Marija Peričić - The Lost Pages

‘Hello, Max,’ said a vaguely familiar voice. I could make out the dark shape of a man outlined against the window, but I could not place the voice. The shape moved over to sit on one of the small sofas. The details of the room were still taking shape as my eyes adjusted to the light. I came around to sit on the other sofa and saw a bald man in a suit: Theodor. My heart gave a jolt. I had not given Theodor a single thought for months. I felt pleased to see him and my mind flooded with happy memories of my first publication, which seemed so long ago.

‘Theodor,’ I said, extending my hand to him. We shook hands, but at his touch that familiar foreboding feeling came over me again, a guilty stain that seeped into my heart. It occurred to me to wonder why he was here at this irregular time. Then all at once everything came rushing back to me: Alexandr and Gustav, and the cheque, and Franz’s dead-looking eyes staring up at me from that room in Berlin. All the blood dropped out of my face and my arms hung limp at my sides.

Franz. What had I done? I wondered why the police had not come for me before now, and my eyes darted around the room in case they were standing hidden in the corners, unseen, ready to leap out and arrest me. And then there was Theodor, dear Theodor, whom I had deceived and stolen from.

‘Look, Max…’ said Theodor.

I knew what he was going to say. I wanted to apologise to him, but I found that I could not speak.

‘Max, I know you’re not well,’ said Theodor. ‘I’ve spoken to your doctors, to Professor Pick.’

I opened my mouth, but only some stammering noises came out.

Theodor silenced me with an upraised hand. ‘No, don’t try to explain. I wanted to come and tell you what I know.’

‘Theodor,’ I managed to get out. ‘Theodor, I’m sorry. The last months were… I don’t know what happened. I lost myself somehow. I’m sorry for the harm I did you.’ Perhaps the police were waiting outside, I thought.

He was looking at me uncomprehendingly.

‘No,’ said Theodor. ‘It is I who am sorry. I knew something was wrong, but I did nothing to help you.’

‘Help me? Why would you help me? I was deceiving you.’ I spoke in spite of myself. It was surely better for me to remain silent and admit nothing.

‘I knew it was you,’ said Theodor. ‘I knew you were Franz.’ His words made no sense, and for a confused moment I was thrown back to my first week in hospital, when I too had thought I was Franz. It occurred to me that this interview might be a kind of test devised by Pick.

‘No,’ I said firmly, as though Pick were listening, ‘I am Max. Max Brod.’

‘Yes, yes.’ Theodor waved a hand impatiently. ‘I know that. And I know too, or at least I think I understand, why you needed Franz. You had me fooled for a while, but after that party I smelled a rat. That fellow you hired—Gustav? Not a very good double, my friend. And then there was that matter of the cheque, that little test I arranged for you. You failed that test, Max. It was most unlike you to steal money from a fellow writer. So then I had Franz investigated, and everything kept leading back to you.’

‘Investigated?’

‘I hired a detective,’ he said. Detectives. Now I knew that the police were a certainty. I stood up, thinking they must be outside. I saw no point in delaying the inevitable. I rushed to the door leading back to the wards, but it was locked. The police would in any case be more likely be waiting in the entrance hall, I reasoned. I crossed the room and tried that door, but it too was locked.

‘Where are they?’ I asked, rattling at the handle. ‘Do you have the key, or do they?’

‘Who?’

‘The police. I’m ready to go now, if I am to go.’ I banged on the door with the flat of my hand. ‘You can come in now,’ I called through the door.

Theodor gave a little laugh. ‘Police? Of course there are no police. Over a couple of hundred crowns?’ He laughed again. He stood and came over to me, and pulled me away from the door and back to the sofa.

‘No, no. Not because of the money. Of course I’ll pay you that. You can ask my father; he will give it to you immediately. No, because of Franz. In Berlin.’ I did not know how to put that night into words. I tried to get up again, but Theodor took both of my hands in his, and kept me sitting.

‘Max…’ He stared into my eyes. ‘Listen to me. There is no Franz. You are Franz. It was you. You wrote those stories. You just became ill.’

‘I am Franz? No.’ I had recovered from that delusion! I had to show that I had learned my lesson.

‘Yes, Max. You are. You are Franz. It’s alright. I can understand it.’ Theodor sounded very certain, and as much as I tried to deny it to myself, something in what he said rang true.

‘You mean,’ I said slowly, ‘that I am Franz?’ I hardly dared to say it aloud. ‘But then that night in Berlin…’ The memory of it had come back in extreme detail, and I shrank from it.

‘In Berlin? Yes, I heard from Pick that you had some kind of fit at a house in Berlin. Someone brought you here.’

I crouched on the sofa in horror, waiting for him to go on, to speak of murder, of death. I was too afraid to ask him.

‘Was there nothing else in Berlin?’ I asked in a whisper. ‘At—at the scene of the crime?’

‘Crime? Well, yes, I believe you broke into the house where you were discovered, but clearly you were at that time a sick man in need of help.’

Could I have dreamed it? The more I thought of that night, the more it did seem like a dream. I could see my fury, and my pain in that room in Berlin, but perhaps that was the most sinister thing that the room contained. Theodor’s words had calmed the deep agitation that had been there all the time.

‘I see now,’ I said, and I did see. I knew that Theodor was right, that it was true. And I too had been right. I was Franz. Now the picture was clear to me. It shifted into focus and a new landscape opened out before me. I had needed Franz to hide behind, to speak for me. But I had allowed him to become too real, too strong.

‘So now I’m coming to you with a proposition,’ Theodor said. ‘And I don’t want to hurt you by saying this, but Franz—I mean to say, you as Franz—is a success of a kind never seen before. I mean a once-in-a-generation success. I never even dreamed I could be part of something like this. What I wish to ask is this: when you come out of here, which I trust will be soon, will you keep writing as Franz?’

‘But Franz is dead,’ I said. And this was also true.

‘He is only dead if you want him to be.’

‘I do want him to be.’

Although Theodor’s words had flattered me, it was true: I was relieved to be rid of Franz. He had exhausted me, burned me up. Without him now I felt light and clean. And yet there was some hesitation. Theodor’s words had awakened in me that old desire for fame, for adulation. Even as I sat and declared Franz dead, as I felt the lightness of his absence, I could feel that little flame flickering, and I could almost taste the success that waited for me, so very close. All that I had ever wanted. Almost all.

‘But what do we do about the problem of the body?’ I asked. ‘I mean, I was paying for Gustav by the hour; it costs a fortune. And someone will find out sooner or later.’

Theodor was silent with concentration.

‘That’s easy,’ he said after a long pause. ‘You wanted Franz dead? Fine, we agree that Franz is dead. Tuberculosis. He was sent to a sanatorium, but tragically it was too late. That leaves the coast clear for you to be appointed his literary executor.’

‘Does anyone else know about this?’ I asked. ‘About me, I mean?’

‘Only you and I, my friend.’