The room had grown silent and I could see the rest of the Bohemian Company watching us from their corner.
‘Fine, but what kind of show do you have in mind? Our current focus is work in the style of Meiningen.’ Jan stretched himself a little taller as he spoke the name of his heroes.
‘Well, it isn’t so much a show as, ah, a single-night performance.’
Jan frowned and waited for me to go on. I desperately searched for a way to explain my request. My eyes wandered from Jan’s face and stared out through the narrow strip of window through which the feet of passers-by were visible.
‘Ah, realism certainly is the style,’ I said after a moment. ‘Authentic realism.’
I glanced at Jan. He was still frowning and his eyes had narrowed. He folded his arms across his chest. I decided to just tell him.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘there’s this man who I’m looking for and can’t find. I just want someone to play him for one night.’
It was only after the words were out of my mouth that I realised how shameful they sounded. As I spoke, Jan had taken a step backwards, away from me.
‘At a dinner I mean,’ I went on. I could feel my cheeks reddening. ‘For a few hours only. At a public café. I can offer you eighty crowns.’
Jan’s lips had curled in disgust. ‘Herr Schmidt,’ he spat out the spurious name, ‘we here are serious artists. Perhaps you would have more success at some other establishment. Good day.’
He turned his back and stalked back to rest of his company. I tried to keep my head up as I slunk to the stairs and left the room. Out on the street I hurried from the scene with my head buried deep in my collar. I let the crowds carry me along, my only concern to put as much distance as possible between myself and the Bohemian Company.
When I had walked enough to be out of breath, I looked at my watch. It was half-past eleven. I had thought that by this time I would have had the whole thing organised and I would be sitting comfortably at the desk in my office, drinking a cup of tea. My confidence began to falter and my heart started up a panicky rhythm: there were not more than seven or eight hours remaining until the dinner. I pictured how Theodor’s face would look—stony, one eyebrow cocked—if I dared to appear without Franz. I forced my mind away from this scenario.
I realised that I was quite close to the insurance office and considered calling there again in case I could produce the real Franz at the dinner. I had somehow forgotten in the hours of that morning that there was in fact a real Franz. But by now my plan had taken root in my mind, and the idea of sitting alongside the real Franz while Theodor got what he wanted filled me with disgust. Besides, given that Franz seemed not to actually want to meet Theodor, by producing a substitute Franz I was actually doing the real Franz a favour. I decided to forgo another visit to the insurance office and instead I took out my notebook to look up the address of the other theatre group that I wanted to try: the Black Cat Ensemble in the Ziegengasse. I estimated that I could go there and still be back at the post office within an hour.
As I walked, I considered the plan anew. Now I could see two possible problems. The first and most significant was if Franz had received Theodor’s and my messages and did appear at the dinner that night. But I considered his past behaviour and concluded that the chance of this was rather low. Besides, if I arrived at the café with the impostor Franz Kafka first, then should the real Kafka arrive later he would be the one to appear as the impostor if I labelled him as such. It would be his word against mine. I merely had to ensure that the imposter and I arrived at the café early. The second potential problem was that the person I presented as Franz might be known to Theodor. But this could be explained away if Franz Kafka was a pseudonymous creation. In fact, that might even help to explain Franz’s reluctance to meet with Theodor in the first place.
There still remained the question of what to say when I arrived at the Black Cat theatre company. Clearly, I needed a different approach to the one I had used with the Bohemians. Perhaps saying that the evening was an audition was a better plan. Or I could say that I was playing a practical joke on a friend. Of course! This seemed like a winning idea to me: innocuous, amusing. It was perfect.
Obviously I also needed to think of a more plausible name than Schmidt. Czerny? Cervenka? Karel Czerny. He sounded like a practical joker. I could surely pass as Karel Czerny. The name is Czerny, I mouthed to myself as I walked along.
I soon arrived at my destination. This group had a little wooden sign with a painted image of a black cat, hissing, with an arched back and bared fangs. Its long tail was raised in a question mark that curled around the top of the sign. The cat’s green eyes bored into mine, daring me to go in. Karel Czerny. I went inside.
Despite my preparation this time, my experience with the Black Cat Ensemble strongly resembled the one I had had at the Bohemian Company, and once again I found myself scurrying away down the street, shamefaced. There must have been something shifty in my countenance, for I am usually a highly credible liar, my body having schooled me in the arts of deception from a most tender age.
Now I was at a loss. It was past midday. I let myself drift through the streets at random. My mind was numb and empty, and I concentrated only on negotiating the uneven stones of the street. What with my slow progress and keeping my eyes trained on the ground, now and then people cannoned into me. After one of these collisions I looked up directly into the eyes of Franz. He was walking towards me, still a few metres away. He seemed not to have seen me. I felt dizzy and a kind of violent mist rose up before my eyes. I felt the urge to kill him on the spot. I reached out for the wall to steady myself, but when I looked again I saw that it was not Franz after all, only a man so like him that he could have been Franz’s twin.
I was still standing with my hand on the wall, and I remained there while the man walked past me, coming so close that I could smell his dusty odour of tobacco. I turned to watch his receding back. Without thinking, I began to follow him. The man walked quickly, deftly threading his way through the traffic, stepping sometimes onto the street to move around some slower walker. It was a strain to keep pace with him. My intractable feet slipped and twisted on the difficult stones, and I clutched, uncaring, onto anything near me to keep my balance: windows, walls, other people. My heart was hammering with exertion and the fear that I would lose him. The man was perfect. He was the one I wanted. But how to approach him? I would say that I had a proposition for him, a way to earn some money, I decided. I would invite him for a drink to discuss it. I would keep to my story of the practical joke.
The man was slowing down and seeming to hesitate at a cross-street. I caught up with him and then I was standing beside him. The base of my throat throbbed with my laboured breathing. Now was the moment.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, touching the fabric of his suit lightly with my fingertips.
He turned slowly towards me. I was standing very close to him and I inspected the side of his face. Even at such close range, every detail of his appearance was like Franz’s. I saw his eyes widen questioningly as he focused on my face, but very quickly this expression was overlaid with one that I quickly recognised as disgust. I saw his eyes flick down the length of my crooked body and he immediately took a step away from me, his features disfigured in a sneer. He shook his head slightly, a small flick to the right and the left, and then plunged across the street. He gave one glance back over his shoulder, probably to make certain that I was not following him, still with that look of revulsion.
The old shame at my body crept over my skin and my scalp contracted with it. I could feel the sweat beading on my forehead and plastering my shirt to my back. My breath wheezed in and out. I reached up to remove my hat and noticed that it had been perched crookedly on my head. No doubt I would present a frightening prospect to a stranger in the street. I leaned back against the wall for a moment to rest, but I was too conscious of the glances of passers-by to gain any comfort, so I forced myself to shuffle onwards. Pain radiated up through my feet and stiffened my right side. I desperately needed to rest. I looked around and saw that I was on the Karlshofergasse, in an area of the city I rarely visited. There was a small pub on the corner. Normally I would not enter such a down-at-heel place, but my body was crying out in exhaustion, so I went inside.