Alan Bennett: Plays, Volume 2

by Alan Bennett

  Linda Clever, were they?

  Kafka By and large. The last one, Dora, was very like you.

  Linda I’m not clever.

  Kafka But you are. You are a highly accomplished person.

  Linda Me? What at?

  Kafka How you enter a room, for instance, as a few moments ago you entered this room, bringing me a glass of milk. In the left hand you carry the milk. In the other hand a napkin and a box of chocolates. With an object in one hand and two objects in the other you have no hand to close the door, but no sooner does this dilemma present itself than you solve it, the right hand bringing the napkin and the box of chocolates over to the left side and tucking it between the upper part of the left arm and the rest of your body, which together co-operate to keep it clasped there, the linen and the chocolates sandwiched between the material of your dress and the arm, which is partly covered in the same material and partly … not. The right hand is now free so you place it on the doorknob and the fingers on that hand clasp the knob and pull it to. Free at last of the door, you take three steps into the room one leg effortlessly passing the other (your dress seems to consist of some light, woven fabric) until both legs come to a tentative halt at a point which (even with all these things on your mind, the milk, the chocolates, the moving legs) you have yet managed to find time to select as appropriate. Standing gently at rather than on this spot you lift the glass of milk towards me, managing as you do so to combine it with fetching the right hand over to the left side to take the napkin and the chocolates, now released by an agreement between your arm and your body. The two hands, one with milk, the other with the napkin and the chocolates, are now brought gently up towards me. I take the napkin and the milk but not the chocolates. To console the chocolates for this rebuff your left hand steals comfortingly into the box, selects one and carries it to your mouth. Finally, and still holding the chocolates, you sit down.

  Linda I’m not surprised. I must have been exhausted. You forgot something.

  Kafka Yes?

  Linda When I was handing you the glass one of my fingers touched one of yours.

  Kafka I hadn’t forgotten. It was this finger. (He holds up a finger.)

  Linda And this.

  She holds up her finger. It almost looks as if they might kiss, but they don’t as Linda breaks away.

  Brod and Sydney have entered.

  Sydney Was it always like this?

  Brod No. I have to tell you. His girlfriends were women of great poise and intelligence or nubile young creatures of seventeen. In either category your wife hardly hits the bull’s-eye.

  Sydney This is intolerable. Linda.

  Linda Excuse me. Sydney?

  Sydney He should talk to his father.

  Linda I don’t believe he wants to, do you?

  Kafka No.

  Linda No.

  Sydney Don’t listen to her. She doesn’t understand you. I’ve read your books. I admire you. I am a fan.

  Kafka (to Sydney) You say you know me. I don’t want to be known. (To Linda.) He says he understands me: if he did understand me he’d understand that I don’t want to be understood.

  Linda Of course. I understand that. (She doesn’t.)

  Sydney I read his books and this is the thanks I get.

  Brod It’s more thanks than I get and I practically wrote them.

  Sydney I’ve had enough. I’m going to break this up.

  Sydney exits.

  (Calling as he goes.) Mr Kafka.

  Kafka is instantly alarmed.

  Kafka Help me.

  Linda I’m going to make a silly suggestion. Why don’t you and your father just shake hands?

  Kafka I can’t.

  Linda Why?

  Kafka My hand is shaking.

  Linda You’re a grown man.

  Kafka Not with my father around I’m not.

  Hermann Κ enters, followed by Sydney.

  Hermann Κ Funny. They said I had a son here. They get into the dumbest places, sons. Some even get to the top of the tree. Only a good father tracks them down and brings them back to earth. I’m waiting.

  Linda What for?

  Hermann Κ I’m waiting for this son to fling his arms around me in heartfelt welcome, sink to his knees in abject remorse. I’m waiting for the brittle body and the hot consumptive breath. I’m braced for a kiss.

  Kafka doesn’t move, frozen in terror.

  Still as thin as a tram ticket. Did he eat?

  Many of Hermann K’s remarks are addressed to the audience. It’s important that he should be on good terms with the audience, have a relationship with them, or he will just seem a bore and a bully. Perhaps it is that only the dead people can talk to the audience and are conscious of them, though Father talks to the audience too.

  Linda Every scrap.

  Hermann Κ He didn’t put it down the toilet?

  Linda No.

  Hermann Κ That was his usual trick. Shepherd’s pie floating in the toilet: show me a quicker way to break a mother’s heart. So where? (He looks round the room. Behind cushions, under the sofa, etc.) My son had a problem with food. He didn’t like it.

  Kafka I ate nuts, raisins. Salad.

  Linda Very healthy.

  Hermann Κ For squirrels. I’m told he’s done pretty well.

  Sydney An understatement.

  Brod No thanks to his father.

  Hermann Κ I could debate that with you, Professor. My son is a near-delinquent. A spent condom.

  Linda You’ve no business talking like that. This is a sensitive man.

  Hermann Κ Lady. I’m the sensitive man. My son is about as sensitive as a gannet.

  Sydney You’re proud of him. You must be.

  Hermann Κ Why? What’s he done? Written a book or two. My father could lift a –

  Hermann Κ and Brod (together) – sack of potatoes in his teeth.

  Brod He won’t have read a word he’s written.

  Hermann Κ I tried to read one once. Flat as piss on a plate. When he makes Reader’s Digest then I’ll read him.

  Brod Reader’s Digest! Last week I had a telegram from the Oxford English Dictionary. Your son is so famous that they named a word after him.

  Hermann Κ What kind of word?

  Brod An adjective. Kafka-esque.

  Hermann Κ I never heard it. Has it caught on?

  Brod Caught on? Your son now has adjectival status in Japanese.

  Kafka Is this true?

  Sydney Don’t ask her, ask me. Of course it’s true.

  Brod They don’t only write about you. They have to use you to write. Now you’re a tool of the trade.

  Kafka Thanks for nothing, Max.

  Sydney Of course you’re not the only one.

  Kafka Proust?

  Sydney Afraid so. Proustian.

  Brod Kafka-esque is better.

  Linda Look on the bright side. Most people have never heard of either of you.

  Hermann Κ How’s this word doing?

  Sydney Famously. It crops up all the time. (He picks up a newspaper.) Here we are. It’s an article about Yves St Laurent.

  Kafka Who’s he?

  Linda A dress designer.

  Kafka A dress designer?

  Sydney ‘He is adept at coping with the Kafka-esque intrigues of high fashion’.

  Kafka High fashion? What’s this high fashion? I never had anything to do with high fashion. What has Kafka to do with high fashion?

  Brod Words don’t always get used correctly. What matters is that they get used.

  Hermann Κ Do we get a percentage?

  Brod Words are free.

  Hermann Κ If you make people a present of them, sure they are. My son has rights here. I told you this was a no- good friend. Your name exploited all over the world and what does he get you? Can you believe it? Nothing. Well, you’d better get out and stop them.

  Brod How?

  Hermann Κ The law. The authorities. Don’t the police have some control over words?

  Brod Yes
. In Eastern Europe.

  Kafka I don’t understand it. ‘Kafka-esque intrigues of high fashion.’ I work in an insurance office. I have maybe three or four suits the whole of my life. I die a failure at the age of forty-one. I get into the dictionary and suddenly I’m …

  Sydney Yves St Laurent.

  Hermann Κ So, you should have listened to your father. Incidentally, does my son get to meet any of the models?

  Brod turns away in despair.

  Some friend. He gives his name to a word and he can’t even get a fuck out of it.

  Linda (to Kafka) We didn’t hear that, did we?

  Sydney I’m sure your new friend has heard it before. He may even know what it means.

  Hermann Κ I wouldn’t bank on it. What would I have done with your chances. (At the bookcase.) Edith Sitwell. You could have her. Evelyn Waugh. Vile Bodies. She sounds as if she knows how to please a man. I’m still waiting for this kiss.

  Brod His name’s an adjective in Japanese. Why should he kiss you?

  Hermann Κ I was a simple man. I came from nothing. What was so wrong with my footsteps he didn’t want to follow in them?

  Kafka He sold buttons.

  Hermann Κ Buttons, would you tell my son with the sick mind, that put him through college. I can see through him. You don’t have to go to university to see through your own son … So, he wound up a writer. Did I stand in his way? Go, I said. Go. Walk in the high places of the earth. Be rich. Be famous. Only one day come home and lay a single flower on your father’s grave.

  Kafka I died before he did.

  Hermann Κ He did. On purpose.

  Brod I was at the funeral. You weren’t upset. He wasn’t upset at all.

  Kafka That’s right.

  Hermann Κ How does he know? He was dead. He was where he always wanted to be, safely tucked up in his grave. He makes me sick standing there.

  Linda And you make me sick, turning up and laying down the law. You … you great bladder of Czechoslovakian lard.

  Sydney Linda.

  Linda Why don’t you and I go next door?

  Kafka Yes.

  Linda Then I can fix you something more to eat.

  Kafka Maybe not.

  Brod Old friend. Come with me into the garden.

  Kafka Yes.

  Brod Then I can tell you how big you are in New Zealand.

  Kafka I don’t want that either.

  Hermann Κ Why don’t you just talk to your father?

  Kafka I want that least of all. Oh God!

  Cornered, he finally makes a bolt for it into the kitchen.

  Linda (smiling happily, and about to follow Kafka off) Incidentally, what was the woman’s role in this household? What was his mother doing?

  Brod Backing up his father.

  Hermann Κ Naturally. We were a normal family.

  Linda exits L.

  Brod exits into the garden.

  Sydney and Hermann Κ are alone.

  Hermann Κ So. You’re a big fan of my son?

  Sydney I’m writing an article about him if that’s what you mean. I’m a fool. I thought he’d be interested.

  Hermann Κ I’m not interested either. These books, articles … they’re all the same. For him whitewash, for me excrement.

  Sydney Mine would have been different.

  Hermann Κ Yes?

  Sydney Having met your son I begin to think the books may have got him wrong.

  Hermann Κ That’s interesting. In what way?

  Sydney He’s not quite the person I imagined him to be. I thought he was a saint.

  Hermann Κ You mean you don’t any more?

  Sydney No. I think posterity’s got him wrong. He has faults like everybody else.

  Hermann Κ Ladies and gentlemen I have lain in my grave and dreamed of this moment! Look …

  Sydney Sydney.

  Hermann Κ Syd. I’m not an intellectual, I sold knicker elastic, so you’ll forgive me if I spell it out.

  Sydney Do. I’m still trying to spell it out myself.

  Hermann Κ Misjudge him, they misjudge me. If my son wasn’t so good as all the books make him out to be, and I wasn’t so bad … if we were, say, more just a routine father and son then I wouldn’t be the villain any more and …

  Sydney And all the books would have to be re-written.

  Hermann Κ And then people would see I was just an ordinary fellow and you’d be famous.

  Sydney I’d be famous? How?

  Hermann Κ A new view of Kafka, of course you would.

  Sydney I hadn’t thought of that. I could take time off from insurance.

  Hermann Κ Time off? Time off? Fifty years of Kafka studies turned on their heads, you could travel the world, lecturing, giving talks …

  Sydney People would know my name, students. I’d be famous! (Pause.) But only if I’m right. Only if Kafka isn’t a saint and you are just an ordinary father and son.

  Hermann Κ You are right. And I’ll prove it. Go fetch the little scallywag.

  Sydney goes off, leaving Hermann alone.

  Father enters, with his walking frame, hat and coat on.

  Father Do you know what the latest is? Besides the date and the name of the Prime Minister they ask you the name of a leading Czech novelist.

  Hermann K Else what?

  Father They take you away.

  Hermann Κ You can’t be expected to know that.

  Father Of course I know it. Franz Kafka.

  Hermann Κ My son’s even more famous than I thought! What about his father?

  Father You’re not supposed to know about his father?

  Hermann Κ Of course. Everybody knows about Kafka’s father.

  Father Kafka wrote books.

  Hermann Κ A book is a coffin and in it is your father’s body.

  Father I’d better go and swot it up. The buggers. Every time you’re ready for the examination they change the syllabus!

  Father exits.

  Hermann Κ Now. This is my chance to come over as a Normal Parent. (He opens his arms, rehearsing his first embrace for his son.)

  Kafka enters, pursued by Linda carrying food; they are followed on by Sydney.

  Linda You’ll love it. It’s kiwi fruit and satsuma segments. Didn’t they have kiwi fruit in Prague?

  Kafka No.

  Linda How did they manage?

  Hermann Κ (waiting for Kafka, arms outstretched) Look at him. Don’t you just love him. Come, give your Dad a kiss.

  Kafka Who? Me? What is this?

  Hermann Κ Baby. You’ve been rumbled.

  Kafka Rumbled? What? Who? Don’t touch me. What do you mean?

  Hermann Κ What do I mean? I love the boy. Forget his faults, I love him.

  Kafka Dad.

  Linda It seems the affection is not returned.

  Hermann Κ I know. I know. Lady, you are so right. That’s what it seems. But, as your clever little hubby has found out, things aren’t always what they seem. Until this moment everybody thought I hated my son. They thought he hated me. (He bursts out laughing.) The truth is, we’re devoted to each other.

  He embraces the shrinking Kafka.

  Love me, dickhead. Do as I tell you.

  Linda Leave him alone. Just because you’re his father doesn’t mean you can kiss him. He hates his loved ones, we all know that. You don’t believe this?

  Sydney Why not?

  Linda You’re pathetic.

  Sydney All the evidence about Kafka’s father comes from Kafka. The only son who ever told the truth about his father was Jesus Christ – and there are doubts about him.

  Linda But this is a mean cheap person. Can’t you see? He’s a fraud.

  Hermann Κ (kissing Kafka) Is this a fraud? Or this?

  Kafka Father. You hate me, then all of a sudden you love me. What did I do?

  Hermann Κ Listen, you teetering column of urine, this clown is writing an article about you.

  Kafka I know.

  Hermann Κ So. Don’t you see? It’s our big
chance. We can be nice people. I love this kid, this is someone really special.

  Kafka Our big chance? Your big chance. I am nice people already.

  Hermann Κ Yes. Thanks to me. Thanks to me being the shit. Bless him.

  Sydney Look at that. Do you know what this is, Linda? That is a breakthrough in Kafka studies.

  Linda It looks more like somebody getting their arm twisted.

  Sydney You used to be proud of me, Linda. You used to trust me.

  Linda Sydney. I’ve talked to him.

  Sydney I know. He’s scarcely talked to anyone else. I’ve never had a look in. I love him.

  Hermann Κ So do I.

  Kafka I don’t want to have this conversation.

  Linda You told me you couldn’t stand one another. You blamed him for everything.

  Hermann Κ Lying.

  Linda No.

  Hermann Κ Tell her. Tell her it was all your fault. Or else.

  Kafka Else what?

  Hermann Κ Or else, you two-faced pisspot, I tell the world the one fact biographers never know. I reveal the one statistic every man knows about himself but which no book ever reveals. You see, sir, it’s as I say, we’re just a normal father and son. My normal. (He indicates about eight inches.) Your normal. (He indicates about three inches.)

  Kafka No, Dad. You wouldn’t.

  Hermann Κ No? There is one fact about my son and his … old man that has never got into print …

  Linda Stand up to him. Come on.

  Hermann Κ The long and the short of the matter is …

  Brod enters.

  Kafka I was a terrible son. A dreadful son. A real father and mother of a son. And yet my father loved me.

  Brod I don’t believe what I’m hearing.

  Hermann Κ Here’s the real culprit. The original biographer. The man who led posterity up the garden path in the first place.

  Kafka Max. Help me.

  Brod Suddenly I’m forgiven. So what’s the problem?

  Hermann Κ You’re at it again. The same old game. Coming between a father and son. Well, not any more. Now for the first time the truth is going on record. Say it again, my son.

  Kafka My father loved me. It was all my fault.

  Brod Brilliant. And your lips didn’t even move. What’s he got on you this time?

  Kafka Nothing. Honestly.

  Brod Listen. Max is back. We’re friends again. The old team. Tell this gorilla to get lost.