Amerika

by Franz Kafka

  ‘What’s your name,’ he asked, tucking his truncheon under his arm, and slowly pulling out a notepad. Karl looked closely at him for the first time, he was a powerful man, but his hair was almost completely white. ‘Karl Rossmann,’ he said. ‘Rossmann,’ repeated the policeman, no doubt purely because he was a calm and conscientious officer, but Karl, for whom this was actually his first dealing with American officialdom, saw in that mere repetition the voicing of a certain suspicion. And his affair was probably looking bad, because even Robinson, who had so many worries of his own, leaned out of the car and gesticulated mutely and animatedly to Delamarche, to help Karl. But Delamarche refused with a hasty shake of the head and looked on impassively, his hands in his over-large pockets. The fellow on the bollard explained the whole affair from the beginning to a woman who had just come out of the gate. The children stood in a semicircle behind Karl and looked silently up at the policeman.

  ‘Let me see your papers,’ said the policeman. It was probably just a matter of form, because if you don’t have a jacket, you won’t have much in the way of papers either. Karl therefore made no reply, in order to answer the next question the more fully, and thereby perhaps gloss over the lack of documents. But the next question was: ‘So you have no papers?’ and Karl could only reply: ‘Not on me.’ ‘That’s not good,’ said the policeman, and looked at everyone thoughtfully, and tapped the cover of his notebook with two fingers. ‘Have you some kind of work?’ he finally asked. ‘I was a lift-boy,’ said Karl. ‘You were a lift-boy, but you aren’t one any more, and so what do you live off now?’ ‘I’m going to look for a new job now.’ ‘So you were sacked from your job?’ ‘Yes, an hour ago.’ ‘Suddenly?’ ‘Yes,’ said Karl, and raised his hand apologetically. He couldn’t tell the whole story here, and even if it had been possible, it still seemed hopeless to try and avert a threatened injustice by telling of one already suffered. And if he hadn’t received justice from the kindly Head Cook and the perspicacious Head Waiter, he certainly couldn’t expect it from this group of people here on the street.

  ‘And you were dismissed without your jacket?’ asked the policeman. ‘Well, yes,’ said Karl, apparently even in America the authorities liked to ask about things they could perfectly well see with their own eyes. (How his father in obtaining his passport had been annoyed by the pointless questioning of the authorities.) Karl was sorely tempted to run away somewhere and not have to endure any more questions. But then the policeman asked the one question that Karl had most been afraid of, and in fearful anticipation of which he had probably behaved more thoughtlessly than he would have done otherwise: ‘In what hotel were you employed?’ He lowered his head and didn’t answer, he really didn’t want to answer that question. He must at all costs avoid being taken back to the Hotel Occidental under police escort, facing further inquiries to which his friends and enemies would be summoned to appear, the Head Cook completely abandoning her already somewhat qualified good opinion of Karl, seeing him, whom she had supposed to be at the Pension Brenner, picked up by a policeman, in shirtsleeves, returned without her visiting card; the Head Waiter might perhaps merely nod sagely, the Head Porter though speak of the hand of god that had finally nabbed the scoundrel.

  ‘He was working at the Hotel Occidental,’ said Delamarche, repositioning himself next to the policeman. ‘No,’ cried Karl and stamped his foot, ‘that’s not true.’ Delamarche looked at him with a sardonic twist of his lips, as though he could if he liked make other, far more damaging revelations about him. Karl’s unexpected agitation caused a great commotion among the children, who all moved across to Delamarche, in order to have a better view of Karl. Robinson had stuck his head right out of the window by now, and, in his nervousness, was behaving very quietly; the occasional blink of an eye, nothing more. The fellow in the gateway clapped his hands with glee, the woman next to him jabbed him with her elbow to quieten him down. The porters were just having their breakfast-break, and they all trooped out with large mugs of black coffee, which they were stirring with breadsticks. A few sat down on the edge of the pavement, they all drank their coffee very noisily.

  ‘You appear to know this boy,’ the policeman asked Delamarche. ‘Better than I should like to,’ he replied. ‘I once showed him a lot of kindness, but he paid me back very ill, which won’t surprise you, even after the short interview you’ve had with him.’ ‘Yes,’ said the policeman, ‘he seems to be a surly fellow all right.’ ‘That he is,’ said Delamarche, ‘but that’s not even the worst thing about him.’ ‘Oh?’ said the policeman. ‘Yes,’ said Delamarche, who was now in full flight and with his hands in his pockets, swinging his dressing-gown this way and that, ‘he’s a nasty piece of work. Me and my friend over in the car took him in when he was in a very bad way, at the time he had no idea about things in America, he had just arrived here from Europe, where they had no use for him either, so we took him along with us, let him live with us, explained everything to him, tried to get him a job, for all the indications to the contrary thought we’d be able to turn him into a useful member of society, and then one night he simply disappeared, he just went, and that under circumstances I’d sooner not have to go into. Is that right or not?’ Delamarche asked finally, tweaking at Karl’s sleeve. ‘Step back please, children,’ called the policeman, because they had pressed forward so much that Delamarche almost tripped over one of them. And the porters too, who had previously underestimated the interest of the interview, had pricked up their ears, and assembled in a tight circle behind Karl, so that he couldn’t take a backward step and moreover now had the babel of their voices in his ears, they were speaking or rather barking a quite incomprehensible English possibly mixed with words of Slavic.

  ‘Thank you for that information,’ said the policeman, saluting Delamarche. ‘I’m certainly taking him in now, and I’ll have him returned to the Hotel Occidental.’ But Delamarche said: ‘Might I ask you to leave the boy with me for the time being, I’ve got a couple of things to settle with him. I’ll undertake to deliver him to the hotel myself afterwards.’ ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ said the policeman. ‘Here is my visiting card,’ said Delamarche, giving him a little card. The policeman looked at it appreciatively, but said, with a pleasant smile: ‘No, nothing doing.’

  Though Karl had shown the utmost wariness of Delamarche hitherto, he now saw in him his only possible salvation. It was admittedly rather suspicious, the way he was pleading with the policeman to be given Karl, but it should finally prove easier to persuade Delamarche than the policeman not to take him back to the hotel. And even if Karl were delivered back to the hotel by Delamarche, that was still infinitely preferable to it happening under police escort. For now, Karl mustn’t let on that he preferred to be with Delamarche, that would ruin everything. And he looked nervously at the hand of the policeman which might be raised at any moment to apprehend him.

  ‘I should at least find out why he was so suddenly dismissed,’ the policeman said at last, while Delamarche was looking dispiritedly off to the side, crushing his visiting card between his fingertips. ‘But he wasn’t dismissed at all,’ Robinson called out suddenly and to the general astonishment, and leaning on the driver, he thrust himself as far out of the window as he could. ‘On the contrary, he’s got a good job there. He’s in charge of the dormitory, and can bring in anyone he likes. Only he is incredibly busy, and if you want something from him, you have to wait for ages. He’s forever closeted with the Head Waiter and the Head Cook and enjoys their confidence. He’s certainly not been dismissed. I’ve no idea why he said he had been. How can he have been dismissed? I was seriously injured in the hotel, and he was instructed to get me home, and as he happened to be in his shirtsleeves he just came along in his shirtsleeves. I couldn’t possibly have waited while he got his jacket.’ ‘Now then,’ said Delamarche, with arms outspread, as though accusing the policeman of being a poor judge of character, and these two words of his seemed to bring the vague declaration of Robinson’s into undeniable
focus.

  ‘But is that really the case?’ asked the policeman, weakening already. ‘And if it is, why is the boy claiming he was dismissed?’ ‘You say,’ said Delamarche. Karl looked at the policeman, who was supposed to bring order among strangers who had only their own interests in mind, and a little of his general concerns affected Karl too. He didn’t want to lie, and he kept his hands firmly clasped behind his back.

  A supervisor appeared in the gateway and clapped his hands to indicate to the porters that it was time to get back to work. They tipped the coffee grounds out of their mugs, and with rolling strides and abating noise went back inside. ‘We’re not really getting anywhere like this,’ said the policeman, and reached out to take Karl’s arm. Karl instinctively drew back, sensed the space behind him that had been vacated by the porters, turned round, and with a few initial bounds, started running. The children all called out as one, and ran after him, for a few steps, stretching out their little hands. ‘Stop that man!’ the policeman shouted down the long, almost deserted road, and regularly repeating his cry, set off in pursuit of Karl, in a silent running style that indicated excellent condition and practice. It was as well for Karl that the chase took place in a working-class district The workers don’t side with the authorities. Karl ran down the middle of the road, where he had the fewest obstacles in his path, and from time to time he saw workers stopping on the edge of the pavement coolly watching him, while the policeman called out his ‘Stop that man!’ and stretched out his truncheon in Karl’s direction as he ran, wisely choosing the smooth pavement for his terrain. Karl had little hope, and almost abandoned that when the policeman, as they were approaching some cross-streets, that almost certainly had some police patrols in them, began emitting a piercing whistle. Karl’s only advantage was his light clothing, he flew or rather plunged down the middle of the street – the slope was getting steeper all the time – only, because of his sleepiness, he wasted his energy in very high, wasteful bounds that cost him time. But besides that, the policeman had his objective right in front of him, and didn’t need to think about it, whereas for Karl, the running was actually a secondary concern, he had to think, to choose between various possibilities, to keep making decisions. His rather desperate plan was to avoid the cross-streets for now, as he couldn’t know what they might contain, perhaps he might run straight into the purlieus of a police station; for as long as possible he wanted to stick to this street where he could see a long way down, until right at the bottom it debouched on to a bridge which had barely begun before disappearing into a haze of sun and water. In accordance with this decision, he was just gathering up his strength to pass the first cross-street at a sprint, when, not far ahead of him, he spied a policeman lurking, pressed flat against the dark wall of a house in shadow, all set to leap out at Karl at the right moment. Now there was nothing for it but the side-street, and when he heard his name being called out from there too, quite innocently – he thought at first it must be an illusion, because he had had a rushing in his ears for some time now, he didn’t hesitate and, trying to catch the police out if possible, he leaped off one foot and jinked at a right angle into the little street.

  No sooner had he taken a couple of bounds down this street – already he had forgotten that his name had been called, because now the second policeman was blowing his whistle as well, you could sense he was new to the chase, and far-off pedestrians in the street seemed to walk at a brisker pace – than a hand came out of a little doorway and with the words ‘Keep shtum,’ pulled Karl into a dark passageway. It was Delamarche, quite out of breath, with flushed cheeks, and hair plastered to his head. He was carrying his dressing-gown under his arm, and was dressed only in shirt and underpants. The door, which wasn’t the front door of the house, but an unobtrusive side-entrance, he immediately shut and locked behind them. ‘Just a second,’ he said, leaned his head back against the wall, and panted. Karl, virtually in his arms, and half insensate, pressed his face against his chest. ‘There they go,’ said Delamarche, and pointed to the door as he listened. And indeed the two policemen were running past, their footfall echoed in the empty street, ringing like steel on stone. ‘You’re all in, aren’t you,’ said Delamarche to Karl, who was still choking on his breath and unable to get a word out. Delamarche put him down carefully on the floor, knelt down beside him, stroked his brow a few times and watched. ‘That’s better,’ said Karl at last, and struggled to his feet. ‘Let’s go then,’ said Delamarche, putting his dressing-gown on again, and pushing Karl, still too weak to raise his head, in front of him. From time to time he gave him a little shake to freshen him up. ‘How come you’re so tired?’ he said. ‘You were able to gallop about like a horse in the open, while I had to crawl through the goddamned yards and passages. Luckily I’m a good runner too.’ In his satisfaction he gave Karl a terrific thump on the back. ‘The occasional race against the police is good practice.’ ‘I was already tired when I started running,’ said Karl. ‘There’s no excuse for bad running,’ said Delamarche. ‘If it hadn’t been for me, they’d have nabbed you long ago.’ ‘I think so too,’ said Karl, ‘I’m very indebted to you.’ ‘No doubt about it,’ said Delamarche.

  They were going down a long, narrow passage which was paved with smooth, dark stones. Occasionally, to right or left, there was a flight of stairs or you could see another, larger passage. There were hardly any grown-ups to be seen, only children playing on the empty stairs. On one balustrade there was a little girl crying so hard that her face was quite shiny with tears. No sooner had she spotted Delamarche than she ran up the stairs, gasping open-mouthed for breath, and only calmed herself when she had climbed several flights, looking round frequently to make sure no one was following her or was about to follow her. ‘I ran her down just a moment ago,’ said Delamarche laughing, and waved his fist at her, whereupon she screamed and ran up some more steps.

  The yards they crossed were almost deserted as well. Only from time to time an errand-man came pushing a handcart, a woman filled a can with water at a pump, a postman crossed the yard with calm strides, an old man with a white moustache sat cross-legged in front of a glass door, smoking a pipe, boxes were being unloaded outside a removal firm, the idle horses turned their heads indifferently, a man in a work coat, with a piece of paper in his hand supervised all the work, there was an open window in an office and an employee sitting at a desk had turned away from it and looked thoughtfully out at Karl and Delamarche as they passed.

  ‘One really couldn’t wish for a quieter neighbourhood than this,’ said Delamarche. ‘It’s very noisy for a couple of hours in the evening but during the daytime it’s exemplary.’ Karl nodded, the quiet seemed a little excessive to him. ‘I couldn’t live anywhere else,’ said Delamarche, ‘because Brunelda is terribly sensitive to the slightest noise. Have you met Brunelda? Well, you will soon. I would urge you to be as quiet as possible when you’re with her.’

  When they reached the staircase that led up to Delamarche’s apartment, the automobile had already driven off, and the fellow with the chewed-up nose – without remarking at Karl’s reappearance – reported that he had carried Robinson up the stairs. Delamarche merely nodded to him, as though the man were his servant, who had performed a self-evident task, and pulled Karl, who was gazing out at the sunny street with some longing, up the stairs with him. ‘We’ll be up in a jiffy,’ Delamarche said several times as they climbed, but his assurances refused to become true, at the end of each flight of stairs, another would begin in a slightly different direction. Once Karl even came to a stop, not really out of exhaustion, but sheer helplessness in the face of all these stairs. ‘The apartment is very high up,’ said Delamarche as they went on, ‘but that has its advantages too. We very rarely go out, I go around in my dressing-gown all day, it’s all very cosy. Of course we’re too high to be troubled by visitors.’ ‘Where would they get visitors from,’ Karl wondered.

  Finally Robinson appeared on a landing in front of a closed front door, and they had arr
ived; the staircase wasn’t even at an end, but led on into the penumbra, without any suggestion that it might soon be over. ‘I knew it,’ said Robinson quietly, as though still in pain, ‘Delamarche is bringing him! Rossmann, where would you be without Delamarche!’ Robinson stood there in his undergarments, trying to wrap himself up in the small blanket that he had been given at the Hotel Occidental, it was not clear why he hadn’t gone into the apartment, instead of running the risk of making himself a laughing stock to possible passers-by on the stairs. ‘Is she asleep?’ asked Delamarche. ‘I don’t think so,’ said Robinson, ‘but I thought I’d better wait for you to come.’ ‘First we’ll have to see whether she’s sleeping or not,’ said Delamarche, and bent down to the keyhole. After spending a long time looking, twisting his head this way and that, he got up and said: ‘I can’t quite make her out, the blinds are down. She’s sitting on the sofa, maybe she’s asleep.’ ‘Is she ill or something?’ asked Karl, because Delamarche stood there, as though in need of advice. But he retorted sharply: ‘Ill?’ ‘He doesn’t know her,’ said Robinson, in extenuation.

  A few doors along, two women had stepped out on to the corridor, they wiped their hands on their aprons, looked at Delamarche and Robinson, and appeared to be discussing them. From another door, a very young girl with shiny blond hair jumped out, linked arms with the two women, and pressed herself against them.