Kleinzeit

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.