-faced man went past. Was it the one who’d played the mouth organ on the bridge? He said nothing, shaped a word with his mouth.

  What’d he say? said Kleinzeit.

  Ponce, said Underground.

  Kleinzeit put the glockenspiel in its case, hurried Sister back to her room, picked up the brown-wrapped block of yellow paper, sat there holding it.

  I guess I have to do it alone, he didn’t say.

  I guess you do, she didn’t say. Remember?

  Remember what? he didn’t say.

  I don’t know, she didn’t say.

  Plain Deal

  I exist, said the bathroom mirror as it looked into Redbeard’s face. There is world again. The face came and went. Lights went on and off. Sounds, voices. Life, said the mirror. Action. Silence again.

  A key turned in the lock. Lights, footsteps coming into the sitting-room, Kleinzeit’s voice. ‘Jesus’ he said.

  There was nothing in the room but a table and a chair. A plain deal table and plain kitchen chair. He’d never seen either of them before. On the table a note. Small cramped writing on white paper:

  Believe me it was a lot of trouble but I did it for you.

  RED

  Kleinzeit went into the bedroom. No bed. The mattress and bedding were on the floor. He opened the wardrobe. His winter coat, nothing else.

  He went into the kitchen. Two plates, bowls, cups, saucers. Two knives, forks, teaspoons, tablespoons. Saucepan, frying pan, kettle, coffee-pot. Spatula, bread knife, carving knife, can opener. Bread in the larder, coffee, tea, salt, pepper, sugar, cooking oil. Nothing else. No old cans of paint on the bottom shelf, no paintbrushes stuck to the bottoms of jam jars. No vases. No paint-encrusted brass screws in a Golden Virginia tobacco tin. Cooker. Fridge. In the fridge a pint of milk, fresh. Most of a pound of butter. Five eggs. Kleinzeit looked in the larder again. No jam.

  No tape recorder, no typewriter, no passport, no radio, no gramophone, no paperclips, no insurance policies, no shoe polish. No bookshelves, no books. Kleinzeit’s library now consisted of the Ortega y Gasset and the Penguin Thucydides he’d brought back from the hospital. He’d read the Ortega, it didn’t seem to belong in a two-book library. He went down the hall, left it outside the door of the lady who taught e
locution and piano. He took Thucydides into the bathroom, held it up to the mirror. , read the mirror. Hot stuff, it said.

  Back to the living room. No records. He sang the opening of Die Winterreise, imagined it played on the glockenspiel. No good.

  Suddenly he missed the aquarium most, the green sea-light shimmering on the stones, the blank mysterious smile of the voluptuous china mermaid. Half a sob in his throat for the mermaid.

  There was an ashtray on the plain deal table. At least he doesn’t want me to stop smoking, Kleinzeit thought. He picked up the telephone from the floor, dialled 123, was told that at the third stroke it would be 7.23 and forty seconds, set his watch.

  He put the wrapped yellow paper on the plain deal table, sat down on the plain kitchen chair. No lamp. There was a drawer in the table. Kleinzeit opened it, found six candles and a box of matches. He stuck a candle on a saucer, lit it, turned off the overhead light, lit a cigarette, closed his eyes, riffled the pages of The Peloponnesian War, put his finger on a page, opened his eyes, read:

  This alliance was made soon after the peace treaty. The Athenians gave back to the Spartans the men captured on the island, and the summer of the eleventh year began. This completes the account of the first war, which went on without intermission for the ten years before this date.

  Well, it’s not the I Ching, said Kleinzeit.

  You do your job, I’ll do mine, said Thucydides.

  Kleinzeit unwrapped the yellow paper. It stared at him like a giant squid. He covered it up again, closed his eyes, riffled Thucydides, opened his eyes, read:

  ‘Soldiers, all of us are together in this, and I do not want any of you in our present awkward position to try to show off his intelligence by making a precise calculation of the dangers which surround us; instead we must simply make straight at the enemy, and not pause to discuss the matter, confident in our hearts that these dangers, too, can be surmounted. For when we are forced into a position like this one, calculations are beside the point: what we have to do is stake everything on a quick decision …’

  Well done, said Kleinzeit.

  Any time, said Thucydides.

  Kleinzeit uncovered the yellow paper without looking at it, pulled out several sheets, took a Japanese pen, wrote three lines for the china mermaid:

  Dark autumn rain, ah!

  The lighted aquarium;

  The mermaid – her smile!

  Then he wrote a green turtle poem and a Golden Virginia Tobacco tin poem as fast as he could, blew out the candle and went to bed.

  In the morning after breakfast he made fair copies of the Golden Virginia and green turtle poems, took his glockenspiel and yellow paper, went out, bought a roll of Sellotape and a chair pad at Ryman, and went into the Underground. When he got to his place in the corridor he wrote on a piece of yellow paper:

  POEMS 10P

  He taped the yellow paper and the two poems to the wall of the corridor, sat down on his chair pad, played green turtle and Golden Virginia Tobacco tin music on the glockenspiel.

  Some people read the poems without buying them and without dropping money in the glockenspiel lid. Some dropped money but did not buy poems. After a while both poems were bought. Kleinzeit made new copies, taped them to the wall. By lunchtime he’d sold six copies of the green turtle poem and four of the Golden Virginia Tobacco tin one, had taken in £1.75 altogether. When Thucydides found me I was nothing, he thought. Look at me now.

  The afternoon was fat with tourists. Some of them photographed him after buying a poem. Never mind, thought Kleinzeit. If Homer had gone busking in the Underground they’d have taken his picture too. After the evening rush he counted up the day’s take. £3.27 and a key.

  Kleinzeit examined the key. Not one of his, and he hadn’t seen anyone drop it. A Yale copy, made from a brass blank. For STAFF ONLY, like Redbeard’s? Redbeard had got his key from the yellow-paper man before him, who had very likely been Flashpoint. Flashpoint had passed his key along and died in hospital. When Redbeard had given up yellow paper they’d changed the STAFF ONLY lock. Now a key for Kleinzeit. From whom? He tried to call to mind all the people who had passed during the day. Redbeard, for that matter, was he possibly an eccentric millionaire who maintained a STAFF ONLY for yellow-paper men, and his talk of being locked out was just a way of testing Kleinzeit? Kleinzeit felt a surge of well-being through his whole system. Not alone! Somebody looking after him, giving him a key! Maybe not a STAFF ONLY. Maybe a woman? But then there would have been a note to tell him where the door was. Couldn’t be a woman. A patron of some kind was what it had to be. A patron! Kleinzeit saw in his mind a photograph of himself on the back of a book jacket. Cocktail parties, beautiful eager women, not taking Sister’s place of course, but extra.

  Before going home he tried STAFF ONLY, PRIVATE, HIGH VOLTAGE and NO ADMITTANCE. The key did not unlock any of those doors. He could try other stations of course. There was no hurry, the main thing was the fact of the key itself.

  Kleinzeit got into a train and went home. He considered writing one or two new poems for tomorrow, now felt comfortably under observation, someone keeping an eye on him. Lovely. He read Thucydides, got to page 32, felt that it was doing him good. He could recall almost nothing of whatever ancient history he had learned at school, had never gone to university. He looked forward with keen interest to the consequences of the trouble over Epidamnus, wondered who would win the oncoming war. The representatives of both Corinth and Corcyra sounded wonderfully reasonable in their speeches to the Athenians, but of course one never knew. The book was of a pleasing thickness to hold in the hand, the detail of the vase painting on the cover was marvellous, the vertical white cracks in the glossy black paper of the spine marked his progress, gave him a sense of achievement. And at home his plain deal table, his bare room and his candle were waiting. Greatness touched him like the prickling of fog on the skin. In the plastic Ryman bag the yellow paper softly growled. In his pocket the new key lay with his keys and the key that Sister had given him. Doors, doors!

  Schwarzgang maybe, he thought walking from the Underground to his flat. Maybe Schwarzgang was the eccentric millionaire who laid on STAFF ONLYS for the yellow-paper men, maybe Schwarzgang had himself been a yellow-paper man who, old and broken now, passed on the torch while blipping in his bed, revoked failed Redbeard’s privileges and sent someone to drop the key in Kleinzeit’s glockenspiel lid. Kleinzeit saw in his mind a dedication: To my friend Schwarzgang, who … Dedication of what? Ah! Kleinzeit winked at the golden windows of the evening. Wait and see.

  He made scrambled eggs for supper, smiled as he thought of the yellow paper waiting for him, how he would throw himself upon it like a tiger. Rape. The yellow paper would love it. Redbeard simply hadn’t been man enough. He dawdled over his coffee, took his time clearing up.

  Kleinzeit went into the living-room rubbing his hands and chuckling, lit the candle, stripped the flimsy Ryman bag from the yellow paper. The yellow paper lay before him naked. Yes yes oh yes, it murmured. Never like this before, no one like you before. Yes yes oh yes. Now now now.

  Plenty of time, said Kleinzeit. No hurry. He covered the yellow paper, emptied the ashtray, put Thucydides on the plain deal table and read by candlelight. It’s there, he thought. When I’m ready I’ll take it. No hurry, plenty of time.

  In the book the Corinthian fleet engaged the Corcyraeans at dawn off Sybota. Kleinzeit smelled the salt morning on the Aegean. The rowers’ benches, the oar looms, the rigging would be cold and wet with dew, the white foam hissing past the pointed rams, the striped sails on the dawn-grey sea growing large on the horizon. He lost the reality of it in the printed details, emerged on page 67 to find that both sides claimed the victory and put up a trophy on Sybota. Kleinzeit shook his head, he had expected things to be more clearly defined in the ancient world. I’ll be with you in a minute, he said to the yellow paper, went on reading. On page 75 the Corinthian representative said to the Spartans:

  ‘… you have never yet tried to i
magine what sort of people these Athenians are against whom you will have to fight – how much, indeed how completely different from you. An Athenian is always an innovator, quick to form a resolution and quick at carrying it out.

  That’s the way to be, thought Kleinzeit.

  ‘You, on the other hand, are good at keeping things as they are; you never originate an idea, and your action tends to stop short of its aim. Then again, Athenian daring will outrun its own resources; they will take risks against their better judgement, and still, in the midst of danger, remain confident.

  From now on that’s how I’m going to be, said Kleinzeit to Thucydides.

  ‘But your nature is always to do less than you could have done, to mistrust your own judgement, however sound it may be, and to assume that dangers will last forever.

  Really, said Kleinzeit, I haven’t done all that badly. I bought the glockenspiel, fell in love with Sister, left the hospital, made £3.27 today all by myself, sold poems.

  ‘Think of this, too: while you are hanging back, they never hesitate; while you stay at home, they are always abroad; for they think that the farther they go the more they will get, while you think that any movement may endanger what you have already. If they win a victory, they follow it up at once, and if they suffer a defeat, they scarcely fall back at all. As for their bodies, they regard them as expendable for their city’s sake, as though they were not their own;

  Look here, said Kleinzeit, I am expending my body. Didn’t I leave the hospital without the operation? God knows at what rate I’m falling apart now. You can’t say I’m not being Athenian.

  ‘but each man cultivates his own intelligence, again with a view to doing something notable for his city. If they aim at something and do not get it, they think that they have been deprived of what belonged to them already; whereas, if their enterprise is successful, they regard that success as nothing compared to what they will do next.