Max Brod and Franz Kafka somehow turn up at the Leeds, UK home of Sydney,
an insurance agent and Kafka scholar, and his wife Linda. Brod and
Sydney try to hide the fact that Kafka is now world famous and not reduced
to ashes as he wished by hiding his books. When they leave the room
for a moment, Kafka finds out the truth.
(KAFKA is alone on the
stage. He picks up the Penguin and looks at it idly. Then less
idly. He reads aloud the first sentence:)
KAFKA: "Somebody must have been telling lies about Joseph K because
one fine morning he was arrested..." (Turns the book over to look
at the title. There is a moment of shocked silence, then he shouts:)
MAX!
(Nobody comes.
KAFKA rushes off the stage and comes back with some of the books
taken out of the bookshelf, looking at them and throwing them down as he
comes.) Kafka! Kafka! Novels, stories, letters.
Everything. MAX!
(BROD creeps on to the
stage.)
BROD: (Faintly) Sorry.
KAFKA: Sorry? SORRY? Max. You publish everything
I ever wrote and you're sorry! I trusted you.
BROD: You exaggerated. You always did.
KAFKA: So, I say burn them, what do you think I mean, warm
them?
BROD: I thought it was just false modesty.
KAFKA: All modesty is false, otherwise it's not modesty.
There must be every word here that I've ever written.
LINDA: (Coming in) What did he do?
KAFKA: It's not what he did. (Indicating the books)
It's what he didn't do. This is what he did.
(SYDNEY comes in with
a further pile of books.)
Did I write these too?
Oh my God!
SYDNEY: No. These are some of the books about you.
Only a few. I believe the Library of Congress catalogue lists some
fifteen thousand.
KAFKA: Max. What have you done to me?
BROD: Ask not what I've done to you, but what you've done for
humanity. You, who never knew you were a great man, now rank with
Flaubert, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, called fellow by the greatest names in
literature. As Shakespeare spoke for mankind on the threshold of
the modern world you speak mankind's farewell in the authentic voice of
the twentieth century.
KAFKA: (In a small, awe-stricken voice) Shit.
SYDNEY: He's taking it very badly.
BROD: Don't worry. He'll be all over me in a minute.
But who else would treat fame like this, eh? Chekov? He'd be
round at the estate agents, looking at a little place in the country with
paddock and mature fruit trees attatched. Zola would be installing
a jacuzzi. Even T.S. Eliot'd have people round for drinks.
But what does Kafka do?
SYDNEY: Finds the whole thing a trial.
BROD: Exactly. The humility of the man. I tell you,
if I were Jesus Christ I'd be looking over my shoulder.
KAFKA: Judas!
SYDNEY: He's made you one of the biggest names in twentieth-century
literature.
LINDA: Even I've heard of you.
KAFKA: (With exaggerated patience) I didn't want
a big name. I wanted a small name. I shrank my name.
I pared it down to nothing. I'd have been happy with no name at all.
SYDNEY: But that's the secret of your success. You've got
a name for anonymity. The Trial: a nameless man's search for
justice in a faceless bureaucracy. When Eastern Europe went communist
this was the book that told you about it before it happened. In so
many words...
KAFKA: That's it. That's it. So many words.
I've added so many words to the world I've made it heavier.
Later his parents, Hermann K and Julie, show up.
HERMANN K: Still as thin as a tram ticket. Did he eat?
LINDA: Every scrap.
HERMANN K: He didn't put it down the toilet?
LINDA: No.
HERMANN K: That was his usual trick. Shepherd's pie floating
in the toilet: show me a better way to break a mother's heart.
So where? (Looks round the room. Behind cushions, under
the sofa, etc.) My son had a problem with food. He didn't
like it.
KAFKA: I ate nuts, raisins. Salad.
LINDA: Very healthy.
HERMANN K: For squirrels. I'm told he's done pretty well.
SYDNEY: An understatement.
BROD: No thanks to his father.
HERMANN K: I could debate that with you, Professor. My
son is a near-delinquent. A spent condom.
LINDA: You've no business talking like that. This is a
sensitive man.
HERMANN K: Lady. My son is about as sensitive as a gannet.
SYDNEY: You're proud of him. You must be.
HERMANN K: Why? What's he done? Written a book or
two. My father could lift a sack of potatoes in his teeth.
(BROD joins in.)
BROD: He won't have read a word he's written.
HERMANN K: I tried to read one once. Flat as piss on a
plate. When he makes Reader's Digest, then I'll read him.
BROD: Reader's Digest! Last week I had a telegram
from the Oxford English Dictionary. Your son is so famous
that they named a word after him.
HERMANN K: What kind of word?
BROD: An adjective. Kafkaesque.
HERMANN K: I never heard it. Has it caught on?
BROD: Caught on? Your son now has adjectival status
in Japanese.
KAFKA: Is this true?
SYDNEY: Don't ask her, ask me. Of course it's true.
BROD: They don't only write about you. They have to use
you to write. Now you're a tool of the trade.
KAFKA: Thanks for nothing, Max.
SYDNEY: Of course you're not the only one.
KAFKA: Proust?
SYDNEY: Afraid so. Proustian.
BROD: Kafkaesque is better.
Kafka and his father argue about whether or not he was a tyrant and
eventually come to no real conclusion, dashing Sydney's hopes of writing
an article saying that Hermann Kafka wasn't all bad and making a name for
himself. Linda just thinks he's a nice, sensitive man. Eventually
Brod and the Kafkas leave, and Sydney is left to ponder what happened.
Back
to the Books page