Kleinzeit Read Online Free PDF Page A

mews occupied by two E-type Jaguars, a Bentley, a Porsche, various brightly coloured Minis, Fiats, Volkswagens. He stopped in front of a white house with blue shutters. Black carriage lamps on either side of the front door.
    Not yours any more, said the blue shutters.
    Bye bye, Dad, said two bicycles.
    Kleinzeit nodded, turned away, passed a news-stand, scanned headlines, SORROW; FULL SHOCK. He went back to the hospital.
    The curtains were drawn around the fat man’s bed. Fleshky, Potluck, and the day sister were with him. Two nurses wheeled in the harbinger. Kleinzeit heardthe fat man wheezing. ‘I feel full,’ gasped the fat man. Silence.
    ‘He’s gone,’ said Potluck. The nurses wheeled away the harbinger. The curtains opened on the side away from Kleinzeit. The day sister came out, looked at him.
    ‘I was …’ said Kleinzeit.
    ‘What?’ said the sister.
    Was going to tell the fat man, thought Kleinzeit. Tell him what? There was nothing in his memory to tell him. There was the pain from
A
to B, getting the sack at the office, seeing Dr Pink, coming to the hospital and the days at the hospital. Nothing else.
    This is what, said Hospital. And what is this. This is what what is.

Big Mouth
    The next day Hospital unsheathed its claws, sheathed them again, made velvet paws, put its paws away, shifted its vast weight from one buttock to another, crossed its legs, played with its watch chain, smoked its pipe, rocked placidly.
    Shall I tell you something, my boy? said Hospital.
    Tell me something, said Kleinzeit, scuttling like a cockroach away from one of the rockers as it came down to scrunch him.
    Yes, said Hospital. Did it upset you when I ate up Flashpoint and the fat man?
    Kleinzeit thought about them. What had their names been? Still were, in fact. The names didn’t die, the names sailed on like empty boats. The fat man’s name had been, and still was, M. T. Butts. Flashpoint’s name was what?
    Did it? said Hospital, smoking its pipe.
    What? said Kleinzeit.
    Upset you that I ate them.
    Elevenses, I suppose, said Kleinzeit.
    You understand things, said Hospital. You’re clever.
    Ever so, said Kleinzeit, looking for a mousehole small enough for him.
    Yes, said Hospital, and became one infinite black mouth. Didn’t even bother with teeth. Just an infinite black mouth, fetid breath. Kleinzeit backed into a mousehole. If the hole is this big the mice must be like oxen here, he thought.
    Tell you something, said the mouth.
    Yes, tell me something, said Kleinzeit.
    You may have flats and houses and streets and offices and secretaries and telephones and news every hour, said the mouth.
    Yes, said Kleinzeit.
    You may have industry and careers and television and Greenwich time signals, said the mouth.
    Yes, said Kleinzeit. That’s nice copy. That really sings.
    You may even have several pushbuttons on your telephone and nothing but sheaves of ten-pound notes in your pocket and glide you may through traffic in a Silver Shadow Rolls-Royce, said the mouth.
    It’s building nicely, said Kleinzeit. But don’t overbuild. Hit me with the payoff now, you know.
    The mouth yawned. I forgot what I was going to say, it said.
    Cheerio, then, said Kleinzeit.
    Cheerio, said the mouth.

Other Music
    The red-bearded man found another sheet of yellow paper. Clean on both sides.
    Where were we? he asked the paper.
    Borrow fool’s pox? said the paper.
    I don’t remember, said Redbeard. Ibsen said, or was it Chekhov?
    Either one, said the paper.
    Either one said that if you’re going to show a revolver in a drawer in Act One you’d jolly well better do something with it by the end of Act Three.
    That’s drama, said the paper. This is yellow paper.
    Right, said Redbeard. I’m tired of that lark then. Tea?
    With two sugars, please, said the yellow paper.
    Redbeard walked through the corridors of the Underground, turned here, turned there, came to a door that said STAFF ONLY, took a key out of his pocket, unlocked the door. The room