Mrs. Ruthka confided to me that my Castle was her first attempt at translation. She had never presumed to undertake anything like this, and then she started asking me about various linguistic subtleties that she’d discovered in my play. I was taken aback by her questions because the premiere was in three days, and I assumed it was too late for textual alterations. The next day we walked around New York, a city that seemed to have been relocated here from some utopian vision. Then we both got on a plane to Detroit.
At the airport I was welcomed like a genuine author (till then I was astonished that anyone would take me seriously as a writer). Waiting for me were the head of the theater and the director, a small, slightly rotund Jewish woman, Mrs. Marcella Cisney, who hailed from one of the Baltic countries, which at the time enjoyed the inauspicious privilege of belonging to the Soviet Union.
I learned that the university theater in Ann Arbor was one of the few American theaters that had a permanent ensemble. The company considered The Castle a remarkable comedy (they spoke about my play with polite exaggeration), and they were delighted that they would be the first to produce it in America. Nevertheless, the director wanted to go over a few passages where she had some recommendations to pare down the dialogue.
We checked in at the hotel, and the translator and I set off for the theater, which surprised me with its conservative stateliness. And while the actors were getting ready to rehearse, the director brought the script to go over her proposed deletions.
It slowly dawned on us what had happened. My pleasant and inexperienced translator had thought that in several places the allusions would be incomprehensible to an American audience and had added explanatory lines, which threw off the tempo of the play as well as the style and speech of the characters.
When we came to the fifth such interpolation, the director could hold back no longer and started screaming at poor Mrs. Ruthka until she burst out crying, and I tried to calm down both of them. They would simply leave out these insertions; the actors could certainly manage that by the premiere.
None of us suspected what still awaited The Castle.
The actor, with the beautifully literary name Henderson Forsythe, who was supposed to play the scientist Emil was struck with a heart attack on the very day of the opening. None of the available actors dared try to learn the role in the few remaining hours, and so it was played by the stage manager, who walked about the stage with the director’s script and simply read the lines. I sat in the audience, sweating in terror. I thought the play was ruined and wanted to flee the theater.
The audience, however, considered this stage improvisation an unusual variation and gave the young unknown writer from a country just occupied by the Soviet Union lengthy applause, whether out of commiseration or politeness.
After the play there was a small reception. The actors praised the director and the play, while I praised the actors and the director, and then we all sent a telegram to Mr. Forsythe at the hospital. The director had already forgiven my translator for her additions; she even praised Mrs. Ruthka and said that otherwise the translation read well. She also praised the university, claiming it was one of the best public universities in the country, especially the law and medical schools, which were world famous. Then the chair of the Slavic department congratulated me and asked, as if in passing, if I’d be interested in teaching Czech language and literature next year. I was so taken aback by his offer that I didn’t know what to say. I’d never taught Czech language and literature in my life, but he must have assumed, or most likely he had no idea, that I’d studied these two areas. He noticed my perplexity and said of course I didn’t have to answer right away; I could let him know my decision before I left.
A little while later, Professor Ladislav Matějka, who had fled Prague twenty years earlier and was now teaching in the Slavic department, stopped by. I told him about the offer I’d been given, and he asked, “Did you discuss the salary? My friend,” he instructed me, “you cannot reply if you don’t know the salary.” Then he added that the department must offer me at least twelve hundred dollars a month. He also told me that now, because of everything that was happening, students were expressing extraordinary interest in Czech. I would definitely have plenty of grateful students. As far as teaching the language was concerned, I wouldn’t have to bother myself too much; it would just be some language exercises, since Czech was an elective course.
Then a man appeared who informed me that Henry Ford had also been at the performance, but unfortunately he couldn’t attend the reception. He would consider it an honor, however, if the three ladies and I (the third lady was my aunt Ilonka, who had come from Toronto) could join him for lunch tomorrow at his Detroit office.
The next day an extremely well-dressed secretary, or perhaps a bodyguard, led us to a door with a glass panel bearing the inscription HENRY FORD III.
Mr. Henry Ford the Third took us out onto a small terrace with a beautiful view of the ugly city. He spoke politely about my play, asked about conditions in our country, and then said what a shame it was that our market had been closed for so many years. Of course, this had little effect on him because our market wasn’t very significant; instead we were harming ourselves because without competition the production of any sort of artifact of human labor starts to lag behind significantly. When we’d finished eating and were drinking coffee, Mr. Ford asked if we’d be interested in visiting his manufacturing plant. Then he called the man who had escorted us here and bade us farewell.
The most captivating thing for me about our meeting was that for the first time in my life I had met a genuine big-time capitalist. The director, the translator, and my aunt were thrilled. They felt we had been shown a great honor: This rich and powerful man had devoted so much of his precious time to us.
The next day I went to see the departmental chair.
He greeted me and said I must be curious about the conditions of the position. It was proposed that I teach a literary seminar four hours a week along with the same number of language-teaching hours. My pay would be twelve hundred dollars a month. Would this be acceptable?
I said it would be and thanked him.
We shook hands, and he asked if I would be coming with my family. I said I would have to consult with them, but they would almost certainly be coming along.
Back home, when I announced I had accepted an offer to teach at the University of Michigan and that, of course, we would all be going, Michal expressed the greatest interest. He asked if there were Indians living in Michigan, and when I admitted I hadn’t seen any, he looked disappointed. I quickly added that there were still many Indian tribes in such a large country, and perhaps we’d go see them. They would have school vacations there as well, which we would take advantage of to travel around America. My son wanted to know if that meant he would have to attend school, and when I said of course he would, he asked if they taught in Czech.
I explained that he would be going to a local American school.
The idea that he would have to attend a school where he wouldn’t understand a word almost made him cry. Hana, on the other hand, was most excited about flying in a plane and seeing the ocean. My wife didn’t say anything. At night when the children were asleep, she asked if I had thought this through. If we really did leave, weren’t we betraying our friends? I objected that many of our friends had left with the apparent intention of not returning, and no one had considered it betrayal. We were just going there for two semesters. It was an extraordinary opportunity to get to know another way of life, for me an opportunity to do something completely different, and for the children an opportunity to learn English.