Free Kafka in Love by Jacqueline Raoul-Duval

clothes with fanciful adornments that give her an air of luxury. One night as they were getting dressed, he asked her about her work. He remembers her voice, her Austrian accent. She said that when a client was old, or brutal, or smelly, while he grunted at her ear, his heavy, sweating body glued to hers, she was always able to leave her sagging cot and the man fucking her and the miserable shack where she lived. All she had to do was to imagine a scene, always the same scene, Franz didn’t ask what it was, and she would leave her body at its business and sail far away to a place that was always the same, and always magical.
    Dissociating oneself. Will I be able to do it too? Did I manage to get away for a few moments from the torrent of reproaches that Felice has been heaping on me? He closes his eyes so as not to see the hellish gleam of gold that glints in her mouth. He hears Felice hammer on but in a muffled voice, as though a heavy curtain had fallen between them: “…  her photograph, several photographs, not enough for you … ‘the most charming, themost lovely thing I’ve ever received! And your portrait, contemplate’ … from morning to night, and you …”
    Think about Gerti, he tells himself, about her smile in the canoe. About her ribbons, her childish lips, her long lashes. About our walks.
    Words float like clouds, or rather, it is he who floats, far away, out of reach.
    “…  You tyrannized me, you tormented me with your doubts, your neurasthenia, you tried to make me adopt your asceticism. And what about your unbelievable behavior before our engagement? How could you let your parents hire a detective to investigate my family’s financial situation, their moral standing, and even mine? How can I ever forgive you this despicable lack of trust?”
    Her resentment, which has long smoldered, flares out. Speaking energetically, her back straight, she spares her fiancé no details, reminding him of the many daily torments, the tears she has been shedding for months. Before the three dumbstruck judges, she even tosses into the ring the news of her wayward fiancé’s transgressions.
    He looks at Felice, her dull hair, her stern gaze. What did she say?
    “Your affair … a child … Riva.”
    “It’s time to bring this to a close,” says Grete. “You must break off your engagement.”
    Ernst Weiss, delighted, speaks volubly to this purpose. Erna timidly proposes that a happier outcome might be possible.
    Each has spoken. The eyes of the four judges turn toward Dr. Kafka, motionless under the barrage. Around him is a wall of silence. He has folded his arms across his chest. Is he containing the beating of his heart? Petrified, he seems incapable of thinking, looking, speaking, taking part in what is going on around him, which is nothing less than a punishment in the public square.
    No one dares break the silence. They are all waiting for him to come back to life.
    He rises, and the others follow suit. To everyone’s surprise, he walks toward Grete, who has sprung him from his engagement.
    “You must hate me,” she says.
    “You’re wrong, and even if the whole world hated you, I would not. You assumed the role of judge, it was horrible for you, for me, for everyone. In reality, I sat in your position, and I sit there permanently. The reproaches that you and Felice heaped on me are ones I have considered a hundred times. But you should not have exhibited my letters. Never would I have exposed yours to others.”
    “Please give them back. I should get rid of them, I should burn them all.”
    “No. I am keeping them, but don’t worry in the slightest.”
    He takes his leave of Felice: “You have every right to be angry with me. But why did you subject me to this trial? This public flogging? This humiliation? I felt like a dog!”
    That evening, he invites the kind and compassionate Erna to dine with him at the Belvedere, a restaurant along the river.
    “I would like to give you some