Dit is moeilik om Franz Kafka (1883-1924) as mens te verstaan en ook nie makliker om sy geskrifte te deurgrond nie (SêNet 18 Feb). Sy lewe en werk gaan voort om mense te fassineer. 'n Onlangse byvoeging tot die Kafka-literatuur is Robert Cohen se Klopstock, or The Distant Sound (Boston: Ploughshares Solos, 2013; slegs elektronies beskikbaar). Die outeur kombineer sy kennis van Kafka met verbeelding. Die teks kan feitsie (feite + fiksie, "faction") genoem word.
Daar is nogal heelwat variasie in die verslae oor hierdie beroemde skrywer se laaste weke. Van 10 April tot 3 Junie was Kafka 'n terminaalsiek teringpasiënt in die sanatorium te Kierling, naby Klosterneuburg, buite Wene. "In the heat of summer, [Rudolf] Steiner [1861-1925] says, the soul grows drowsy and dazed, swooning sweetly towards oblivion" (Kindle 269). Steiner noem dit "the inaccessible beyond" (K 456).
In die teks word Kafka nooit by die naam genoem nie. Na hom word as "the patient in twelve" (bv K 34) of "the gentleman from Prague" (bv K 214) verwys. Buite Praag was Kafka ten tye van sy dood feitlik onbekend. Gedurende sy lewe het Kafka min gepubliseer. Hy was so perfeksionistiese of ongedurig dat hy baie van sy skryfwerk vernietig het. Hy het sy mentor, vriend en literêre eksekuteur, Max Brod (1884-1968), opdrag gegee om al sy geskrifte te vernietig, maar Brod het besluit om hom eerder aan hulle publikasie toe te wy. Brod het Kafka te Kierling besoek, maar dit kom nie in Cohen se teks ter sprake nie.
Naas die pasiënt, Kafka, is daar net vier karakters in Cohen se vertelling. Twee is vriende van Kafka. Die een is Kafka se laaste vriendin, Dora Diamant (1898-1952), waarna bloot as "the Polish girl" verwys word (bv K 51). "She knew how to act in the presence of something larger than herself, how to serve a greater force" (K 291). Sy en Kafka het sulke wonderlike ideale gekoester: "They would live together in Berlin. They would run away to Palestine. They would open a dairy restaurant. She would be the cook, he would wait tables ... the pencil in his hand will be used for something besides the transcription of his own neurotic repressions and displacements" (K 375). "Hers was a tremendous strength. Day after day, she was here [in die hospitaal]. She did not falter, did not lose hope" (K 406).
Die ander vriend van Kafka wat as 'n karakter in die boek optree, is Robert Klopstock (1899-1972), waarna in die boektitel verwys word. Hy is 'n jong bewonderaar van Kafka, 'n mede-teringlyer en 'n tweedejaar mediese student, wat later in longkwale gespesialiseer het. "The patient ... could no longer speak ... Hence it fell to Klopstock and the girl to give voice to his needs" (K 85). Hulle waak dag na dag by Kafka se bed.
Dan is daar die verpleegster, Anna. "Once, during a routine examination, [Kafka] asked her to describe what it looked like on the inside of his throat. Like the witch's kitchen, Anna said" (K 439). Sy het op trou gestaan en was bang sy sou Kafka in die steek laat as sy bedank. Klopstock, wat hom met oorgawe vir Kafka se herstel beywer het, het haar gerus gestel: "My duties, he said, are almost over" (K 479).
Te Kierling was Kafka in die sorg van dr Hugo Hoffmann (1862-1927), die enigste ander karakter in Cohen se teks. Hoffmann tree as die verteller op. Sy fatalisme is opvallend. Hy weet Kafka is gedoem tot die dood. Niks kan Kafka red nie. "We have entered the final chapter" (K 159). "His life was an unfinished project" (K 245). Wanneer Kafka en Klopstock Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) se Fear and Trembling (1843) lees, dink Hoffmann 'n ander boek van Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death (1849), sou meer gepas wees: "It was my own small literary joke" (K 352). "There was no chance of recovery. None. The patient knew this" (K 365).
"You could see he had never been at peace with his body, had never trusted it to sustain itself, to bear his head aloft and fill his lungs with air" (K 368). "The man had broken faith with the body, had cheated it of the nourishment it demanded. And now the body would have its reverge. The body would strangle the man slowly, in his narrow bed. And we could only watch" (K 372).
Vir Hoffmann is Kafka aanvanklik net nog 'n pasiënt wat aan sy sorg toevertrou is; niemand besonders nie. Daar is volgens Hoffmann geen rede vir "preferential treatment" op grond van die pasiënt se "imaginary" (K 95) of "special quality" (K 122) nie: "You would have thought that because this friend of theirs, whom neither I nor anyone I knew had ever heard of, was gifted with the pen - had published, I gathered, back in Prague, two or three fanciful stories about animals - the world should freeze on its axis and await his recovery" (K 95). "The bachelor. The luftmensch. What will he leave behind? Some letters? A few stories? Is that a successful life?" (K 207).
Klopstock, daarenteen, en ook Kafka se vriendin, beskou hom as 'n uitsonderlike mens. Hulle doen alles in hulle vermoë om nie net elke dag vir Kafka so gerieflik en aangenaam moontlik te maak nie, maar wil hom ten alle koste gesond probeer maak. Daarom is Klopstock verwaand met sy bietjie kennis van die mediese wetenskap en doen hy moeite om ander medici sover te kry om Kafka tot hulp te kom. Klopstock "had come against the patient's expressed wishes, had forsaken his medical exams and hurried down from Budapest on the night train, his arms full of offerings: the latest books, newspapers, and literary journals" (K 44).
Al wat Kafka in staat is om te doen, is om notas op stukkies papier te skryf. Die verpleegster "was very fond of the patient in twelve, and these cryptic little phrases of his perplexed her" (K 152). Kafka oorhandig sy notas "with a playful and expectant air, as if daring us to interpret his meaning. If there was a meaning. How narrow could the pipe be squeezed and still yield meaning's passage? Perhaps he did not wish to communicate anything at all, but was only indulging in a bit of whimsical wordplay to pass the time, like the sketches made by a prisoner on the walls of his cell ... To write came easily for him. It was breathing that was hard. He was beginning to seem rather a special case after all" (K 172).
"I conceded as much to Klopstock. 'For all his pain and weakness,' I said, 'he maintains a certain resilient good humor. Most men in his position sink into lethargy. But he remains keenly sensitive to everything around him. Even in the darkness he feels his way forward" (K 179). Kafka se ore "flaring out like wings, receiving some quiet message or music of their own" (K 214). "I too, like the patient in twelve, must learn to pick my way through a narrow field" (K 474). Soms is daar 'n opflikkering in Kafka se toestand. "He sits up in bed, working on his galley proofs and writing letters, his eyes bright and clear" (K 409). Hierdie drukproewe was van sy verhaal, "A Hunger Artist". Maar Kafka besef "the quantity of food I consume at present is insuffient for the body to mend of its own accord, then there's no hope, apart from miracles" (K 417).
In 'n siekekamer is daar dikwels blomme. Hulle verkry simboliese betekenis. "Did you see the lilacs? The girl brought them in this morning" (K 231). "Somewhere in today's newspapers there is an excellent little item on the treatment of cut flowers; they are so terribly thirsty ... I'd especially like to take care of the peonies because they are so fragile" (K 241). "Please move the lilac into the sun" (K 277). Geplukte, sterwende blomme het Kafka gefassineer omdat hulle so gulsig water drink, so graag wil bly lewe.
In Kafka se "posture and bearing, in the very jelly of his eyes, he bore the stoic fatalism of a man whose life has been thronged with obstructions - for whom life, one might say, is itself an obstruction - and who seemed fully prepared, even eager, to submit" (K 162). Maar dit kon skyn wees. "When Tschiassny ['n ander dokter] dropped in and claimed to find evidence of shrinkage in the lesions, the patient had literally wept with joy" (K 224). "What he does ... is fantasize about that which he cannot have" (K 322). Kafka "seemed, Klopstock said, almost happy" (K 355). "Pity is what all sick men want and need and yet rarely allow themselves to have" (K 435).
Kafka het erge pyn ervaar en kon nie praat of maklik asemhaal nie, maar later was sy grootste probleem dat hy nie kon sluk nie, dus nie kos en vloeistof kon inneem nie. Na weke se stilswye het Kafka gepraat en uitgeroep: "Kill me or else you are a murderer" (K 537). Kafka wou nie hê sy ouers moet hom besoek nie. Hy het 'n brief aan hulle geskryf. Klopstock was bedagsaam en het die meisie weggestuur om die brief te gaan pos. Toe het Klopstock 'n spuitnaald vol morfien getrek. "We are doing what is to be done. We are all of us in a tunnel" (K 544). "A few moments after we administer the injection the patient's eyes fall closed at last. 'Don't go away,' he mumbles vaguely. 'But we are not going away,' Klopstock says. 'But I am going away,' the patient says" (K 548). "He had never known how to live" (K 355).
Voor hy van die hospitaal vertrek, kom Klopstock met 'n laaste versoek aan Hoffmann: "The little notes Anna has collected from room twelve. 'Gladly,' I say. The fact is I am all too eager to be rid of them, and of Klopstock too. 'I will have Anna put them in the post tomorrow'" (K 555).
Johannes Comestor