Go on, said Kleinzeit. I’m listening. He watched the blips on his screen, listened as Hospital spoke. There went an aeroplane, far away.
Silence, said Hospital. Silence and the severed head of Orpheus, eyeless, sodden and rotting, blackened and buzzing with blowflies, lying on the beach at Lesbos. There it is, washed up on the golden sand under a bright blue sky. So small it looks, the lost and blackened head of Orpheus! Have you ever noticed how much smaller a man’s head looks when it’s no longer on his body? It’s astonishing really.
I don’t recall that part about the severed head, said Kleinzeit.
Naturally not, said Hospital. It’s the very heart and centre of the matter. You don’t recall how the Thracian women tore him apart, threw his head into the river? How the head floated singing down the river to the sea, across the sea to Lesbos?
Now it comes back, said Kleinzeit. Vaguely.
Vague! said Hospital. What isn’t vague! And at the same time, you know, burningly clear. Quivering forever on the air. The head begins to talk. Begins to rage and curse. Day and night the head of Orpheus rages on the beach at Lesbos. I couldn’t understand most of what it was saying.
You were there? said Kleinzeit,
I was there, said Hospital. I was there because the beach at Lesbos was hospital for Orpheus. After a certain number of days the head was kicked into the sea.
By whom? said Kleinzeit.
I didn’t notice, said Hospital. It doesn’t matter. I can see it now. There was no surf, it was a sheltered beach. The head bobbed in the water like a coconut, then moved out to sea. There was a little wake behind it as it swam out to sea. It was one of those grey days, the air was very still, the water was smooth and sleek, the water was lapping quietly at the beach as the tide came in.
In? said Kleinzeit. Not out?
In, said Hospital. The head swam out against the tide. Think of it swimming day and night, no eyes, the blind head of Orpheus.
I am thinking of it, said Kleinzeit.
Think of it at night with a phosphorescent wake, said Hospital. Think of it with the moonlight on it, swimming towards Thrace. Think of it reaching the coast, the estuary, the mouth of the Hebrus. Like a salmon it swims upstream, eh?
To the place of his dismemberment? said Kleinzeit.
To that place, said Hospital. Think of the head of Orpheus snuffling in the reeds by the river at night, sniffing out his parts. It’s dark, the moon has set. You hear something moving, like a dog hunting in the reeds. You can’t see your hand in front of your face, you only hear something moving about close to the ground. You feel the air on your face, you feel with your face the passage of something between you and the river. There is a sighing perhaps, you can’t be sure. Someone unseen walks away slowly.
He’s found his members, said Kleinzeit. He’s remembered himself.
What is harmony, said Hospital, but a fitting together?
‘Now then, luv,’ said the lady with the bosom that was good for crying on. The bosom approached in a sexy motherly way. Go on, it said, cry. A piece of paper appeared in front of it: I, the undesigned.
‘What’s this, then?’ said Kleinzeit.
‘You know very well what it is,’ said the bosom lady. ‘You haven’t signed it yet and now it’s got to be signed. Dr Bashan says you’re to sign it.’
‘I think I’d like a second opinion,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘Dr Bashan is the second opinion. Dr Pink was the first. Remember?’
‘I’m trying to,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘Then sign this and let’s get on with it. You’re not the only patient in this hospital, you know. The operating rooms are booked for weeks ahead, the staff are busy day and night. I should think you’d have a little consideration.’
‘I have a lot of consideration,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I’m considering hypotenuse, asymptotes, and stretto. That’s a lot to consider. I want to keep my angle right even if my hypotenuse is skewed, I want my asymptotes to keep approaching the curve they never meet, I want to keep my stretto even if it can’t channel entries any more. I want to remember myself.’
‘Cor,’ said the bosom lady. ‘I think they’ve put you in the wrong kind of hospital. I’ll leave it with you now and come back later.’
The paper stayed, the bosom lady went. Kleinzeit had to move his bowels. His mind sat up but he stayed lying down. He rang for the nurse. She came, drew the curtains, helped him with the bedpan.
Am I Orpheus?
Kleinzeit fell asleep after supper, woke up, saw Sister standing there, blipped faster. Did it ever happen, he thought, that I saw her naked by the light of the gas fire, that we made love, that I was Orpheus with her, harmonious and profound? I can’t even shit without professional assistance.
Sister drew the curtains, hugged him, kissed him, cried. ‘What are you going to do?’ she said.
‘Remember,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I’m going to remember myself.’
‘Hero,’ said Sister. ‘Kleinzeit does mean hero.’
‘Or coward,’ said Kleinzeit. Sister cried some more, kissed him again, went back to her duties.
Dim light, lateness. Kleinzeit rolled over, reached under the bed. Psst, he said. You there?
Hoo hoo, said Death, gripped Kleinzeit’s hand with its black hairy one. Still friends?
Still friends, said Kleinzeit.
I wasn’t trying anything on with you, said Death. I was just singing to myself, really.
I believe you, said Kleinzeit. These things happen.
Anything I can do for you? said Death.
Not right now, said Kleinzeit. Just, you know, stick around.
Twenty-four hour service, said Death.
Kleinzeit rolled on to his back, looked up at the dim ceiling, closed his eyes. Tell me more about Orpheus, he said. Am I Orpheus?
I, said Hospital. I, I, I. What a lot of rubbish. How could any one I be Orpheus. Even Orpheus wasn’t I. I doesn’t come into it. Your understanding isn’t as strong as I thought it was.
I’m not well, said Kleinzeit. Be patient with me.
You won’t find anyone more patient than I am, said Hospital. Patience is my middle name.
What’s your Christian name? said Kleinzeit.
I’m not a Christian, said Hospital. I’ve no patience with new-fangled religions. It was just a figure of speech, I haven’t any first or middle name. We big chaps just have one: Ocean, Sky, Hospital, and so forth.
Word, said Kleinzeit. Underground.
Oh aye, said Hospital.
Tell me more about Orpheus, said Kleinzeit.
When Orpheus remembered himself, said Hospital, he came together so harmoniously that he began to play his lute and sing with immense power and beauty. No one had ever heard the like of it. Trees and all that, you know, rocks even, they simply picked themselves up and moved to where he was. Sometimes you couldn’t see Orpheus for the rocks and trees around him. He was tuned into the big vibrations, you see, he and the grains of sand and the cloud particles and the colours of the spectrum all vibrating together. And of course it made him a tremendous lover. Krishna with the cowgirls was nothing to what Orpheus was.
What about Eurydice? said Kleinzeit. How’d they meet? I don’t think that’s told in any of the stories. All I know is that she went to the Underworld after she died of a snakebite.
More schoolboy rubbish, said Hospital. Orpheus met Eurydice when he got to the inside of things. Eurydice was there because that was where she lived. She didn’t have to get bitten by a snake to go there. With the power of his harmony Orpheus penetrated the world, got to the inside of things, the place under the places. Underworld, if you like to call it that. And that’s where he found Eurydice, the female element complementary to himself. She was Yin, he was Yang. What could be simpler.
If Underworld was where she lived why did he try to get her out of it? said Kleinzeit
Ah, said Hospital. There you have the essence of the Orphic conflict. That’s why Orpheus became what he is, always in the
present, never in the past. That’s why that dogged blind head is always swimming across the ocean to the river mouth.
Why? said Kleinzeit. What was the conflict?
Orpheus cannot be content at the inside of things, at the place under the places, said Hospital. His harmony has brought him to the stillness and the calm at the centre and he cannot abide it. Nirvana is not his cup of tea. He wants to get back outside, wants that action with the rocks and trees again, wants to be seen with Eurydice at posh restaurants and all that. Naturally he loses her. She can’t go outside any more than he can stay inside.
He didn’t lose her because he looked back? said Kleinzeit.
That’s the sort of thing that gets put into a story of course, said Hospital. But looking back or not looking back wouldn’t have made any difference.
What happened then? said Kleinzeit.
It just goes round again, said Hospital. Orpheus mourns, mopes about, won’t go to parties any more, won’t make love with the local women, they say he’s queer, one thing leads to another, they tear him apart, and there’s the head going down the river again, heading for Lesbos.
What does it all mean? said Kleinzeit.
How can there be meaning? said Hospital. Meaning is a limit. There are no limits.
Large Valuable Lovely Thought
Night, night, night. An immanence of night. Unlimited hoarded reserves of night in the clock. Implacable, the clock, its hands never tiring. Pompous in its unremitting precision: sixty seconds to the minute, sixty minutes to the hour, twenty-four hours to the day. Same for the pauper and the millionaire, the old and the young, the sick and the well.
That’s a damned lie, said Sister to the clock. Many’s the time I’ve seen you double the bad hours and halve the good ones.
Many’s the time, ho ho, said the clock.
Sister looked away from the gloating face, listened to the ward beyond the lamplight, wrote slowly on a notepad:
E-U-R-Y-D-I-C-E
Ah, said Hospital. Our not-very-long-ago conversation.
You too, said Sister. Bloody-minded brute.
Not at all, said Hospital. You and I, we’re professionals, aren’t we. We are past illusion and the filmy flimsy curtains of romance, are we not.
Bugger off, said Sister.
What was it you were saying to God, said Hospital. All men are sick. Yes. God didn’t understand you. He wouldn’t.
You do, I suppose, said Sister.
It was from me you got that thought, said Hospital.
Thanks so much, said Sister.
You’re welcome, said Hospital. It is truly a large valuable lovely thought. I don’t pass it about indiscriminately. I tucked it inside your bra one day, placed it in your bosom. A pleasant grope.
Dirty old Hospital, said Sister.
I am what I am, said Hospital. As we were saying, all men are sick. Life is their sickness. Life is the original sickness of inanimate matter. All was well until matter messed itself about and came alive. Men are rotten clear through with being animate. Women on the other hand have not quite lost the health of the inanimate, the health of the deep stillness. They’re not quite so sick with life as men are. I’ll tell you something I didn’t tell Kleinzeit. The Thracian women didn’t tear Orpheus apart. He fell apart, keeps falling apart, will fall apart. Hell-bent on falling apart. Tiresome, though I admire his pluck I must say. A strong swimmer.
I’ll tell you something, said Sister. You’re a dreadful bore. I don’t care about Orpheus and Eurydice and all that. I just want Kleinzeit to get well.
He’ll get well all right, said Hospital. He’ll recover from life. As I said, I keep you. He doesn’t get you.
Rubbish, said Sister, put her head on the desk, cried quietly in the lamplight.
Action at the Entrance
Action lounged against the front of the hospital, took a deep drag on his cigarette, flipped it into the gutter, looked at his watch, looked at passing taxis, spun on his heel, went into the hospital.
Standing by the reception desk were two policemen. Who’ve you come to see? they said.
Kleinzeit, said Action, and headed for the stairs.
The two policemen each grabbed an arm, hustled him outside, into a police van, took him away.
Zonk No
Morning, Kleinzeit’s first morning back in hospital. Blip blip blip blip, here he was. Black night outside, and here’s the morning tea trolley. Those who walk to the bathroom pee in the bathroom, those who pee in bottles pee in bottles, those whose specimens are collected make specimens for collection.
Nox drank his tea, cleared his throat. ‘That about the coffins,’ he said to Kleinzeit. ‘You mustn’t pay any attention to that catalogue or what I was saying.’
‘Why not?’ said Kleinzeit.
‘You’ve better things to think about.’
He must’ve heard me and Sister last night, thought Kleinzeit. ‘What do you mean?’ he said.
‘You walked out of here before,’ said Nox. ‘Maybe you’ll do it again. I hope you’ll do it again. Not all of us, you know … You take my meaning?’
‘Perfectly,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘But why do you care so much about me, you know, all of a sudden?’
‘One thinks at first that if one can’t make it oneself …’ said Nox. ‘But then thinking about it again one wants someone, you know, to … Surprising, really. I wouldn’t have thought it but there it is.’
‘Thank you,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘It’s nothing,’ said Nox.
‘No,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘It’s something.’ He raised himself on his elbows, looked past Piggle, Raj, McDougal. Schwarzgang, looking his way, made a thumbs-up sign. Kleinzeit thumbs-upped back. Redbeard, sitting up among his pulleys and counterweights, passed a note to Schwarzgang, who passed it down the line to Kleinzeit. White paper:
DON’T STAY HERE. GET OUT.
Kleinzeit got some foolscap from Nox, wrote back:
HOW CAN I GET OUT? I CAN’T EVEN TAKE A CRAP BY MYSELF. WHY DOES EVERYBODY CARE ABOUT ME ALL OF A SUDDEN?
Redbeard answered:
ONE OF US HAS GOT TO MAKE IT.
Kleinzeit wrote:
WHY DON’T YOU GET OUT? A SLIPPED FULCRUM’S NOTHING MUCH.
Redbeard wrote:
DON’T TALK ROT. I HAVEN’T GOT A CHANCE.
Kleinzeit had no answer, looked away from Redbeard, turned to Piggle. ‘You’ll be out soon, didn’t you say? About a week now?’
Piggle shook his head, looked ashamed. ‘It seems not,’ he said. ‘They tell me now that the imbrications have reified, and I’m scheduled for surgery.’
‘Anybody else due for discharge?’ said Kleinzeit.
Piggle shook his head again. ‘You’re not staying though, are you?’ he said.
‘What makes you think I’m special?’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Why should I get out?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Piggle. ‘You’re the one who got up and walked out before.’
The nurse came by with the medicine trolley. ‘Kleinzeit,’ she said, gave him five tablets in a paper cup. Kleinzeit recognized the three 2-Nups. ‘What’re the other two?’ he said.
‘Zonk,’ said the nurse. ‘For the pain.’
That’s right, thought Kleinzeit. I haven’t noticed any pain for a while. ‘Have I had this before?’ he said.
‘Big injection when you came in,’ said the nurse. ‘Tablets yesterday.’
‘Would it make me feel weak?’
‘It may do a little. We haven’t been using this very long. It’s new.’
‘Does it say Napalm Industries on the bottle?’ said Kleinzeit.
The nurse looked. ‘So it does,’ she said. ‘How’d you know?’
‘Just a guess,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Cheers,’ he said, pretended to swallow the Zonk but didn’t. He put the tablets in his locker drawer, thought I can always take them if I need them. I said I was going to remember myself. Sounds lovely. How do I do it? Yoga maybe? I’ll ask Krishna next time I see him.
> The bosom approached I, the undesigned. Cry now? said the bosom.
Not yet, said Kleinzeit.
‘Well?’ said the bosom lady. ‘Have you signed it yet, luv?’
‘No,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I think I won’t.’
‘Please yourself,’ said the bosom lady. ‘That’s how it is with the National Health. If you had to pay for a lovely operation like that it’d come to a great deal of money and you’d appreciate it properly, but as it doesn’t cost anything you think oh well, what’s the odds. It’s nothing to me either way, but I should think Dr Bashan will have something to say.’ Don’t expect to cry on me, said the bosom as it turned round and bore off.
Krishna and Potluck were passing through the ward. ‘Dr Krishna,’ Kleinzeit called.
Krishna came over, young, beautiful, healthy like a tiger.
’I was wondering,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘whether you know anything about yoga?’
‘I think it’s a lot of Uncle Tom crap,’ said Krishna. ‘You take a big population and keep them down and they’ll sing spirituals or do yoga. You don’t see the Chinese doing yoga.’
‘They do acupuncture, don’t they?’ said Kleinzeit.
‘For foreigners they do,’ said Krishna. ‘For themselves I bet they call in a proper doctor.’
‘Listen,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘What?’ said Krishna.
‘Between ourselves,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘do you think surgery would be the best thing for me?’
‘Between ourselves,’ said Krishna, ‘when I’m a consultant with a Harley Street practice and a yacht I’ll answer that. Right now I have no opinion. I meant it when I wished you good luck but that’s about all I can say.’
‘Thanks anyhow,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘You’re welcome,’ said Krishna, and moved on.
Kleinzeit tried sitting up. No luck. Raising himself on his elbows was as far as he got. He opened and closed his hands. Weak.
Dr Bashan, sailing large, put the tiller down, shot up into the wind, smoothly picked up his mooring. What a tan and healthy ugly face! Such white teeth! ‘Well, old man,’ he said.