Marija Peričić - The Lost Pages

I knew that by this stage most of my friends would have read the book, and the conversations and conjectures I had imagined had probably already taken place in various hotels, cafés and parlours all over the city. Since reading the manuscript I had retreated into myself; the circle of my days had narrowed to encompass only work and home. I had met none of my friends, gone to no lectures or readings or theatre productions or concerts. All the letters and postcards that came enquiring about me were left unanswered. If I chanced to pass someone I knew in the street I would duck my head and cross to the other side before they could greet me, convinced that the sight of me would conjure the image of Gregor in their minds.

Anja faded from my life along with everything else at this time. She did not call on me again and no longer sent the little cards she used to send when we had not seen each other for a while. I did not seek her out—I was too ashamed and dejected—but I alternately longed for her and wished I had never met her. I thought of her constantly and wondered whether Liška was the cause of her silence, or Franz.

The night of the party drew closer, like a storm coming in over the sea, and suddenly it was only a few days away. I tried to ignore it. I locked myself in my study, keeping up the pretence that I was working, though in reality I was only reading. As usual I had asked Elsa not to disturb me. My thoughts turned occasionally to Franz and the party, but each time they did I forced them away and back to the book I was reading. The lamplight smoothed and rounded out the corners of the room and made the walls curve around me in a dome, like a protective embrace. The fire murmured contentedly to itself and beyond the room I could hear the muted evening activity of the house. I heard a knock at the front door but I hardly gave it a thought. But then someone knocked at the study door, and I saw the door handle twitch as it was tried. I froze and held my breath. The knock came again. I considered sitting silently there and leaving the door unanswered. My recent isolation from society had made me shrink from contact with people somewhat. The knock came again and drove me up from the sofa. I straightened my clothes and hair before I opened the door. It was Anja.

She came in and we sat side by side on the little sofa in front of the fire. The light of the flames made her skin luminous and as smooth as wax. She was so perfect that it seemed entirely possible that she was not even real. I had the urge to reach out and touch her to make sure. But that evening I noticed that there was something different about her, some hesitation that made me nervous. Her eyes moved over my face probingly, as if she were trying to gauge my reaction to something. I guessed that she had come to tell me some ostensibly happy piece of news, such as her forthcoming engagement to Liška.

‘What?’ I could not help myself asking after a few moments of superficial conversation. ‘What is it? You have something you want to tell me?’

Her face had a strange, rigid look. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I only… Well, you know that party, the one for Die Verwandlung— ’

I knew at once what she was going to say. My usual reserve slipped and I barked at her, ‘I suppose Franz has asked you to go with him.’ I saw her eyes widen in surprise and I was instantly ashamed of myself.

‘Oh no,’ she answered in a small voice. ‘I haven’t been invited to the party. I heard about it from a friend at the university. Actually, I was rather hoping that you might ask me to go with you.’

For a moment I was amazed that she would want to go. To me, the evening was nothing more than an ordeal to be survived. The idea that someone, and indeed probably everyone other than myself, considered it to be a celebration surprised me. Of course I longed to take Anja to a party and introduce her to everyone, to see her lovely face smiling and see the admiration in everyone’s eyes, to claim her as mine. There was nothing I wanted more. But it was impossible. I could not face the humiliation. That gallery of sneers and sideways glances. And, even if I managed somehow to steel myself against my shame, there still remained the problem of Franz. I did not wish Anja to be a witness to my shameful unmasking. But she was sitting there looking up at me timidly with her dark eyes and I did not know how to refuse her. I never wanted to refuse her anything.

I protested feebly that I couldn’t go, that I had too much work to do, that I was behind in my writing and would not meet my deadline. She looked pointedly at my empty writing table and the copy of Scheherazade that lay face down next to her on the sofa.

‘Max, you need some rest. You need some rest and you need some fun. You need society. You can’t just stay locked up here in your study your whole life, ignoring everyone.’

I knew that what she said was true. She took my hand and slowly raised it to her lips. I concentrated very hard on breathing. How many times I had dreamed of this. I felt the pillowy pressure of her mouth for only a moment, before she took my hand and pressed my palm to the skin of her face. I hoped that she could not feel how my hand trembled. I held her face, and it was so small. The heel of my palm rested under her chin and my fingertips brushed her temple.

‘Please, Max?’ she was whispering now, and I could feel the warm puffs of her breath against the inside of my wrist. ‘Can I come with you?’

I could not find my voice so all I could do was nod.

She left soon after this, and when I had recovered slightly I felt a great surge of strength. I took the hand that she had kissed and held it to my lips, breathing in the traces of her. Now everything looked completely altered. With that one gesture Anja had remade the world for me. I saw myself as Anja might see me: intelligent, misunderstood perhaps, but powerful and mysterious.

I imagined walking into the party with Anja on my arm and my breast swelled. Perhaps I could go. With Anja by my side, surely I could. If people thought that I was the model for Gregor, so what? To hell with them. Even if someone asked me about Gregor, what of it? And at least if I did go the horror of seeing everyone would be conquered in a few short hours. I would not die of shame. And Theodor, well, I could not run from him forever. He would have to be faced sometime. At least on that night he was sure to be in good spirits.

I sat and considered the situation. I could not control people’s reaction to me, that was true, but perhaps I could take some measures to avoid my act of deception being uncovered. I could always use Alexandr again. The thought edged its way slyly forward. It would be easy to arrange for him to arrive early at the party, before Franz could get there. If he ever did get there: there was always the chance that he would not even come. But I could not hope for that a second time. In any case, I had the upper hand: Theodor had already met Alexandr once; why would he believe some late-coming stranger who claimed to be Kafka, when the man he knew to be Kafka was already standing there in front of him? And, even better, the real Kafka was unlikely to react in a calm manner if faced with this scenario: in all likelihood he would rage and appear as an unhinged lunatic. I remembered his mad laughter when he had last visited me.

I wasted no time, and the next evening I went to the Karlshofergasse again in search of Alexandr. I found the little, dingy pub where we had first met, and I now saw that it was called the Three Boots. This time the place was crowded with after-work drinkers, but Alexandr was not among them. I asked the bargirl, the same pale-faced slattern I remembered from last time, if she knew when he would be in. She shrugged and told me that he had been there earlier and would probably be back soon. I decided to wait. I stood at the bar and drank a glass of schnapps. I felt even more conspicuous than usual among this crowd of working men in their dirty cloth caps and ragged trousers.