‘They are becoming very popular,’ he said. ‘A travelogue written by a well-known author would be even more of a success. However, I think we could do one better than even that.’
I hoped he was not going to ask me to travel to some inhospitable, far-flung place. Images came to me of my crooked form toiling across narrow jungle paths crowded with wild animals, over jagged snow-covered mountain peaks, through windy deserts.
‘Africa?’ I asked.
He ignored me. ‘What is better than a travelogue written by one well-known author?’ He paused and bared his teeth in a smile. Then he answered his own question. ‘A travelogue written by two well-known authors.’ His teeth flashed.
He was going to ask me to write a travelogue together with Franz. The problems with this scenario came rushing into my head one after the other. I was by this time so weary of the double dealings and trickery in which I had been engaged. And the cost! It would be ruinous. There was no way that I could afford to pay for Gustav or Alexandr to accompany me on a tour that might last weeks. There was, I thought, always the possibility of going with the real Franz, but the thought of seeing Franz for a few hours, let alone spending weeks with him confined in train compartments, restaurants and museum exhibits, was too terrible to contemplate. And then there was Anja. I could not bear to be separated from her. I pictured her again as she stood there laughing on the landing, her face pale with cold. To go away from Prague now would be a mistake, of that I was sure. I desperately cast about for possible excuses.
Theodor took my silence for assent. ‘Well then, that’s settled. I thought a tour of the spa towns of Bohemia would be popular. You’ll begin with Karlsbad and then go from there. I will arrange the tickets and bookings.’
He began to shuffle his papers around on his desk in an attitude of dismissal.
‘Oh, one more thing—I will, of course, need to ask you to sign an agreement committing to the completion of Schopenhauer by the revised deadline. And also for the travelogue.’
He pushed a sheet of paper across at me. He had never before insisted on such formalities and the request was like an official withdrawal of his affection. I was much too agitated to read the agreement and only scanned the page mechanically, taking nothing in. My hand was numb as I signed.
‘Good,’ he said as he took the paper back from me. He gave me a carbon copy and also a sealed envelope, very thick. ‘This is also for you: some information about Karlsbad and Marienbad.’
He then opened one of his desk drawers and took out another envelope. He sat weighing it in his hands for a moment while he looked out of the window, before turning and fixing me with a narrowed gaze.
‘And I wonder if you might also pass this on to Franz for me?’ he said. He handed me the envelope. ‘It’s a cheque.’ He seemed to be watching me closely, no doubt looking for any signs of murderous envy. I wondered if he had given me the envelope with the purpose of provoking me. But I gave him no satisfaction on that quarter. I accepted it with a smile and politely took my leave of him, keeping my smiling mask intact until I was well away from the building.
14.
A FEW WEEKS LATER, FRANZ—THE REAL FRANZ—AND I WERE sitting side by side in a train compartment bound for Karlsbad. I had visited Karlsbad before, long ago in my childhood. My mother had taken me there, and on to Marienbad, and any other spring or well that promised miracle cures for those who took its waters, in the vain hope that my crooked spine might be cured. She had approached each new place with shining optimism, completely convinced that it held the power to cure me. She patiently held me in the various pools and under the springs, she consulted a variety of doctors, and fed me foul-tasting water from cups and bottles of numerous designs, but each time the treatments failed to have any effect.
Somehow this failure never seemed to deter her or diminish her certainty, so when she met an old woman in a restaurant in the town who told her of an even more beneficial and healthful spring just over the hills she simply transferred her conviction and we set off to this new location. As a child I found this very confusing. I had always interpreted her certainty as absolute—if she were certain about something then it was sure to be a fact, beyond question—so I was perplexed when my body remained exactly the same as we went from town to town, spring to spring. It seemed to me to be an inexplicable failure in the mechanism of the universe, as though the constellations had suddenly begun to turn on a new axis or the seasons had reversed. I could not understand her continuing composure in the face of such chaos. At the same time it had also seemed like my personal failure: a failure to control my own body. Other people had no trouble mastering their own bodies, but I was mysteriously powerless to do this and was held instead within my body’s rigid walls like a prisoner.
Only vague memories remained to me of Karlsbad: mostly of the damp and grey atmosphere and that feeling of guilt, a vague panic of things going wrong and it perhaps being my fault, all of which was connected to that penetrating, sulphurous smell that lingers like mildew in the streets and houses of all bath towns. I could recall that oppressive odour with remarkable clarity, as though clouds of it were blowing into the train compartment through the slit of the opened window.
Sitting there next to Franz was a strange experience. I had to keep reminding myself that he was not Alexandr or Gustav, and I took care not to say anything which might give me away. Fortunately, he was not much disposed to talking, and after greeting me he had settled into silence behind a newspaper. He was acting towards me with neutral politeness, as though our last angry encounter had not occurred, which puzzled me. Perhaps he felt that he had triumphed over me with his publication of Die Verwandlung.
The thought of that book still smarted, but I sat and soothed the pain by gloating over my successful deception of Theodor. I imagined how much worse it would be for me now had Franz known about the scope of his success. Of course he knew that his book had been successfully published, and this was bad enough, but, if I continued to carefully manage the situation, hopefully this would be all that he would ever achieve. Franz was on his way out. I still had his cheque in my pocket.
I sat and looked out of the window, not making any conversation. I had put a notebook in my jacket pocket with the idea that I would take notes about the landscapes that we encountered on the journey. I took it out and sat with pen poised, ready to note down my impressions. I assumed that Theodor was expecting us to produce a travelogue illuminated with golden scraps of poetry, but I could find nothing to say about the unremarkable springtime hills and trees as they sped past, beautiful though they were, so my page remained blank.
I saw Franz take out his own notebook and begin to write. He sat over it for a long time, his head lowered with the effort of concentration, jotting down small amounts at a time, but very consistently. Soon he had filled several pages. My page was still an empty space. When he saw me watching him he slid his notebook back into his pocket and looked studiously out of the window. I wanted to ask him what he was writing, but I didn’t know how to without sounding jealous and peevish. I shuffled around in my seat and leafed through the empty pages of my own notebook. Franz gave a sudden laugh, turning to me and holding out his notebook. ‘Never mind, Max, it’s not my magnum opus.’
He snapped the book shut and stowed it in his pocket. I sat staring straight ahead. We both remained silent for the rest of the journey.
15.