Amerika: The Missing Person: A New Translation, Based on the Restored Text

by Franz Kafka

  It took some time for Therese to extricate herself from the head porter’s embrace, and then, just as she was about to intercede for Karl with the head waiter, who was still listening to the rather long-winded Bess, the head cook strode into the room. “Thank God,” cried Therese, and for a moment all one could hear in the room were those two loud words. The head waiter immediately jumped up, pushing aside Bess: “So you’ve come in person, Madame Head Cook. On account of such a trifling matter? After our conversation on the telephone it dawned on me that this might be so, but I couldn’t quite believe it. And this matter with your protégé is becoming ever more serious. I fear I won’t be able to dismiss him and shall have to have him locked up instead. Come here and listen for yourself!” And he beckoned Bess to approach him. “First, I should like to say a few words to Rossmann,” said the head cook, and she sat down on a chair since the head waiter forced her to do so. “Karl, please come closer,” she said. Karl complied, or rather was dragged over by the head porter. “Do let him go,” said the head cook angrily, “after all, he’s not a thief and murderer.” The head porter let him go but only after giving Karl such a tight last squeeze that the strain brought tears to his eyes.

  “Karl,” said the head cook, and then she calmly put her hands in her lap and looked at Karl with her head bent down toward him—this really didn’t seem like an interrogation— “what I especially want to tell you is that I still have complete confidence in you. The head waiter too is a just man, I can vouch for that. All in all, both of us want to keep you on.” She gave the head waiter a fleeting glance, as though requesting that she not be interrupted. The head waiter remained silent. “So forget what these people here may have told you. You don’t have to take all that so seriously, especially what the porter may have said. Though he is quite wound up, which isn’t surprising given his duties, he does have a wife and children and realizes that there’s no need to subject a boy who is entirely thrown back on his own resources to unnecessary torment, since the world at large will certainly see to that.”

  The room fell silent. The head porter looked at the head waiter, demanding an explanation; the latter looked at the head cook and shook his head. Behind the head porter’s back, Bess, the lift boy, grinned absurdly. Therese sobbed in joy and sorrow and had to make a great effort to prevent others from overhearing her sobs.

  Even though Karl realized that such conduct would necessarily be taken as a bad sign, rather than looking at the head cook, who was certainly trying to catch his eye, he chose to gaze at the floor. The pain in his arm was throbbing all over, his shirt had stuck to the weal, and he really ought to have removed his jacket and taken a look at it. What the head cook said was, of course, very kindly meant, but it seemed to him that this behavior on the part of the head cook would unfortunately make it quite clear that he deserved no such kindness and that he had quite undeservedly enjoyed the head cook’s favor for two months and indeed that all he simply deserved was to fall into the head waiter’s hands.

  “I’m telling this to you,” the head cook continued, “so that you can answer forthrightly, as you would have done anyhow, from what I know of you.”

  “Please, may I go and get the doctor, the man could be bleeding to death,” said the lift boy, interrupting the conversation in a polite but most disruptive manner.

  “Yes, go,” said the head waiter to Bess, who ran off at once. Then he said to the head cook: “This is how things stand: the head porter has not detained that boy merely for the fun of it. Downstairs in the lift boys’ dormitory a complete stranger was found lying in one of the beds, heavily intoxicated, with the covers pulled up carefully over him. They woke him, of course, and wanted to get rid of him. But the man made quite a racket and kept shouting out that the dormitory belonged to Karl Rossmann, that he was a guest of Karl Rossmann, who had brought him there and would punish anyone who dared to lay hands on him. Besides, he would have to wait for that fellow Karl Rossmann, he said, for he had promised him money and had just gone to get it. Please take careful note of this, Madame Head Cook: he promised him money and went to get it. Rossmann, you too should take note of this,” the head waiter said to Karl, who had just turned toward Therese; she in turn stared at the head porter, as if spellbound, and pulled her hair back from her forehead, perhaps simply as an automatic gesture. “But perhaps I ought to remind you of certain appointments you’ve made. You see, the man downstairs went on to say that when you return, you two will pay a nighttime visit to a certain female singer, whose name no one could understand since the man could pronounce it only when he was singing.”

  Just then the head waiter interrupted what he was saying, since the head cook, who had grown visibly pale, rose from his chair, which she pushed back a little. “I shall spare you the rest,” said the head waiter. “No, please, no,” said the head cook, seizing his hand. “Go on, I want to hear everything, that’s why I’ve come.” The head porter stepped forward and, so as to signal that he had seen through everything from the outset, beat himself loudly on the breast, whereupon the head waiter addressed him with the words: “Yes, you were quite right, Feodor!” calming him down while upbraiding him also.

  “There’s not much left to say,” said the head waiter. “Boys are boys; first they laughed at the man, then got into a fight with him, and since there were always a few good boxers standing around, he was simply boxed to the floor, and I dared not even ask where, and in how many spots, he was bleeding, for these boys are formidable boxers, and of course they have an easy time with a drunk.”

  “Well,” said the head cook, holding her chair by the armrest and staring at the place she had just vacated. “So please do speak, Rossmann!” she said. Therese had already run across to the head cook from her position, and taken the head cook’s arm, which Karl had never seen her do before. The head waiter stood right behind the head cook, slowly smoothing out the head cook’s small plain lace collar, which was turned up a little. The head porter, who still stood next to Karl, said: “So out with it now,” merely so as to conceal a punch in the back that he was giving Karl.

  “It’s true,” said Karl, sounding less confident than he would have wished on account of the punch, “I did take the man into the dormitory.”

  “That’s all we wish to know,” said the porter, speaking on behalf of everybody else. The head cook turned silently to the head porter and then to Therese.

  “I had no other choice,” Karl continued. “That man is my former comrade, and after not seeing each other for two months, he came to visit me, but was so drunk he could not leave on his own.”

  The head waiter, who now stood next to the head cook, mumbled to himself in a low voice: “So he came to visit and was so drunk afterward that he couldn’t leave on his own.” The head cook whispered a few words over her shoulder to the head waiter, who appeared to raise objections, smiling in a manner evidently unrelated to this affair. Out of helplessness Therese—Karl had eyes only for her—pressed her face up to the head cook, seeking to block out everything else. The only person whom Karl had completely satisfied with his explanation was the head porter, who said repeatedly: “That’s absolutely right, a man has got to help his drinking buddy,” and sought to impress this explanation on all present by means of gazes and gestures.

  “So I’m to blame,” said Karl, and he paused, as if awaiting from his judges a kind word that might give him the courage to go on defending himself, but the word never came, “I’m to blame only for taking that man, whose name is Robinson—he’s an Irishman—into the dormitory. As for everything else he said, he said so only because he was drunk and it’s not true.”

  “So you didn’t promise him any money?” asked the head waiter.

  “Yes,” said Karl, and he regretted that he had forgotten this altogether; whether out of rashness or distraction, he had all too definitely called himself blameless. “Rather than go fetch it, I wanted to give him the tips I had earned last night.” And to prove this was so, he pulled the money from his
pocket and showed a couple of small coins in the palm of his hand.

  “You keep getting lost,” said the head waiter. “To be able to believe what you say, one would continually need to forget what you just said. So first you took that man—I can’t even believe you when you say his name is Robinson; ever since Ireland has existed, there’s never been an Irishman of that name—first you say that you merely took him into the dormitory, which is, by the way, already sufficient to get you thrown out at once—and that you didn’t initially promise him any money, but then when one surprises you with the question, you admit that you did promise him some money. But this isn’t a question-and-answer game; we want to hear your justification for your actions. At first you didn’t want to fetch the money and instead give him tips for today, but then it turns out that you do still have that money on you, so you obviously did intend to fetch more money, and your lengthy absence supports this interpretation. Finally, there would really be nothing odd about your wanting to fetch more money from your trunk for him, but it’s certainly odd that you’re trying to deny this so emphatically. Just as you seek the whole time to conceal the fact that you made the man drunk at the hotel, and there can be no doubt whatsoever about this since you yourself admitted that he came on his own but was unable to leave on his own, and of course, in the dormitory he himself shouted out that he was your guest. So there are only two questions that must still be clarified, which, if you wish to simplify the affair, you can answer yourself; besides, we can establish this without your help. First, how did you succeed in gaining access to the pantries, and second, how did you amass enough money to be able to give some away?”

  “It’s impossible to defend oneself in the absence of goodwill,” Karl said to himself, and he ceased to answer the head waiter, however painful for Therese this might be. He knew that whatever he could say would end up seeming very different from the way it had been intended and that the way they assessed the matter was critical, since it alone would determine the final judgment of good or evil.

  “He isn’t answering,” said the head cook.

  “It’s the most sensible thing he can do,” said the head waiter.

  “He’s sure to come up with something,” said the head porter, taking the hand that had just engaged in cruel acts and stroking his beard delicately with it.

  “Be quiet,” the head cook said to Therese, who was beginning to sob. “Look, he’s not answering, so how can I do anything for him? After all, I’m the one the head waiter is going to fault. But tell me, Therese, was there something I could have done and neglected to do?” How could Therese know how to answer this, and what could be gained by asking and entreating the little girl so publicly, which might cause the head cook to lose face with the two gentlemen?

  “Madame Head Cook,” said Karl, pulling himself together once again for the sole purpose of sparing Therese the obligation of answering, “I don’t think I disgraced you at all, and after examining the matter carefully, everybody else would have to come to the same conclusion.”

  “Everybody else,” said the head porter, pointing a finger at the head waiter, “that’s a barb directed at you, Mr. Isbary.”

  “Well, Madame Head Cook,” said the latter, “it’s half past six, and now it’s time, high time. I think it would be best if you gave me the last word in this affair, which has been dealt with far too leniently.”

  Little Giacomo had entered and sought to approach Karl, but startled by the silence in the room, he gave up and waited.

  Ever since Karl had last spoken, the head cook kept her eyes trained on him and nothing suggested that she had heard the head waiter’s remark. Her eyes looked squarely at Karl; they were large and blue but slightly clouded by age and constant strain. On seeing her stand thus, feebly shaking the chair in front of her, one might easily have expected her to say: “Well, Karl, when I think about it, I realize that this affair has not yet been properly settled, and as you rightly pointed out, a more careful investigation is called for. And we will conduct it right away, for whether one approves of this course of action or not, justice must be done.”

  Instead, however, after a brief pause that nobody had dared interrupt—except for the clock, which, confirming what the head waiter had said, struck half past six, accompanied, as everybody realized, by all the other clocks in the hotel; so that in one’s ear and in one’s imagination the sound seemed like the twofold twitching of one great disembodied impatience—the head cook said: “No, Karl, no, no! We’re not going to allow ourselves to accept that. Just causes have a quite distinctive appearance, whereas yours, I must admit, does not. I can say this and am indeed obliged to say so since I’m the one who was most favorably inclined toward you when I came in. Look, even Therese has fallen silent.” (But she had not fallen silent; she was weeping.)

  Overcome by a new resolve, the head cook faltered and said, “Karl, come here,” and when he approached her—the head waiter and the head porter gathered at once behind his back and struck up a lively conversation—she put her left hand around him and led him and the impassive, docile Therese far into the room, then back and forth a few times, before saying: “It is possible Karl—and indeed, you seem to be confident of this, for I simply could not understand you otherwise—that such an inquiry will corroborate that you are right, at least in certain details. Well, why not? Perhaps you actually did greet the head porter. I’m even quite sure of that; besides, I know quite well what I ought to think of the head porter; as you can see, I’m still very frank with you. But minor justifications of that sort won’t be of any help to you. Over the course of many years I’ve come to respect the head waiter as a good judge of character; of all the people I know, he is the most reliable, and he has after all stated clearly that you are guilty, which I too find incontrovertible. You may simply have acted rashly, or then again you may not be the person I initially assumed you were. And yet”—she stopped for a moment, looked back at the two gentlemen, and then went on—“yet I still cannot give up on the idea that you’re a fundamentally decent boy.”

  “Madame Head Cook! Madame Head Cook!” admonished the head waiter, who had caught her eye.

  “We’re just about finished,” said the head cook, who now began to address Karl more rapidly and insistently: “Listen, Karl, the way I see things, I’m even glad the head waiter doesn’t want to open an investigation, for if he tried to do so, I should have to put a stop to it for your sake. There’s no need for anyone to find out how—and with what provisions—you fed the man, who can hardly be one of your former comrades, as you made out, for you had a big fight with them as you were saying goodbye and therefore you could not be hosting one of them now. So it can only be some acquaintance or other you met in some city bar at night and quite rashly accepted as a buddy. Karl, how could you have concealed all this from me? Perhaps you found life in the dormitory unbearable and this was the innocent reason for your nighttime ambles, but if so, why did you never say a word about it? You know I wanted to get you a room of your own and gave up on the idea only after you repeatedly asked me not to do so. It now seems as if you chose the dormitory because you felt less restricted there. And you kept your money in my safe and brought me your tips every week, so for God’s sake, boy, where did you get the money for your diversions, and where did you intend to find the money for your friend? Naturally, I cannot even drop a hint to the head waiter about any of this just now, for that might make an investigation unavoidable. So you must definitely leave the hotel, and in fact as quickly as possible. Go straight to the Brenner Pension—you were there with Therese several times—and on the strength of this recommendation they will take you in without asking for payment”—the head cook drew a gold pencil from her blouse and wrote a few lines on a visiting card without even interrupting what she was saying—“I shall send on your trunk right away; Therese, run to the lift boys’ wardrobe and pack his trunk” (but Therese did not stir, for just as she had endured all the sorrow, she now wanted to witness fully the improvement
in Karl’s affair thanks to the kindness of the head cook).

  Somebody opened the door a crack without letting himself be seen and shut it again at once. This was evidently intended for Giacomo, for he stepped forward and said: “Rossmann, I have a message for you.” “Just a moment,” said the head cook, and put her business card into Karl’s pocket as he listened, head inclined, “I shall keep your money for now. You know you can entrust me with it. Stay at home today and think over the affair, and then tomorrow—I don’t have time today and have already been here far too long—I shall come to the Brenner, and then we’ll see what else we can do for you. I shall not abandon you; I can already assure you of that. It’s not the future you should be concerned about, but rather the recent past.” Whereupon she tapped him lightly on the shoulder and approached the head waiter; Karl lifted his head and looked at this large, imposing woman, who set off at a calm pace and with sovereign bearing.

  “Well,” said Therese, who had stayed behind with him, “aren’t you pleased everything has turned out so well?” “Oh yes,” said Karl, and he smiled at her, although he had no idea why he should be pleased about being dismissed as a thief. Therese’s eyes glittered with joy, as if she could not care less whether Karl had done something wrong and been justly condemned, if only they let him go, either honorably or in disgrace. And it was Therese who was behaving thus, the very Therese who handled her own affairs so meticulously that whenever the head cook used some not entirely unambiguous expression, she would turn it over in her mind and analyze it for weeks at a time. He asked her quite deliberately: “Will you pack my case right away and send it off?” Involuntarily, he had to shake his head in astonishment over the speed with which Therese took in the question; she was so convinced that certain items in the trunk needed to be hidden from everyone that she failed to glance at Karl or give him her hand and simply whispered: “Yes, of course, Karl, right away, I’ll pack your trunk right away.” And she was already gone.