Kleinzeit

More Things

The smell of clean linen, little fresh breezes from the nurse whipping about making the once-Piggle now empty bed. Another nurse with a wheelchair. ‘Can you stand up? she said to Kleinzeit.

‘Not physically,’ he said. The nurse helped him sit up, gave him an earful of freshly laundered bosom as she got him into the chair. Strong girl, smelled good too.

‘What’s all this?’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Dr Pink wants these beds for two new patients,’ said the nurse. ‘We’re moving you to a different part of the ward.’

That’s how it is, thought Kleinzeit. Now that Pink’s not going to operate on me he’s lost interest and I’m to be put away in a dark corner. Here were unknown faces, faces glimpsed only in passing till now. It’s like that point at a cocktail party, thought Kleinzeit, when one gets tired of introducing oneself. At least here we don’t have to stand about with drinks in our hands. He got another earful of bosom, rolled into bed.

Not another one, said the bed.

Sorry, said Kleinzeit. I’ll try not to stay long. ‘What about my blip screen?’ he said to the nurse.

‘Dr Pink said you don’t need it any more,’ she said, breezed away.

From the bed on his left an oxygen mask nodded to him. From the bed on his right a pair of horn-rimmed glasses smiled over the top of The Oxford Book of English Verse. That one’s going to be a problem, thought Kleinzeit.

The horn-rimmed glasses focused on him sociably. ‘I’m Arthur Tede,’ they said. ‘Tede but I hope not tedious, ha ha.’

Kleinzeit introduced himself, expressed with his face that he was not up to much conversation.

‘Hospital’s a great place to study character,’ said Tede. ‘I can tell a lot about a chap just by looking. I’d guess you’re a writer. Am I right?’

Kleinzeit half nodded, half shrugged.

‘Poetry?’

‘Little,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘now and then.’

‘I’m very keen on poetry,’ said Tede. ‘I do Burns in Scots dialect.’ He gave Kleinzeit a card:

ARTHUR TEDE COMEDIAN — COMPERE — M.C.POETRY RECITATIONS

(With Piano Accompaniment)

‘My wife does the piano part,’ said Tede. ‘There’s a lot in poetry, “more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” ha ha. During the day I’m an electrical engineer, but at night, you know, poetry.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Kleinzeit. He groaned tactfully to show that although interested he was probably enduring more pain than Tede dreamt of.

‘You’re looking thoughtful,’ said Tede.‘“Il Penseroso”, the thoughtful one. Keep smiling is my motto. “L’ allegro”. Milton, you know. “Hence loathèd Melancholy, etcetera.”‘

Kleinzeit closed his eyes, nodded.

‘Actually I’m doing that one now,’ said Tede. ‘Memorizing it. I keep adding to my repertoire. Do you mind following in the book while I try it aloud, see if I get it right. I’ve been wanting to do it for several days, but there’s been no one I could ask till now, and one feels foolish reciting poetry alone.’ He gave the book to Kleinzeit. Kleinzeit saw his hands holding it, didn’t know how to let go. Tede was away:

‘Hence loathèd Melancholy

Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born,

In Stygian Cave forlorn

’Mongst horrid shapes, and shreiks, and sights unholy,

Kleinzeit fell asleep, woke up at ‘Orpheus self.’ ‘What’s that?’ he said.

‘What’s what?’ said Tede. ‘Have I got it wrong?’

‘I’ve lost my place,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Page 333, near the bottom,’ said Tede.

Kleinzeit read:

Lap me in soft Lydian Aires,

Married to immortal verse

Such as the meeting soul may pierce

In notes, with many a winding bout

Of linckèd sweetnes long drawn out,

With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,

The melting voice through mazes running;

Untwisting all the chains that ty

The hidden soul of harmony.

That Orpheus self may heave his head

From golden slumber on a bed

Of heapt Elysian flowres, and hear

Such streins as would have won the ear

Of Pluto, to have quite set free

His half regain’d Eurydice.

These delights, if thou canst give,

Mirth with thee, I mean to live.

‘Found it?’ said Tede.

Kleinzeit nodded. Tede began again where he had left off, Kleinzeit tried to shut out the voice so that he could hear the words he was reading. Tede came to the end, his voice stopped. Kleinzeit read the lines again, heard in his mind

the voice of the words alone going from the lapping of the soft Lydian Aires to:

Untwisting all the chains that ty

The hidden soul of harmony.

Inside him he felt a pause, as of an uplifted hand. Then it was as if a fat brush drew with black ink in one perfect sweep a circle, fat and black on yellow paper. Sweet, fresh, clear and simple. His whole organism was strong and sweetly rhythmic with the perfect health of it. Stay that way! he thought, felt it go as he thought it. Gone. Here he was again, sick, heavy, weak, full of 2-Nup, Zonk, Angle-Flex, Fly-Ova, and Lay-By. He began to cry.

‘Moves you, doesn’t it,’ said Tede. ‘Did you notice how I held “halfregain’d” and sort of slid away on “Eurydice”, then a pause to leave it in the air, then “These delights” etcetera; quiet but very up?’

‘I have to be quiet for a while,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Sorry,’ said Tede. ‘Didn’t mean to overtax you.’

‘What is harmony,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘but a fitting together.’ He wasn’t saying it to Tede but he had to say it aloud.

‘That’s an awfully good line,’ said Tede. ‘What’s it from?’

‘Nothing,’ said Kleinzeit, and cried some more.