The Hanging Artist
Page 31
“I did the best I could,” Franz said.
“I wasn’t referring to the case.”
“Then what?”
“For finally seeing me as me.”
“I don’t understand.”
Beide shut the door and leaned into the window.
“For seeing me completely,” they said, “and not categorically.”
They looked past Franz to the corner of the cab.
“Look after him,” they said.
“You can count on me, Inspector,” said Gregor.
The taxi sped away from Beide, the theater, and people of Vienna.
Franz did not look back.
CHAPTER FIFTY
A NOCTURNE
WE SEE TWO figures standing beneath a lamp on the train platform. In the distance, a pinpoint of light and a lonely whistle heralds the midnight train to the sanatorium.
The tall, thin figure says, “Beide saw you.”
The short, round, insectoid figure says, “And I saw Beide.”
“Even spoke to you.”
“And I answered.”
“Beide never acknowledged your presence before.”
“That’s a cross I have to bear.”
“Then that means you’re real, Gregor.”
“Or it means Beide is imaginary, Franz.”
“You can’t both be imaginary.”
“Why not?”
“I’d prefer it if you were both real.”
“Then so be it.”
The train draws nearer. We can hear the bell.
“Be well,” the short figure says to the tall figure.
“Thank you,” the tall figure says.
“And if you can’t be well, then just… be.”
“I’ll try.”
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a trash heap behind the Jaegerhaus. It was schnitzel night.”
We see the tall, thin figure, alone, get swallowed up by the steam from the locomotive.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
THE JOURNEY
FRANZ KAFKA SAT in the hot compartment and watched the lights of the city give way to the darkness of the woods.
He reached up and opened the window, savoring the breeze.
If he let it, the motion of the train would lull him to sleep.
But he wouldn’t let it.
He stood and leaned his arms on the open top half of the window and let the wind ruffle his hair.
Something delicate landed on his face.
He sat down and peeled the object from his face.
An envelope with his name on it.
He smiled and wished Beide was there.
“Odd way to get your mail delivered,” said a woman’s voice. “But then again, there’s everything odd about you.”
Franz saw a black-haired young woman sitting opposite him.
She smiled at him, and her deep black eyes welcomed him back to warmth.
“Dora,” he said.
He no longer had any desire to question anything.
Dora was there, with him, and that was final.
“Go on,” she said. “Open it.”
Franz tore open the envelope.
Inside was a scrap of paper carefully clipped from either a newspaper or journal. It read:
In deepest sorrow we announce that our son, Doctor of Law Franz Kafka, died on June 3, at the age of 41, in the Kierling Sanatorium near Vienna. The burial will take place on Wednesday afternoon, June 11, at 3:45, at the Jewish Cemetery in Straschnitz. Prague, June 10, 1924. Hermann and Julia Kafka, the parents, in name of the bereaved family. We request that there be no visits of condolence.
“Got my age wrong,” Franz said. “Won’t be forty-one until next month.”
“What is it?” Dora asked.
He smiled at her.
“The future,” he said. “What’s today?”
“It became the 7th about twenty minutes ago.”
“Good.”
“Where are we going and what are we doing, Franzel?”
Franz crumpled the envelope and its contents into a ball and threw it out the window.
“As I’ve got a few more days until it’s official,” he said, “let’s just go wherever and do whatever together.”
“Until what’s official?” Dora asked.
Franz coughed.
“My new life.”
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank the two evil imps who visited me one winter morning, the first who gave me the idea and said, “This is the stupidest idea you’ve ever had,” and the second who said, “Write it anyway.” Imps aside, I thank my mother and father, who were the first to hear the idea and didn’t have me committed. My thanks, too, to the Sanibel Public Library on Sanibel Island, Florida, which had exactly what I was looking for exactly when I needed it, and most of all to David at Abaddon for his unflagging enthusiasm, championing, and so much more. Lastly, unending thanks to Franz Kafka, who has been inspiring (if that’s the word for it) me ever since I first read The Hunger Artist when I was 15. I’ve been haunted ever since.
ABOUT JON STEINHAGEN
Jon Steinhagen lives in what is known (somewhat affectionately) as The Chicagoland Area, near the historic Brookfield Zoo. His writing career began in theatre, first as a composer and lyricist for several musicals (particularly Inferno Beach, The Teapot Scandals, The Next Thing, and The Arresting Dilemma of Mr. K, a musical adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial), then as resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists (his notable plays include The Analytical Engine, ACES, Successors, Devil’s Day Off, and Blizzard ’67). As a screenwriter, he has written Party Favors, and is developing two television series, Willing Spirit and New Kid. Somewhere along the way he began writing stories, too, and many are collected in The Big Book of Sounds (Black Lawrence Press). He has received numerous Joseph Jefferson Awards for his work in Chicago theatre as either author, actor, or musical director, and can be found on twitter as @JonSteinhagen (inventive fellow, this Jon Steinhagen), where he can be found blathering on about his ridiculous ideas for movies, his collection of vinyl records, and his desire for cookies to be delivered every time he does something he should have done weeks ago.
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