Free Kleinzeit by Russell Hoban Page A

from your work any longer.
    I welcome interruptions really, said God. Creation isn’t the cut-and-dried thing people think it is. You don’t do it once and then it’s all done, like in that Hadyn oratorio. It’s a day-in, day-out thing. You stop for the blink of an eye and it’s all come undone, all to do again. And goodness knows I’ve blinked from time to time. And of course there are bad days and good ones just like what goes on in a world. Some days I don’t get a good idea for millennia. But you were saying.
    I was saying Goodbye for now, said Sister.
    Till soon, said God. It’s always a pleasure chatting to you. As people go you don’t talk badly. Mostly all I get from people is nonsense. For anything like reasonable conversation you have to go to stones or oceans.
    ‘I don’t think I can get myself out of this position any more.’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Next time I’m going to bring something to sit on. How much have we taken in?’
    Sister counted. ‘£1.27,’ she said.
    Kleinzeit looked at his watch. ‘Two hours,’ he said. ‘That’s not bad at all. Let’s have a tea break.’
    They went to the coffee shop where Kleinzeit had had coffee and fruity buns with Redbeard. Sister and he had coffee and fruity buns, neither of them saying anything.
    Kleinzeit’s bottom was still numb, and thinking of things to sit on he found in his mind his chair at the officewhere he’d been sacked. With the chair came the names of the accounts he’d worked on: Bonzo Toothpaste, Anal Petroleum Jelly, Spolia Motors International, Necropolis Urban Concepts Ltd and Uncle Toad’s Palmna Royale Date Crunch. Uncle Toad roared briefly through his mind driving the Spolia Genghis Khan Mark II on the broad clearways of the Necropolis complex scheduled to replace most of the city north of the river. Uncle Toad’s broad mouth opened and closed rhythmically on Palmna Royale Date Crunch. Uncle Toad was gone, the clearways empty. Back at the hospital the form lay on his locker: Hypotenectomy, Asymptoctomy, Strettoctomy.
    ‘Shall we go to my place?’ said Sister.
    Kleinzeit nodded, stood up, knocked over his coffee cup, knocked over his chair, picked up the chair, hit his head on the table as he straightened up, grabbed his glockenspiel, knocked over the chair again. Sister steered him to the door.
    In the train they held hands, rubbed knees. KLEINZEIT WINS, said all the headlines on everybody’s newspapers. He averted his eyes modestly, gripped Sister’s thigh. Going up out of the Underground on the escalator he looked at the girls in the underwear posters with easy indifference, mentally dressed those who did not meet his standards.
    Sister’s place. Kleinzeit sighed as time expanded. Books, yes. Records, yes. Poster from the Tate: Caspar David Friedrich, 1774-1840. Dark ships, sad sunset sky, figures in the foreground. Chinese kite. Sacred Heart, yes, there it was. Small brass Shiva Nataraja, Lord of the Dance. Indian print bedspread. Krishna’s beautiful dark face flashed into Kleinzeit’s mind. Turkoman cushions. A velvet elephant, floral pattern. A woollen rabbit. Photo of Sister with two nurses in front of the hospital. Photo of Sister with parents. Old round clock with a pendulum inside the case, stopped.
    Sister lit the gas fire, lit incense, put on a Mozart quartet.Sacred Heart and Mozart, well there they were. Sacred Heart kept quiet. ‘Gin or whisky?’ said Sister.
    ‘Whisky, please,’ said Kleinzeit. He walked to the window. The sky, as before, was grey, the chimney pots patient. ‘I wish it would rain,’ he said.
    Rain started.
    ‘Thank you,’ said Kleinzeit. The gas fire purred. He lifted the bedspread, the blankets. Flowered sheets and pillowslips, fresh and new, never used before. Sister brought his drink, bent her neck as Kleinzeit stroked it. Kleinzeit put down his drink. It’ll be weeks before I can actually take this in, he thought. It’s more than I can believe.
    Sister by owl-light, Sister