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

by Franz Kafka

  At Brunelda’s request Delamarche asked the people on the neighboring balcony to explain the significance of the event. Karl was a little curious to find out if those people would answer and what they would say. And Delamarche had to ask three times, without once receiving an answer. He leaned over the balustrade quite perilously as Brunelda stamped her foot lightly in irritation at her neighbors; Karl could feel the pressure of her knee. At last they gave an answer of sorts, but just then everybody on the packed balcony began to laugh out loud. Whereupon Delamarche shouted out something so loudly that if there hadn’t been so much noise coming from the street, everybody would have stopped and listened in astonishment. At any rate it caused the laughter to subside unnaturally fast.

  “There’s an election for a judge in our district tomorrow, and that fellow being carried about down there is a candidate,” said Delamarche, and having completely regained his composure, he went back over to Brunelda. “No!” he cried, clapping Brunelda affectionately on the back. “We have no idea anymore about what’s happening in the world.”

  “Delamarche,” said Brunelda, returning to the conduct of their neighbors, “I’d be so happy to move if it weren’t so exhausting. But unfortunately, I don’t think I could handle it.” Clearly agitated and distracted, and sighing heavily, Brunelda nestled up against Karl’s shirt while Karl tried as inconspicuously as possible to push aside those fat little hands, which he managed to do quite easily since Brunelda was not thinking about him; her thoughts were elsewhere.

  However, before long Karl too forgot about Brunelda and endured the weight of her arms on his shoulders, for he was captivated by the events taking place on the street. Upon a command from a small group of gesticulating men—who marched just ahead of the candidate and whose conversations must have been particularly important, for one could see rapt faces craning toward them from all sides—the procession halted unexpectedly in front of the tavern. Raising his hand, one of the pacesetters signaled to the crowd as well as to the candidate. The crowd fell silent, and the candidate, who repeatedly tried to stand on the shoulders of his carrier, only to fall back several times onto his chair, gave a brief speech, in the course of which he waved about his top hat at lightning speed. This was quite visible since all of the car lamps were directed at him, and he was therefore at the center of a brightly illumined star.

  One could see, however, that the entire street was now beginning to take an interest in this affair. On the balconies occupied by members of the candidate’s party, everybody began to shout out his name, and their hands, which hung far out over the balustrades, began to clap like machines. On the other balconies, which were in fact in the majority, there arose a powerful countersong that, however, failed to produce a coherent effect, since the people singing were supporters of different candidates. Still, all the enemies of the present candidate came together in a general round of whistling, and one could even hear numerous gramophones being switched on again. Between the balconies political arguments erupted that were all the more intense given the lateness of the hour. Most people were still in their nightclothes and had simply thrown robes about them, the women having covered themselves with great dark cloths; the unsupervised children climbed up alarmingly on the frames of the balconies and emerged in ever greater numbers from the dark rooms in which they had already been asleep. Now and then unrecognizable objects were flung by a few especially overheated individuals at their opponents, sometimes they reached their target, but mostly they fell on the street, where they often triggered howls of anger. Whenever the clamor became too much for the leading personages below, they instructed the drummers and trumpeters to intervene, and the interminable crushing sound that they produced with all their might suppressed all the human voices up to the roofs of the buildings. And then always quite suddenly—this was hard to believe—they would stop, and the crowd, which had obviously been well trained precisely with this purpose in mind, would bawl out the party anthem in the momentary hush—one could see each person’s mouth opening wide in the light from the car lamps—at which point their opponents, who had meanwhile regained their composure, would shout out ten times louder from all of the balconies and windows, thereby—at least insofar as one could tell from this height—reducing the party below, after its short-lived victory, to silence.

  “How do you like it, little fellow?” asked Brunelda, who moved back and forth, squeezing up against Karl so that she could get the best possible view with the opera glasses. Karl responded merely with a nod. He noticed too that Robinson was zealously communicating several matters to Delamarche, obviously concerning Karl’s behavior, but Delamarche seemed to consider them insignificant, for he kept trying to push Robinson aside with his left hand, while embracing Brunelda with his right. “Don’t you want to look through the glasses?” asked Brunelda, tapping Karl on the chest to indicate that she was addressing him.

  “I can see well enough,” said Karl.

  “Do try them,” she said, “you’ll see better.”

  “I’ve good eyes,” Karl answered, “I can see everything.” When she brought the glasses close to his eyes, he felt that this was not so much kindness as an intrusion on her part, and indeed she said only one word, “Here!” in a melodious but also rather threatening manner. Karl already held the glasses to his eyes and could not in fact see anything.

  “I can’t see anything,” he said, and tried to get rid of the glasses, but she held them tight, and in any case he could not push his head, which was embedded on her breast, back or even to the side.

  “But you can see now,” she said, twisting the knob on the glasses.

  “No, I still can’t see anything,” said Karl, and he thought of how he had quite inadvertently relieved Robinson of a burden, for he himself had now become the target of Brunelda’s insufferable moods.

  “When will you finally be able to see,” she said—Karl now found his entire face suffused with her heavy breath—and continued to twist the knob. “Now?” she asked.

  “No, no, no!” cried Karl, even though he could in fact make out everything, if only indistinctly. But at that moment Brunelda was preoccupied with Delamarche; she held the glasses loosely in front of Karl’s face, and so, without her noticing, Karl could look down under the glasses at the street below. After that she no longer insisted on having her way and used the glasses herself.

  From the tavern below a waiter had appeared and now rushed back and forth across the threshold, taking orders from the leaders. One could see how he leaned over to obtain a view of the interior of the inn and summon as many servants as possible. Throughout these preparations for a great round of free drinks, the candidate evidently did not cease speaking. After every few sentences his carrier, the huge man whose sole task was to serve only him, always turned around slightly so that the candidate’s speech could reach each section of the crowd. The candidate generally stayed hunched up and sought, by means of jerky movements of his free hand and top hat, to lend the greatest possible urgency to his statements. But every now and then, and indeed at regular intervals, he became captivated by an idea and rose, arms outstretched; at such moments he addressed not one particular group but rather the entire gathering; he spoke to the residents of the houses all the way up to the top floors, although it was quite clear that nobody, even on the lowest floors, could hear him, and that nobody would have wanted to listen to him had this been possible, for there was at least one speaker at each window and on each balcony, shouting at the top of his voice. Meanwhile some waiters from the tavern brought out a board, roughly the size of a billiard table, with sparkling glasses filled to the brim. The leaders organized the distribution, which took the form of a procession past the tavern door. Yet although the glasses on the board were repeatedly refilled, this did not suffice for the crowd, and two lines of bar boys slipped out continuously along each side of the board in order to keep the crowd supplied. By now of course the candidate had already finished speaking and took advantage of the break to fortify
himself anew. Away from the crowd and the harsh light, his carrier bore him slowly back and forth, and only a few of his closest supporters accompanied him and spoke to him from below.

  “Just look at the little fellow,” said Brunelda, “he’s staring so hard, he’s forgotten where he is.” And taking Karl by surprise, she used both hands to turn his face toward her so that she could look into his eyes. This lasted only a moment, though, since Karl shook off her hands right away; annoyed at not being left in peace for a few moments, and at the same time very eager to go down to the street and see everything from close up, he sought with all his strength to free himself from Brunelda’s grip and said:

  “Please let me go.”

  “You’re staying with us,” said Delamarche, and without even taking his eyes off the street, he reached out his hand to prevent Karl from leaving.

  “Stop that,” said Brunelda, warding off Delamarche’s hand. “He’ll stay, all right.” And she pressed Karl even more firmly against the balustrade; he would have had to put up a fight to extricate himself. And even if he succeeded, what would he accomplish. Delamarche still stood on the left; Robinson had just lined up on the right; he was truly imprisoned.

  “You can be happy you’re not being thrown out,” said Robinson, clapping Karl on the back with the hand that he had pulled out from under Brunelda’s arm.

  “Thrown out?” said Delamarche. “You don’t throw out a thief who’s run away—you hand him over to the police. And that’s precisely what may happen to him tomorrow morning if he is not absolutely quiet.”

  From that moment on Karl took no pleasure in the spectacle unfolding below. Unable to stand up on account of Brunelda, he was compelled to lean over the balustrade for a while. Filled with his own worries, he gazed distractedly at the people below: approaching the tavern door, twenty men or so at a time, they seized the glasses, turned around, waved their glasses at the candidate who was now lost in his thoughts, shouted out a party slogan, emptied their glasses, and, finally, set them down on the board with a thud, which at this height was of course inaudible, in order to make way for a new group that was impatiently stirring up a din. On instructions from the leaders the band that had been playing in the tavern stepped out onto the street; their great wind instruments glistened in the dark among the crowd, but the sounds that they made were almost lost in the general din. At least on the tavern side the street was now thronged with people coming from every direction. From above, the way Karl had come that morning by automobile, they poured down and also ran up from the bridge below, and even the people in the houses had been unable to resist the temptation to get directly involved; only women and children mostly were left behind on the balconies and at the windows, the men surged out from the gates of the houses. The music and the food had now accomplished their purpose; the crowd was now large enough; flanked by two car lamps, one of the leaders signaled that the music should cease and gave a shrill whistle; and one could now see the carrier and the candidate, who had wandered slightly off course, approach rapidly along a path that his supporters had cleared for him.

  No sooner had the candidate reached the door of the tavern than he began to give another speech amid the tight circle of the car lamps held up all around him. But now everything was much more difficult than it had been before; the carrier could no longer move about freely, the crush was simply too great. The candidate’s closest supporters, who had tried in every way possible to reinforce the effect of his speeches, now had difficulty staying close to him; straining to the hilt, some twenty supporters now clung to the carrier. Yet even that strong man could not advance a single step of his own volition; there was no longer any hope of affecting the crowd by moving in a certain way and advancing or retreating as seemed appropriate. The crowd flowed aimlessly, everybody was packed cheek to jowl, no one could stand upright; the candidate’s opponents seemed to have multiplied with the new arrivals; for a long time the carrier had remained close to the glass door of the tavern, but now, apparently without any resistance, he let himself be driven up and down the road; the candidate was still speaking, but one could no longer tell whether he was laying out his program or calling for help, for if one was not completely mistaken, an opposition candidate had appeared, or perhaps several of them; for when one of the lights suddenly began to flicker here and there, it was possible to catch a glimpse of a man with a pale face and clenched fists who had been lifted up by the crowd and now gave a speech that was hailed with numerous shouts.

  “So what’s happening?” Karl asked, turning in breathless confusion to his keepers.

  “It’s getting the little fellow so excited,” said Brunelda to Delamarche, and she caught Karl by the chin in order to draw his head toward her. But Karl had no such desire, and since the events on the street had made him positively reckless, he shook himself so vigorously that Brunelda not only let go but drew back and released him altogether. “But now you’ve seen enough,” she said, obviously irritated by Karl’s conduct, “go into the room, make the bed, and get everything ready for the night.” She held out her hand, pointing to the room. This was actually the direction in which Karl had wanted to go for several hours now; he was not about to object. Just then one could hear the crash of splintering glass from the street. Unable to restrain himself, Karl jumped over to the balustrade to take another quick look. A possibly decisive attack by the opponents had succeeded; all the supporters’ car lamps, which at least enabled the entire public to follow the main events and also ensured that everything stayed within certain limits, had been smashed to bits; the candidate and his carrier were now swathed only in the fickle general lighting, which had spread out so suddenly that the effect resembled that of complete darkness. One could not have hazarded even a rough guess as to the location of the candidate, and the illusory quality of the darkness was further enhanced by the broad, uniform sounds of singing approaching from the bridge below.

  “Haven’t I told you what you must do now,” said Brunelda, “hurry up. I’m tired,” she added, stretching her arms up in such a way that her breasts bulged out even more than usual. Delamarche, who was still clasping her, pulled her off into a corner of the room. Robinson followed them in order to push aside the leftovers from his meal, which were still strewn on the floor.

  Karl had to seize this favorable opportunity—this wasn’t the time to take another look down; once below he would get to see enough of what was happening on the street and indeed more so than from above. In two bounds he rushed through the room with its reddish glow, but the door was locked, the key having been removed. He needed to find it, but who could find a key in this mess, especially given the precious little time left. By now he should really have been out on the stairs, running as fast as he could. But here he was, still looking for the key! And after looking in all of the drawers he could reach, he rummaged about on the table, where he found an assortment of dishes and napkins and a piece of embroidery that someone had only just begun; lured by an armchair laden with a completely entangled pile of old clothes, he realized that though the key could be there, it would be impossible to find, and in the end threw himself down onto the foul-smelling settee so that he could grope for the key in all its corners and folds. He then gave up searching and halted in the middle of the room. Brunelda must have fastened the key to her belt, he said to himself, for there certainly were quite a few things suspended from it; there was no point in searching any further.

  And Karl seized two knives blindly and drove them in between the two wings of the door, one above, the other below, so as to create two pressure points at some distance from each other. But no sooner had he pulled on the knives than the blades broke in two, as was only to be expected. Still, he could not have hoped for a better outcome since the two stumps, which he could now push more forcefully, would hold. And now he pulled on them with all his strength, spreading his arms, pressing his legs apart, groaning, and keeping an eye on the door. It could not long withstand this pressure, as he noticed with delight
from the clearly audible loosening of the bolts, but the slower it went, the better; the lock should by no means burst open, for the people up on the balcony would notice that, instead it should come apart very slowly, and so that was what Karl sought to accomplish with great care, moving his eyes ever closer to the lock.

  “Look,” he heard Delamarche’s voice saying. All three now stood in the room, having drawn the curtain behind them; Karl must not have heard them enter; at the sight his hands fell from the knives. But he had no time to say a word in explanation or apology, for in an outburst of rage far exceeding the present occasion, Delamarche—whose loose dressing-gown cord described a great figure in the air—jumped on Karl. At the last moment Karl evaded the attack; he could have pulled the knives from the door and used them to defend himself but did not do so; however, bending down a little and jumping up in the air, he reached out for the wide collar of Delamarche’s dressing gown, pulled it up, then dragged it even higher—Delamarche’s dressing gown was really much too big for him—and then fortunately Delamarche, taken by surprise, caught his head in his dressing gown, merely waved his hands blindly at first, and then, little by little, began to strike Karl on the back with his fist, and though this had little effect, it did force Karl to throw himself against Delamarche’s chest in order to protect his own face. However much he writhed with pain and however hard Delamarche’s fists bore down on him, Karl endured the blows, and how could he possibly have acted any differently, for he could already see victory ahead. Keeping his hands on Delamarche’s head and his thumbs probably just above his eyes, he pressed him up against the worst pile of furniture and at the same time tried to wind the cord of the dressing gown around Delamarche’s feet and thus trip him up.