Amerika (36 page)

Lost in contemplation of Giacomo, Karl remained away from his seat too long, and just as he was about to go back, the personnel manager came, climbed onto one of the higher benches, clapped his hands, and gave a brief speech; most people rose, prompting those who were still seated and could not tear themselves away from their food to do likewise. “Well,” he said—Karl had already tiptoed quickly back to his seat—“I do hope you were satisfied with our welcome dinner. People generally do praise the food served by our recruiting troupe. Unfortunately I must break up this gathering, though, since the train meant to take you to Oklahama will be leaving in five minutes. It's a long trip, but as you'll see, you'll be well taken care of. And now I should like to introduce you to the gentleman who will be in charge of your transportation and whose orders you should follow.” A small, thin gentleman climbed onto the bench beside the personnel manager, barely took the time to give a hasty bow, and stretching out his trembling hands, quickly began to show everyone how to assemble, get into line and start moving. But they did not comply right away, since the person in their group who had earlier on given the speech slammed his hand on the table and began to deliver a rather lengthy thank-you speech despite the recent announcement that the train was about to leave—and Karl became very uneasy. Completely ignoring the fact that he no longer had the ear of the personnel manager, who was giving various instructions to the transportation manager, the speaker embarked on a lengthy speech listing all of the courses that had been served, pronouncing judgment on each, and concluding with the cry: “Honorable gentlemen, this is certainly the way to win us over.” Everyone—except those he was addressing—laughed, although there was more truth than jest in what he said.

The price they paid for this speech was that they now had to run to reach the station. Still, this wasn't terribly difficult, for as Karl only now noticed, no one was carrying any luggage and indeed the only piece of luggage was the baby carriage that the father pushed along at the head of the troupe and that bounced up and down as if careening along of its own accord. What suspect types, without possessions, had found their way here, and yet they were being so well received and cared for! And they must have made quite an impression on the transportation manager. For he seized the handlebars of the baby carriage with one hand, raising the other up in the air so as to persuade the group to move forward; now he appeared behind the last line, driving them on; now he ran along the sides, keeping an eye on some of the slower ones in the middle, and tried to show them how to run by swinging his arms.

When they arrived at the station, the train was ready. The people at the station pointed out the troupe to one another; one could hear cries such as, “They all belong to the Theater of Oklahama”; the theater seemed to be much better known than Karl had assumed, but then he had never taken much interest in the theater business. An entire carriage had been set aside for their troupe, and the transportation manager outdid the conductor in pressing everyone to get on. First he looked into every compartment, straightened out something here and there, and only then climbed on himself. By chance Karl obtained a window seat and drew Giacomo over beside him. They sat pressed together; each looked forward to the journey; never before had they been so carefree on a journey in America. When the train began to move, they waved out the window, and the fellows opposite, finding their behavior ridiculous, gave one another nudges.

T
hey traveled for two days and two nights. Only then did Karl come to understand the vastness of America. Tirelessly he gazed out the window, and Giacomo kept edging over until the fellows opposite, who often occupied themselves with card games, grew weary and voluntarily gave up their window seat. Karl thanked them—it wasn't always easy to make sense of Giacomo's English—and as inevitably happens among compartment mates, they became much friendlier, yet their friendliness too was a nuisance, for whenever a card, say, fell down on the floor and they went looking for it, they would pinch Karl's or Giacomo's leg as hard as they could. Giacomo, always surprised anew, would cry out and lift his leg in the air; at times Karl tried to respond with a kick, but for the most part he bore everything in silence. Everything taking place in that little compartment, which filled up with smoke even when the windows were open, paled in comparison with the sights unfolding outside.

On the first day they passed through a tall mountain range. The sharp angles of the bluish-black masses of rock went right up to the train; they leaned out the window and searched in vain for the peaks; dark narrow jagged valleys opened up, and with their fingers they traced the direction in which the valleys disappeared; broad mountain rivers swept forward in great waves over the craggy base, pushing along thousands of small foamy waves, plunging under the bridges over which the train passed, and coming so close that the breath of their chill made one's face quiver.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

____________

I should like to thank: a cohort of students at Elizabethtown College, who patiently transcribed my scrawled corrections, especially Jamie Hudzick, Valerie Reed, Greg Rohde, and Stephen Marks; Adrian Daub, at the University of Pennsylvania, who offered useful suggestions about the translation; and the following centers, which provided congenial settings for translating—and reflecting on—
The Missing Person:
the Mac Dowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire; the Ledig House International Writers Residency at Omi, in the Hudson Valley; the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Woodside, California; the European Translators Colloquium in Straelen, Germany; and the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Annaghmakerrig, Ireland. I should also like to thank the Office of the Federal Chancellor of Austria for financial support, Elizabethtown College for a sabbatical leave, and last but not least, my wife, Nina Menke, and daughters, Eva and Ciara, for bearing with me at times when I must have seemed like a missing person.

CHRONOLOGY

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1883                           3 July: Franz Kafka is born in Prague, son of Hermann Kafka and Julie, née Löwy.

1889                           Enters a German primary school. Birth of his sister Elli Kafka, his first surviving sibling.

1892                           Birth of his sister Ottla Kafka.

1893                           Enters the Old City German Secondary School in Prague.

1896                           13 June: Bar mitzvah, described in family invitation as “Confirmation.”

1897                           Anti-Semitic riots in Prague; Hermann Kafka's dry goods store is spared.

1899-1903                  Early writings (destroyed).

1901                           Graduates from secondary school. Enters German University in Prague. Studies chemistry for two weeks, then law.

1902 Spring: Attends lectures on German literature and the humanities. Travels to Munich, planning to continue German studies there. Returns to Prague. October: First meeting with Max Brod.

1904                           Begins writing “Description of a Struggle.”

1905                           Vacation in Zuckmantel, Silesia. First love affair.

1906                           Clerk in uncle's law office. June: Doctor of Law degree.

1906-07                  Legal practice in the
Landesgericht
(provincial high court) and
Strafgericht
(criminal court).

1907-08                  Temporary position in the Prague branch of the private insurance company Assicurazioni Generali.

1908                           March: Kafka's first publication: eight prose pieces appear in the review
Hyperion.
30 July: Enters the semi-state-owned Workers Accident Insurance Company for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague; works initially in the statistical and claims departments. Spends time in coffeehouses and cabarets.

1909                           Begins keeping diaries. April: Kafka's department head lauds his “exceptional faculty for conceptualization.” September: Travels with Max and Otto Brod to northern Italy, where they see airplanes for the first time. Writes article “The Aeroplanes in Brescia,” which subsequently appears in the daily paper
Bohemia.
Frequent trips to inspect factory conditions in the provinces.

1910                           May: Promoted to
Concipist
(junior legal adviser); sees Yiddish acting troupe. October: Vacations in Paris with Brod brothers.

1911                           Travels with Max Brod to northern Italy and Paris; spends a week in a Swiss natural-health sanatorium. Becomes a silent partner in the asbestos factory owned by his brother-in-law. 4 October: Sees Yiddish play
Der Meshumed
(The Apostate) at Café Savoy. Friendship with the Yiddish actor Yitzhak Löwy. Pursues interest in Judaism.

1912                           18 February: Gives “little introductory lecture” on Yiddish language. August: Assembles his first book,
Meditation;
meets Felice Bauer. Writes the stories “The Judgment” and “The Transformation” (frequently entitled “The Meta morphosis” in English). Begins the novel
The Missing Person
(first published in 1927 as
Amerika,
the title chosen by Brod). October: Distressed over having to take charge of the family's asbestos factory, considers suicide. December: Gives first public reading (“The Judgment”).

1913                           Extensive correspondence with Felice Bauer, whom he visits three times in Berlin. Promoted to company vice secretary. “The Stoker” published by Kurt Wolff. Takes up gardening. In Vienna attends international conference on accident prevention and observes Eleventh Zionist Congress; travels by way of Trieste, Venice, and Verona to Riva.

1914                           June: Official engagement to Felice Bauer. July: Engagement is broken. Travels through Lübeck to the Danish resort of Marielyst. Diary entry, 2 August: “Germany has declared war on Russia—swimming club in the afternoon.” Works on
The Trial;
writes “In the Penal Colony” and the Theater of Oklahama chapter in
The Missing Person.

1915                           January: First meeting with Felice Bauer after breaking engagement. March: At the age of thirty-one moves for the first time into own quarters. September: In diary entry compares fate of Karl Rossmann with that of Josef K. November: “The Transformation” (“The Metamorphosis”) appears; Kafka asks a friend: “What do you say about the terrible things that are happening in our house?”

1916                           July: Ten days with Felice Bauer at Marienbad. November: In a small house on Alchemists' Lane in the Castle district of Prague, begins to write the stories later collected in
A Country Doctor.

1917                           Second engagement to Felice Bauer. September: Diagnosis of tuberculosis. Moves back into his parents' apartment. Goes to stay with his favorite sister, Ottla, on a farm in the northern Bohemian town of Zürau. December: Second engagement to Felice Bauer is broken.

1918                           In Zürau writes numerous aphorisms about “the last things.” Reads Kierkegaard. May: Resumes work at insurance institute.

1919                           Summer: To the chagrin of his father, announces engagement to Julie Wohryzek, daughter of a synagogue custodian. Takes Hebrew lessons from Friedrich Thieberger. November: Wedding to Julie Wohryzek is postponed. Writes “Letter to His Father.”

1920                           Promotion to institute secretary. April: Convalescence vacation in Merano, Italy; beginning of correspondence with Milena Jesenská. Comments on Milena's Czech translation of “The Stoker.” May: Publication of
A Country Doctor,
with a dedication to Hermann Kafka. July: Engagement to Julie Wohryzek is broken. November: Anti-Semitic riots in Prague; Kafka writes to Milena: “Isn't the obvious course to leave a place where one is so hated?”

1921                           Stays at sanatorium at Matliary in the Tatra Mountains (Slovakia). August: Returns to Prague. Hands all his diaries to Milena Jesenská.

1922                           Diary entry, 16 January: Writes about nervous breakdown. 27 January: Travels to Spindlermühle, a resort on the Polish border, where he begins to write
The Castle.
15 March: Reads beginning section of novel to Max Brod. November: After another breakdown, informs Brod that he can no longer “pick up the thread.”

1923                           Resumes Hebrew studies. Sees Hugo Bergmann, who invites him to Palestine. July: Meets nineteen-year-old Dora Diamant in Müritz on the Baltic Sea. They dream of opening a restaurant in Tel Aviv, with Dora as cook and Franz as waiter. September: Moves to inflation-ridden Berlin to live with Dora. Writes “The Burrow.”

1924                           Health deteriorates. March: Brod takes Kafka back to Prague. Kafka writes “Josephine the Singer.” 19 April: Accompanied by Dora Diamant, enters Dr. Hoffman's sanatorium at Kierling, near Vienna. Corrects the galleys for the collection of stories
A Hunger Artist.
3 June: Kafka dies at age forty. 11 June: Burial in the Jewish Cemetery in Prague-Strašnice.