Marija Peričić lives in Melbourne, where she teaches English as a foreign language. The Lost Pages is her first novel.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
First published in 2017
Copyright © Marija Peričić 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
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For James R. Fleming
Foreword
FOR SCHOLARS OF KAFKA, THE NEWS OF THE FORTHCOMING release of the Kafka papers raised the tantalising prospect, however unlikely, of an undiscovered novel by the great author. The trial leading to the release of the papers was initiated principally by the Israeli National Library, whom I assisted, against the Hoffe/Wiesler sisters. The sisters’ possession of the papers has kept them from public view since Max Brod supposedly handed the papers to the mother of the Hoffe/Wiesler sisters in the 1960s, and the trial has once again focused the international spotlight on the legacy of Kafka. Hopes of a lost work were dashed, however, by the release of a documents list during the discovery stage of proceedings: the Kafka papers consist only of short notes, drawings and a memoir—the latter not by Kafka but by Brod. Yet this memoir of Brod’s was for me a more exciting prospect still.
Franz Kafka is undoubtedly the most important figure in modern German-language literature, but the survival of his work is only due to the lesser-known Brod. As the story goes, when Kafka lay in bed dying of tuberculosis, his friend Brod at his bedside, his last words were, ‘Burn all my work—everything—and spare none of it.’ Thankfully, Brod defied the instruction. At that time, only a few of Kafka’s short stories, including ‘The Metamorphosis’, had been published and this only with Brod’s help.
Brod did much to establish Kafka’s place in the literary firmament, promoting his young protégé as he sought out publishers, and editing his work, especially after Kafka’s death. Kafka’s posthumously published work includes such literary marvels as The Trial, The Castle and Amerika. Many of these works were finished by Brod’s own hand, and certainly none escaped his influence.
If Brod was so central to the emergence of the towering literary heavyweight that Kafka would become, then the nature of the man to whom this great task fell is naturally of some curiosity. Those tempted to associate Kafka with his characters—the self-loathing, insect-like figure of ‘The Metamorphosis’ or the tortured soul in ‘A Hunger Artist’—might be surprised by his contemporaries’ description of a confident, charming, cheerful and handsome young man. In reality, Brod was the one who struggled with crippling anxieties, and chronic psychological and physical difficulties.
While Brod’s novels and, to a lesser extent, his musical compositions achieved popularity and acclaim in his lifetime, they are of comparatively little interest today. And this is one of many reasons that the public release of Brod’s memoirs from the contested Kafka papers should be tantalising. The question on my mind as I await the prospect of reading them is not so much what more they reveal of Kafka, for we already know much about him, but what they will tell us about the man behind him; the man striving to cultivate the talent he must have known would one day completely eclipse his own.
Professor Wendell Persson
University of Kent
Editor’s note
THE PAGES THAT APPEAR HERE HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED FROM THE German. They come from a series of notes handwritten in exercise books, which also contain a number of loose sheets of notepaper, photographs and other documents, which together, make up Max Brod’s memoirs. The material is in fair condition, considering its age, although there are some areas of illegibility due to water damage and ageing of the paper. Some sections of the papers are also presented in nearly illegible handwriting. Areas where approximations have been made are indicated in the text.
The translation and verification process of these papers has been a slow one to date, partly due to the poor quality of some of the documents in the archive and their disorganisation. This section represents the first coherent manuscript from the collection that has been translated, and will shortly be available for online access—as will, in time, the rest of the Kafka papers.
CONTENTS
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EDITOR’S AFTERWORD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1.
I STILL REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME I SAW FRANZ; A DAY THAT seems now either the beginning of or the beginning of the end of my life’s misfortune. It was October, when the days are still bright and sharp, and Prague was just beginning to fall into the quiet embrace of autumn. At that time I was writing a book about Schopenhauer, and I was to give a lecture on the subject. I had studied Schopenhauer since my university days and, although I am no authority on the man and his theories, I certainly know more about him than most. The lecture room where the talk was to take place was small but crowded, and the shuffling of bodies and the scratching of pens on paper formed a constant accompaniment to my voice.
I had hardly been speaking ten minutes when a voiced sang out from somewhere at the back of the crowd.
‘You idiot!’
The outburst caused me to pause momentarily. I had just mentioned in passing Schopenhauer’s assertion that this world was the worst of all possible worlds, since a worse world could not continue to exist—an idea with which I happen to agree, its flaws nothwithstanding. I decided to ignore the man and push on with my lecture. Perhaps I had misheard.
But I had not. After a moment he called out again.
‘What a load of shit. Any fool can argue against that.’
The heckler was blocked from my view, but his voice was young and self-important. People began shifting in their seats and craning their necks to look at him. I had given many lectures and talks, but this had never happened to me before and I did not know what to do. Was it better to ignore the heckler and continue, or to answer him? I stood, hesitating. By now the heckler had taken the attention of a good part of the room, which from my perspective had transformed from rows of faces to rows of head-backs and collars.
His voice came once more.
> ‘You are a fool if you truly believe that. There is an infinite number of possible worlds that are worse than this.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Well,’ I began, ‘problems do exist with—’
‘Consider yourself personally,’ he interrupted.
He stood up and I saw him for the first time. He was of a slight build, dark and handsome in a somewhat delicate way. His handsomeness surprised and angered me.
He went on, ‘I could name a thousand things that could be changed about the world that would make the world worse for you, and it would still continue to exist. You could lose your voice, for example.’
There were a few scattered laughs from the audience. I ignored them.
‘But of course Schopenhauer is not referring to individuals; greater human existence is his theme,’ I said.
‘It is merely an example,’ he said. ‘There could be incremental changes in any condition in the world—choose any one!—and still we would go on. Things can always be a little worse.’
He sat down again, seeming to be satisfied with having voiced his disagreement. I struggled to appear composed, and wavered between countering him, which I felt compelled to do, or ignoring him, which I knew was the more dignified approach. His face peered out from the crowd, goading me, but I resolutely turned my eyes back to my page of notes. For the rest of the lecture, the heckler limited himself to snorts and noisy sighs, but I had nevertheless lost the attention of most of the room. Each of the heckler’s percussive snorts would trigger a chorus of smiles and whispers in the crowd, and by the time I had reached the end of my talk I felt that he had certainly made the world of my evening worse than it could have been.
I was expecting a volley of questions from him during the question time at the end, and braced myself, but he remained silent; indeed, he seemed to have disappeared. Now I could see only a gap in the crowd where his dark head had been. As soon as I left the lecture hall, however, there he was again. He lunged out from the shadows of the corridor and tried to block my way, but I was able to dodge around him. I heard him scurrying after me, calling out my name and then an apology. I walked on. He followed me outside, where he fell into step beside me on the footpath and began to talk about my novel, which had had some success the year before. He flattered me in an ingratiating tone that I hated, but he piled his pretty words up and up, and soon I had fallen into his trap. I am as vain as the next man and, because I have no grounds for pride on any other front in my life, my writing is my weak spot. Later, when everything lay ruined around me, I thought often about how my life would have been different had I not spoken to Franz* that night, had I been able to resist him.
He walked with me all the way to my house, and when we were at the door he thrust a sheaf of papers at me—his short stories, he said. He asked me to look over them, perhaps show them to my publisher. This had happened to me a good deal since the success of my novel; I admit that I always felt a bloom of pleasure at the request, especially with the inevitable realisation that the stories or poems or novels that were pressed on me were no good—or at least nowhere near as good as my own writing. I acceded to Franz’s request in an offhand way, and then promptly lost the stories among the drifts of paper that covered my desk.
A few weeks later, I found his short stories again and read them, not remembering at first what they were. As my eyes passed over the pages a slow horror grew in me, sending my body cold. The stories were not merely good; they were exceptional. I read them again, and then sat for a long time with the papers in my hands. I turned to the title page and stared at the name printed there: Franz Kafka. How that name would come to haunt me.
I could tell you that I was moved and instantly sent the works to Theodor, my publisher; that I hastened to have Kafka’s work brought out into the world; that I eagerly welcomed what was to become such an important addition to the modern German canon. I could tell you that I felt pleased and proud to bring his work to light, but it would be a lie. All I felt was the sick poison of jealousy, the panic of self-preservation, and a determination to stop Franz at all costs. To show these stories to Theodor would have meant certain death for my literary career, which was at a critical stage. I had had one success, it was true, but now I faced the enormous pressure of cementing my literary reputation with an equally brilliant second work. I began to have nightmares about Franz: of him meeting Theodor, and the two of them conspiring to thwart me; of Theodor telling me that he was no longer interested in me; of Franz taking my place. I would wake from these dreams breathless and rigid. A terrifying abyss seemed to open in front of me; if I lost my status as a writer, what did I have left?
I wanted to destroy Franz’s stories, and I thought often about it, but I had not yet sunk quite so low. Instead I stuffed them into the drawer of my writing table and locked it. I can say nothing much in my own defence, only that I have not been a fortunate man, nor a happy one, and I was fixed on defending to the death what little I had wrested from the world.
It turned out that even if I had burned the stories, as I had wanted to, it would not have made the slightest difference. Even without my help, they found their way into print. Some months later, I was invited to the launch of the new edition of Hyperion, to which I had contributed, and in which I saw Franz had published his first story. I had been reluctant to attend the party, knowing there was a strong likelihood that both Franz and Theodor would be there. The thought of being present as Theodor and Franz met, watching them smiling at one another and shaking hands, made me suffer with the hot jealousy of spurned love. But the alternative was to stay away from the party, which would mean that this meeting would take place out of my view, leaving my imagination free to adorn and amplify, as I knew it would, to the point of madness. I decided that, no matter now distasteful the occasion might be, it was better to be present. It was also prudent, I knew, to appear pleased at the coming union, and to keep Franz close—to make a friend of him, in fact. I braced myself, and on that Thursday evening I set out, a sick feeling in my stomach.
The party was being held at the Café Slavia. I had arrived on foot, walking for part of the way along the Moldau, the slide of its black water keeping pace with my step. It was a clear night, and cold, and the slick river was like a sheet of moving glass, the surface so smooth that the orbs of lamplight mirrored in it were no less solid and steady than the light of the real lamps high on the bank.
Couples and small groups hustled along either bank on their way to the theatre or the opera, and the swinging skirts of the women corresponded in some musical way with the swaying of the trees above their heads. Ahead of me, I could see the bright lights spilling from the café windows, making orange tongues on the footpath. When I arrived at the Slavia, my legs were already aching from the walk, and I longed for a chair, but still I stood, composing myself, on the corner of the street. I could feel the compact bulk of the National Theatre rearing up into the empty sky behind me, compressing the air around it. The dark awnings above the café windows swayed like flags. The windows were uncurtained, and I saw the little tableau of a party scene. A woman held a small glass poised at her lips, her pale wrist an elegant curve against her dark-clad breast. A man leaned over her shoulder in the act of whispering something to her. Behind her, two men embraced and clapped each other on the back in a syncopated pattern.
Bursts of laughter and music trickled out of the café onto the street. Then the doors swung open, letting out a blast of heat and noise, and two men came out onto the footpath. I saw them look at me and felt immediately ashamed of my solitary watching. I caught the doors as they were swinging closed and plunged inside.
I had not even managed to find a drink for myself before I was set upon by a small group, eager to claim me. They clustered around and gave me their opinions of my novel and quizzed me on what I was writing now. While I spoke, I was the whole time surreptitiously looking around for Franz, but I could not see him. The room was very crowded and I felt an urgent need to find him. With difficulty, I
extricated myself from the group around me and slowly struggled through the crush in search of him, impeded every few steps by someone wanting to congratulate me on my book or ask my opinion on their story in the magazine.
Stacks of Hyperion stood on tables. The idea of Franz’s story printed there beside mine roused a gnawing resentment that was hard to ignore. I tried to imagine how Franz must feel about his first publication. I remembered that, when I had first seen my own book in print, I had thought it to be the best moment of my life, and, looking back now, perhaps it was. The smooth and solid surface of the book, my book, had seemed to give off a radiant energy that was absorbed by the skin on my hands and fingers, and travelled up my arm into my chest, where it expanded to warm and relax me, as though it were a narcotic. I had taken up a copy, and gripped it first in one hand and then both, feeling its weight, the texture of the cover. I opened it and ran my fingertips and palms over the pages like a blind man. I held the book up to my face and fanned the pages and breathed in the smell of paper and ink. And it was not a question of just one book; the boxes on the floor of the publisher’s office were full of copies, the cover-pages and spines made unreal by their repetition. Theodor had laughed.
‘I often feel I should leave the room when first-time authors see their work in print. I feel like I’m intruding on a lovers’ tryst,’ he had said. His polished face, egg-like, had shone with good humour.
There seemed to be no sign of Franz, or Theodor either, for that matter. I would have been quite happy not to have to see Theodor at all: he would certainly be keen to remind me of my approaching deadline. Lately, the process of writing had become mysterious to me, and at times it felt fraudulent to call myself a writer at all. Most of the time I could not quite believe that I had produced the book that had brought me such success, and I could not understand how I had done it. Looking at the book now was like looking at some complicated mechanical object and being told that I had built it, when I understood not the first thing about its inner workings or how it was put together.
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