Alan Bennett: Plays, Volume 2

by Alan Bennett

  Kafka No, Max.

  Brod Are you saying you lied to me?

  Kafka Yes.

  Linda And you lied to me?

  Kafka I lied to everybody.

  Brod Why?

  Sydney Because he was a writer. Writers do lie. They exaggerate because they always think they’re the injured party. That’s one of the things you learn in insurance: the injured party always exaggerates.

  Hermann Κ Yes. You boys of art, you’re all the same. I want to hear it again. How much did I love you? (Indicating three inches.) A little. (Indicating eight inches.) Or a lot.

  Kafka I can’t tell you how much.

  Brod I’m nauseated.

  Linda You’re hiding something?

  Kafka No. It’s just that there were faults on both sides.

  Hermann Κ We sparred a little, sure, but who doesn’t?

  Brod Sparred? ‘Eat your meat or I’ll get a long spoon and cram it down your throat like they do in prisons.’

  Hermann Κ That’s me. And you say I was wrong. Dr Spock says I was wrong. The Cambridge History of Literature says I was wrong. Does he say I was wrong?

  Kafka You were right, Father. Parents love their children so they make them eat.

  Hermann Κ True?

  Linda I don’t know. We have no children.

  Hermann Κ So what do you know about anything?

  Brod You tried to stop him writing. You even hid his ink.

  Hermann Κ What time was it?

  Kafka Three in the morning.

  Hermann Κ What time did you have to go to work?

  Kafka Seven. You were right. A boy needs sleep.

  Brod He tried to stop you writing altogether.

  Hermann Κ Of course I did. That’s how clever I was. If I’d said ‘Stick to the writing’ he would probably have ended up a chartered accountant. Hermann Kafka didn’t fall off the Christmas tree yesterday. Right, my son?

  Kafka nods unhappily.

  Kiss? Mmm. Yours a little kiss. Mine a big kiss.

  Linda I think you might have told me. I told you about Sydney.

  Sydney What?

  Brod I’m the one he should have told. I wrote his biography. I gave him to the world. I’m nauseated.

  Sydney What about me?

  Linda I told him I wasn’t very happy.

  Sydney That’s you. You said you’d told him about me.

  Kafka How long do I have to keep up this charade?

  Hermann K Until people start liking me more than they like you. Until they realize what a handful you were. Until I get into the books in a proper light and posterity has finally got to hand it to me, that’s how long.

  Kafka It will never happen.

  Hermann Κ So should I tell them your little secret …

  Kafka No.

  Hermann Κ Then cuddle me, you soiled bandage. Snuggle up.

  Kafka Cuddle you. I’m Kafka. I never cuddled anyone in my life.

  Hermann Κ So you’ve just made a breakthrough. And not gingerly. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s gingerly cuddling. Hey, just look at this boy. Someone take a picture.

  Brod I am nauseated by this. Sick to my scrotum. The shrinking hypocrisy of it. Seen here embracing his son, one of the most notorious shits in literary history.

  Hermann Κ (gleefully) I know.

  Brod What is it you’re hiding?

  Kafka Nothing, honestly.

  Hermann Κ Go into the garden, son. Get some fresh air. But remember, I love you.

  Brod is about to follow.

  No. Sorry. I think my son would prefer to be alone, wouldn’t you, son?

  Kafka Yes, father.

  He exits.

  Brod You make me sick.

  Hermann Κ I know.

  Brod exits.

  Hermann Κ So. I’m going to come well out of this article?

  Sydney An ordinary fellow.

  Hermann Κ Well, don’t think I’m not grateful. Anything you want in the soft-furnishing line, high-quality fancy goods, you only have to ask. Curtaining materials, rufflette, those little mats you put under glasses to stop them making a nasty ring on a nice polished table … A man wants to show his gratitude, exonerated after all these years. I feel sorry for my son, naturally, pushed off his pedestal, but the truth had to come out.

  Sydney You were found guilty on false evidence.

  Hermann Κ I was. Trial. I never had a trial. This is the joke: my son writes a book about someone who’s had up for a crime he didn’t commit and everybody thinks the book’s about him. It’s not. It’s about me. In fact, if I weren’t so fond of my son I’d say he’s the one who should be put on trial.

  Linda In what way?

  Hermann Κ No, no. Forget I said it. Fundamentally this is a good boy.

  Linda Try him for what?

  Hermann Κ Perjury. Bearing false witness against his father.

  Sydney It isn’t only that. There are other charges. Other questions.

  Linda But you admired him.

  Sydney I did. I do … though he’s not the man I thought he was. Still there’s no question of you trying him: you’re his father.

  Hermann Κ You’re in insurance. Investigation and assessment, it’s right up your street.

  Linda There’s a difference between a man’s reputation and a scratch on the bodywork. Sydney’s no judge. He’s …

  Sydney What?

  Linda He’s nobody.

  Sydney I married you.

  Linda That proves it, probably.

  Sydney Well, I may be a nobody, Linda, but what I am is a reader. And writers are tried by readers every time they open their books. Fetch him. He trusts you.

  Sydney places the walking frame to act as a makeshift dock and draws the curtains.

  The stage darkens.

  Linda Sydney. This is persecution.

  Sydney No, it’s not. It’s biography.

  Brod My biography never put him in the dock.

  Sydney I know. That’s what was wrong with it.

  Linda exits.

  After a moment, Kafka creeps in. He sees the dock waiting.

  Kafka Max, Father …

  Hermann Κ Don’t look at me.

  Kafka What have I done?

  Sydney (taking the frame and putting it in front of Kafka) You are famous. Fame is a continuing offence. It leaves you open to trial at any time.

  Kafka But I didn’t want fame.

  Brod I know. It’s all my fault. But I bet you still expect me to defend you.

  Linda Why don’t I defend you?

  Sydney You?

  Kafka How? You know nothing about me.

  Linda I like you. Nobody else seems to.

  Sydney I do, given the chance.

  Linda Then why the trial?

  Sydney I just want to cut him down to size. If I do that I might make my name. Don’t you want me to make my name?

  Linda No. Not at the expense of his.

  Sydney Do you, Sydney, take this bottle of hydrochloric acid, Linda, to be your lawful wedded wife? Splendid. Would you, Linda, take your stiletto heel and force it up the groom’s nose. Excellent. I now pronounce you man and wife. All right. You defend. I prosecute, and we’ll see who wins. Right?

  Linda Right.

  Kafka (in the middle) Oh dear.

  Sydney Very well. Let’s kick off with this question of your name. While every other writer one can think of wants to make his name, you want to unmake yours. So you unravel your name until there’s only one letter left: K. You sign your letters K, you refer to yourself as K. What was it you disliked about Kafka?

  Linda What is it you disliked about Sydney?

  Sydney I dislike Sydney because it carries within it the unhatched threat of Syd. And if you can’t do any better than that I’d leave it to him (he indicates Brod). What was it you disliked about Kafka?

  Kafka It means jackdaw. A thief. It also means me.

  Sydney Can I suggest another reason? The name Kafka. Treat it like an equation in al
gebra. Take the F to one side of the equation and what are we left with? F equals Kaka. Franz is shit. Is that why you disliked it?

  Linda Better than Syd.

  Brod And T. S. Eliot is an anagram of toilets so does that make him a closet? This isn’t biography. It’s not even literary criticism. It’s the only thing the English are good at … crossword puzzles. He denies it. He denies everything.

  Kafka F equals Kaka. Truthfully, it hadn’t occurred to me, but now you point it out it’s not a bad idea.

  Brod What do you do with this man?

  Kafka My name, it was like a tin can tied to the tail of a cat. I wanted rid of it.

  Sydney Quite, and though you get the credit for trying to lose your name, you never do lose it. You make it famous. And the person who does lose his name gets no credit for it at all.

  Hermann Κ Who was that?

  Sydney You.

  Hermann Κ Me? Exactly! Was it?

  Sydney Yes.

  Brod Him?

  Hermann Κ That’s right. In Prague in 1919 stop any passing housewife and say Kafka and she’d direct you to my shop by the Town Hall. Cheerful service, high-quality goods, value for money. Kafka’s is the place.

  Sydney And what happens if you say you’re Kafka now?

  Hermann Κ ‘You Kafka?’ people say. ‘Kafka didn’t have a moustache for a start. Kafka is the skinny guy with the big ears on the back of the Penguins.’ Suddenly I don’t exist. So, Mr Name-Dropper. I’m the one who loses his name. Gets de-nominated. Mr Hermann Kafka. Only I didn’t lose it. It was taken. By my son.

  Brod All sons take their father’s name.

  Linda Not only sons. (To Sydney.) You took my name. When I married you.

  Sydney And?

  Linda Why is it when a woman gets married we say she takes her husband’s name? What we mean is he takes hers. Takes it and buries it.

  Hermann Κ All right, so you lose your name too, dear. The point the gentleman is making, precious, is that the one person who didn’t lose his name is the person who claimed to want to lose it, and the person who got the credit for losing it: my son.

  Linda And whose fault is that? (She points at Brod.)

  Brod He was in two minds. He was always in two minds. I did him a good turn.

  Sydney I’ve never understood that.

  Brod It’s called friendship.

  Sydney Did he ever do you a good turn?

  Kafka I made him famous.

  Sydney But that’s not a good turn, is it? When Kafka was alive, of the two of you who is the better known?

  Brod I’d published several novels. He’d published almost nothing. I was a poet, a critic. Me, no question. With a comparable reputation in Czechoslovakia today I’d probably be a well-known dissident.

  Sydney And what was Kafka when you knew him?

  Brod A friend of Max Brod.

  Sydney Whereas today …

  Brod It’s the other way round.

  Linda That’s nothing to be ashamed of. The great man’s friend. That’s all a woman gets. That’s all a wife would have got.

  Brod But I wasn’t his wife. I was someone in my own right.

  Kafka And my best friend. Rather nice I should have thought.

  Brod If not to exist is nice. And since you do think not existing is nice, maybe it is.

  Kafka Don’t you exist?

  Brod Not any more. I go on publishing novels after you die, notching up steady sales. Only then I start publishing yours. Result: as soon as they read yours they don’t want to know about mine. (He takes out some clippings.) This is my last novel. It was about the Arab–Israeli War. This reviewer found in it ‘a trace of Kafka’s imagery but’ (here it comes) ‘none of that simple fascinating prose style that makes Kafka readable.’ You readable! You may have been a genius, but you were never readable. You finished me as a novelist. All I could do was go round lecturing about the Kafka I knew. ‘Kafka as I remembered him.’ Or Kafka as I remembered remembering him. What you were actually like I’d forgotten till now. I had no life of my own any more.

  Linda You were his wife.

  Brod No. I was his widow.

  Linda Even better.

  Sydney Would you say your friend was good-looking?

  Brod Yes. Yes, I would.

  Kafka No.

  Hermann Κ There has to be something about him, hasn’t there? He’s my son.

  Sydney You think he’s good-looking, don’t you?

  Linda In comparison w– yes.

  Kafka My body wasn’t satisfactory. I couldn’t bear to look at it.

  Sydney Your diaries show you looked at it all the time.

  Kafka Only in disgust.

  Sydney Do you grumble about your physique to your friend here?

  Brod Does he ever!

  Kafka Do I? I don’t remember.

  Brod When don’t you? Every imperfection of the body tormented you. Constipation, a toe that wasn’t properly formed, even dandruff. Toes and dandruff. I wished I’d had your problems.

  Kafka Why?

  Brod Why? You prick in a bottle. You turd in a hat. Why? Did you never look at me? My spine was twisted. You’re complaining to me about dandruff. I was a hunchback.

  Linda He’s not a hunchback now.

  Brod There’s not much to be said for death, but it is the end of disability.

  Sydney Your sensitive friend.

  Linda Say something. Defend yourself.

  Kafka What for? Nobody can reproach me with failings for which I have not reproached myself. List my shortcomings now. I listed them all half a century ago. Find fault with me now, what is the evidence: my own fault-finding then. I stand here self-examined, self- confessed and self-convicted.

  Hermann Κ Self, self, self.

  Kafka Nobody ever believed what I said about myself. When I said I exaggerated they thought I was exaggerating. When I said I lied, they thought I lied. I said I was an agent of the devil, they thought this meant I was a servant of God. When I said they must not believe me, they did not believe me. But now you believe me. Only now when at last you find I was telling the truth about myself you call me a liar.

  Linda I don’t think you’re a liar.

  Kafka But you’d agree I was a terrible human being?

  Linda No. Pretty average, if you ask me.

  Brod Average? Kafka is average?

  Sydney And now as in some Czech village wooing Kafka pauses with his rucksack at the garden gate, asks for a lemonade and our brisk Shavian heroine reads him a lesson on life and generally pulling his socks up.

  Linda When I first saw you I thought here’s somebody different. I can talk to this man. And what’s more peculiar he listens. He notices. I also thought what nice hands.

  Kafka And now?

  Linda I still like your hands.

  Kafka But I’m a terrible human being.

  Linda No.

  Kafka No?

  Linda No. You’re a man, that’s all.

  Sydney Oh no.

  All the men except Kafka groan.

  Kafka Not much of a man.

  Linda Every inch.

  Hermann Κ sniggers.

  Kafka Dad.

  Linda You’re a man, because, although you despair, at the same time like all men you believe your despair is important. You think you’re insignificant but your insignificance is not insignificant. Oh no.

  Kafka That’s because I’m a writer.

  Linda No. It’s because you are a man. Whatever happens or doesn’t happen to you matters. You may not want the world to think you’re somebody, provided it recognizes you are nobody.

  Kafka But I am nobody.

  Linda Why tell us? Women can be nobodies all the time and who cares? All these letters to your girlfriends … Letters to Milena, letters to Felice. Saved. Published. Where are their letters to you? Lost. Thrown away. That’s a man.

  Kafka I was born a man.

  Linda What excuse is that? You changed into a beetle, a dog, an ape, the one thing you never t
ransformed yourself into was the lowliest creature of all … a woman.

  Sydney Good try, but you’re wrong. One of the last stories he wrote is about a female, Josephina, a singing mouse.

  Kafka You’re defending me now.

  Brod Against her? Of course he is. We have to stick together. Anyway, why save your girlfriends’ letters? Are they literature?

  Hermann Κ Women.

  Linda Are you disappointed in me?

  Kafka No. I always expect to be disappointed. If I’m not disappointed, then I’m disappointed.

  Linda I always feel I want to mother him.

  Kafka No. Once was enough.

  Kafka tries to leave the dock.

  Sydney One last point. You never saw fascism, communism, the totalitarian state.

  Kafka No. By that time I was safely tucked up in my grave.

  Sydney Your work suggests you would not have been happy under such regimes.

  Kafka Does it? I can’t say.

  Sydney Oh, I think so. Your reputation today, at least among those who know your name but haven’t read you (which is the measure of literary reputation after all) … your reputation stands high as a man who protested (though don’t ask in what respect precisely), a man who shook his fist (helplessly, no doubt) against authority, officialdom, the law. You were, if not an enemy of the state, a friend of the enemies of the state. Is that reputation justified, do you think?

  Kafka I have told you. Any reputation is a burden.

  Sydney Where could you have shed that burden? Where would you be happiest?

  Kafka It’s not a place that exists in the world.

  Sydney Why?

  Kafka It would be a place where I am read only by vermin, the outcasts of the community, the convicts and exiles. I would be read by untouchables, furnacemen, sweepers of roads. Furtively, with discretion and behind locked doors. It would be a place where I am read, but not named, known but not spoken of, studied but not taught. That would be my ideal state.

  Sydney There is a place like that.

  Kafka Where? It must be wonderful. I’d like to live there.

  Sydney You did. It’s called Prague. (He takes the frame away, and puts it offstage.)

  Kafka Is the trial over?

  Sydney For the time being. (He takes his manuscript.) The process goes on, of course, I’ve no need to tell you that. Articles, books… every day is –

  Kafka – a day of judgement. I know.

  All clear, leaving Hermann K alone on the stage as Father comes in, either with his frame, or a makeshift version of it, like a chair.