Free Amerika by Franz Kafka Page B

in witchlike laughter. Sometimes she would close the kitchen door after Karl had entered and keep her hand on the knob until he asked for permission to leave. Sometimes she would fetch things that he did not even want and press them into his hands without saying a word. On one occasion, however, she said “Karl!” and then, grimacing and moaning, led Karl, who was still astonished at being addressed by his first name, into her little room, which she locked behind her. She put her arms around his neck and seized it in a stranglehold, and though she had asked him to undress her, it was she who undressed him and put him in her bed, as if she would never surrender him to anyone else and wanted to go on stroking him and caring for him until the end of the world. “Karl, oh my Karl,” she cried, as if she could see him and was confirming that she now had possession of him, whereas he could see nothing and felt uncomfortable under the many warm bedclothes that she had evidently heaped up especially for him. Then she lay down beside him and wanted him to tell her secrets, but he had none to tell, and she became annoyed, whether jokingly or in earnest, shook him, listened to his heart, offered him her breast so that he too could listen but could not induce Karl to do so, pressed her naked belly against his body, searched between his legs with her hand—in such a revolting manner that Karl shook his head and throat out from under the quilts—then pushed her belly up against him several times; it felt as if she were part of him; hence perhaps the terrible helplessness that overcame him. In tears, after listening to repeated wishes that they should meet again, he reached his bed. There was no more to it than that, but his uncle still managed to make a big thing of it. So the cook had actually thought about him and had let his uncle know he was coming. That was good of her, and at some point he might well repay her.
    â€œAnd now,” cried the senator, “I want you to tell me frankly whether I’m your uncle or not.”
    â€œYou are my uncle,” said Karl, kissing his uncle’s hand and in turn receiving kisses on the forehead. “I’m very pleased to have met you, but you’re mistaken if you think my parents said nothing but bad things about you. But even aside from that, your speech did have a couple of mistakes in it; for instance, I don’t really think that’s how everything happened. Also, you can’t gauge things that well from over here; besides, it’ll be no great harm if the gentlemen were slightly misinformed about an affair that surely means little to them.”
    â€œWell put,” said the senator, and leading Karl toward the visibly sympathetic captain, he said: “Don’t I have a splendid nephew?”
    â€œMr. Senator,” said the captain, bowing in a manner only people with military training can carry off, “I’m happy to have become acquainted with your nephew. It was a great honor for my ship to have been chosen as the setting for such an encounter. But your voyage in steerage must have been quite dreadful; well, one can never tell who’s being transported in there. Even, for instance, the firstborn son of the top Hungarian magnate—I’ve already forgotten his name and the reason for his voyage—who made a crossing once in steerage. I only found out about it much later. We do everything we can to make the voyage easier for those in steerage, a lot more than, say, the American lines, but we still haven’t succeeded in making such voyages pleasurable.”
    â€œIt did me no harm,” said Karl.
    â€œIt did him no harm!” the senator repeated, laughing very loudly.
    â€œBut as for my trunk, I’m afraid I’ve lost . . .” And just then it all came back to him, everything that had happened and everything that still needed to be done, and looking about him, he saw that every person in the