The harness had two curved pieces of wood that hooked under my armpits, and from which two flat metal bars ran in a vertical line down my ribs to my hips on either side. A further two rods reinforced the back of the harness. Two leather straps like stirrup leathers on a saddle were fastened in a crossed fashion over my shoulders onto the front of the two wooden hooks. This wood and metal structure was lined with canvas in the shape of a tight vest. It was uncomfortable enough with the straps unfastened, heavy and thick. When the straps were tightened, it was almost unbearable. My crooked torso did not fit the shape of the straight metal reinforcing rods and, although they were slightly flexible, they strained against my flesh and threw me off balance. I looked at my mother and saw that she was crying. The shoemaker lifted me down from the platform and I waited for him to undo the straps again, but he did not. I wore that harness for the next year of my life for every hour of the day, except when washing. It was impossible to sleep the first few weeks. I would lie in every position I could think of and secretly loosen the shoulder straps, but to little effect; for that whole year I felt I was living in the grip of a vice, where I had to strain to take every breath.
Each time I had a bath my mother would come and examine me to try to find signs of my body straightening, but even after some months had passed the only visible effect the harness had on my body were several permanent open sores under my arms and on various points of my torso, where the metal bands pushed against my soft skin, and two deep grooves on the tops of my shoulders from the straps, which I still carry on my body today.
Lying there in my bed, I could feel again the leather straps and metal rods tighten around me, cutting into my flesh. I touched the deep runnels on my shoulders. Reading about Gregor was about as unnerving as hearing another person speak with my voice. I read and reread the opening sequence and felt a sense of vertigo, as though my fever had returned.
It occurred to me that I was Gregor; I was the model for him. I must be. That Franz, all the time we had been together, had been silently observing me as though I were some rare specimen, storing up impressions and noting them down to imprison me in his story like pinning an insect to a card. The more I read, the more convinced I became that this was the case, and that Gregor was a thinly veiled version of me.
I felt terribly ashamed, as if I had been paraded naked down the Wenzelsplatz in the middle of the day, with every one of my flaws and faults visible to all. I quite literally felt that I wanted to die. I threw the manuscript into the corner of the room and it landed with its pages splayed out, flower-like, over the carpet. I fell back onto the bed. I felt too ill to get up and go out, but too well to sleep in the middle of the day. I expected to lie there in agony for hours but instead I immediately fell into a deep sleep.
I dreamed that I had woken in my own bed. Everything in the room looked exactly the same as it had earlier, except now it was night-time, which made it difficult to tell if I dreamed or was awake. I looked over to where I had thrown the manuscript, but it was gone. I heard a shuffling sound and a white shape like an enormous flat spider scuttled out from under the bed and ran under the sofa. Its many-legged, jerky gait made me nauseous and light-headed. I got out of bed and picked up one of my shoes, Silently in my bare feet, with my knees bent for stealth, I tiptoed very slowly across the room. I brought the shoe up over my head, ready to strike.
Holding my breath, I bent down to look under the sofa. The creature was huddled there against the wall. It looked like it was made of paper. I reached my hand with the shoe under the sofa to chase it out, but it flattened itself onto the floor and the shoe passed harmlessly over the top of it. As I withdrew the shoe and was standing up again, considering what to do next, the creature dashed out from under the sofa straight at my bare ankles. It flew against me with angry rustles, the edges of the paper cutting and cutting my flesh. It wrapped its pages around my ankles like the tentacles of an octopus, hobbling my legs together.
I screamed and began swiping at my legs and jumping from foot to foot, trying to dislodge it. The touch of the thing against my skin disgusted me and worried me much more than the streaks of blood that were running over my feet and onto the carpet. I raised the shoe over my head and brought it down on the creature with a crunch, dislodging a few pages. I beat and beat at it until it was a torn lump of pulpy pages scattered on the floor.
I awoke with a sense of triumph. It was night-time and I could see the whitish glow of the manuscript in the corner where I had thrown it. It was only a manuscript: perhaps it was the only manuscript, the only copy. Was this likely? I did not know if Franz made carbon copies or had arranged for the novel to be copied before passing it to me.
I revisited the satisfaction of my dream, the feeling of beating the bundle of papers to a pulp, then began to fantasise about different ways I could destroy the manuscript. I could throw it in the fire, using the poker to break up the last remnants of paper into the finest powder. I could shred it into pieces as small as snowflakes and cast them over the Moldau. Or I could drown it in water and then mash the pages into a papier-mâché ball, which I would then mould into the sculpture of a man’s head and display on a shelf.
As pleasant as my thoughts were, these actions were unlikely to have any effect. Franz, I mused, was a lawyer who worked for an insurance company. If anyone were likely to keep copies, an insurance lawyer was sure to. And where would those copies be? Would he go so far as to stow them away in a safe somewhere? I imagined myself creeping into his house or his office at night and rifling through the papers in his writing desk by torchlight.[12]
But it was useless. I knew that even if I did any of these things it was unlikely to make any difference. The best I could hope for was a short delay in having the thing brought out. Franz would have no difficulty in having the book published, with or without my help, and I had no doubt that it would be a success. It was a work of genius. I imagined my friends reading the novel and recognising me in Gregor. They would meet and excitedly discuss the novel, each wondering whether it would be indiscreet to speculate on whether Gregor had originated with me. They would slyly eye one another, gauging whether the others were thinking the same. After a while someone would hesitantly raise the subject.
‘Did the descriptions of Gregor’s… condition… remind you of anyone?’
The others would feign confusion for a moment and then someone else would offer timidly, ‘Well, you know, Max did come to mind.’ Then would follow a chorus of loud and eager sympathy to cover their greedy curiosity: ‘Poor Max, so brave, he manages very well I’ve always thought.’ And then: ‘Has he read it, do you think?’
And of course I would see my friends soon, I would encounter them at a party, or a café, or walking down the street, and they would be thinking all of these things and watching me for some reaction. I had to put a stop to it.
12
The preceding three paragraphs were uncovered from beneath a scrap of lined paper, on which the following three paragraphs appear. The scrap has been fixed over the notebook paper with adhesive. The glue has partially dissolved the ink in some areas, and the meaning has been approximated from the context.