HONK YOUR NOSE IF YOU THINK I’M SEXY
Most perplexing indeed that a literary character should materialise at a small seaside town, wandering up and down the promenade, dazed, sickly, shaking his head with disbelief. Who better to call than Professor Zazzo Thim, renown expert in literary extremism?
He sat Josef K. in the corner of a small bar on the front and ordered a couple of glasses of wine. As Zazzo wound the scarf from round his neck, he surveyed the sad little man, who had spent most of the time since they’d met moaning, sighing, and telling anyone who would listen that ‘all was hopeless’. Zazzo smiled to himself, stretched, and sat down opposite the humble bank clerk. “What I’d really like to know is”, he said, “How did you come to be here?”
Josef K. turned his piercing gaze on Zazzo. “If I knew the answer to that question”, he said, “Then I surely would have furnished you with the truth at an earlier time during our acquaintance”.
Zazzo frowned and leaned forwards, as they were served with two glasses of claret. “You just materialised”, he said
“Out of thin air”. This seemed to remind Josef K. that his plight was far from over, and he raised his arms once more. “Hopeless! Absolutely hopeless!”
Zazzo sighed, and sat back. “Can you remember what you were doing shortly before you materialised here?”, he asked.
Josef K. smiled. “The memory of it”, said he, “Troubles me this very moment. Tell me, seeing as though you have proclaimed yourself inquisitor, what do you think I was doing?”
“Quite simple”, Zazzo said, “As a renown man of mystery and bad fortune, I assumed you were involved in some aspect of your impending court case, and no doubt stumbling from one piece of bad news to the next.
“Actually”, said Josef K., “I was hosting a children’s party”.
“Pardon?”
“A sideline, which, running parallel to my duties in the office, allows me to commune with those less fortunate in Prague society. And by this, my good friend, I mean those who are greatly unfortunate as to have children”.
“But this is absurd!” ‘Zazzo stuttered, the wine glass trembling in his hand.
“I was dressed in the apparel of a clown, my good friend. I had commenced tying balloons into different animal shapes – (surely emblematic of the totemic nature which powers us all) – and was just in the process of taking a pie in the face when the world around me – the function, the apparatus of the novel, the very framework of my life – exploded, and I found myself here, wandering dazed along your paltry promenade”.
At this, Josef K. gestured, derisively, out the window.
“You were … taking a pie in the face?”, Zazzo asked, incredulously.
“Tis a necessary risk of my profession which I endure with great humour”.
Zazzo stood, and, with the aid of his cane, managed to pace around the corner of the bar.
He warmed himself by the fire for a few seconds before returning to the table, where Josef K had finished his own wine and had now started on his host’s.
“You don’t understand”, Zazzo whispered, “This is very much a view of your character which would destroy your image. How carefully, how necessarily your author cultivated your essence, your view of the world, your morose spirit, your questioning, probing, weighty nature. At no point during the book does Kafka even hint that you might have been involved in party games and children’s amusements. Kafka himself was driven mad by the slightest noise, imagine what a room full of children will have done to him! This is most strange, most strange indeed.
“You know”, , said Josef K., “I’m pretty handy with the old rotating bow-tie”.
Zazzo leaned forward and cradled his head in his hands. “Of course”,
he said, thinking aloud, “Kafka visited many Jewish theatre troupes. It might be just conceivable that one of them may have been – and I shudder to use the expression – a ‘baggy pants farce’. Not only this, but there were many passages of ‘The Trial which were omitted, or half-completed in the author’s head. without being committed to paper. Could it be possible that a whole section was planned, even written, during which Josef K. worked as a children’s entertainer?”
“Of course”, Josef K. said. “How else do you think I cured my stammer?”
“Josef K. had a stammer?!”
“A terrible affliction, I assure you. In the original draft, when I presented myself to the court, my personal testimony and defence took a mind-numbing fifty-three hours, most of which was taken up by my difficulties with certain words. And you can imagine how stressful it was for me when I first met the artist, ‘Titorelli”.
“I’m flummoxed”, Zazzo said, leaning back in his seat. “Absolutely flummoxed”.
“So why am I here?”, Josef K. asked.
Zazzo was able to answer this question, for it seemed the least preposterous part of their meeting. “A novel or a short story”, he said, “Exists both physically, on a piece of paper, and mentally, in the heads of writers and readers. Some of them even enter the public consciousness, so that the details and plot might are known by a wide group of people without having read the story itself. Other stories – such as yours – still require reading, but the details are so vivid and the actions so believable that the story exists in some ether, some new dimension quite dissimilar to the world in which we live. Occasionally, though, perhaps caused by fluctuations in the rays of the sun, or certain atmospheric conditions, those stories suspended in the ether may bulge, bend, or even break, which is what has happened in your case. And the contents of the novel come raining down on a piece of the world at random. You must understand how exciting it is that this has occurred right here, for it usually occurs over the sea, or some inaccessible region of Antarctica. I do believe, however, that a certain Atticus Finch from ‘To Kill a Mockingbird is said to have turned up last autumn in a more seedy quarter of London, but he was so engrossed in the red light district that he was never seen again. Yes, indeed, your manifestation here at our humble seaside town is nothing short of miraculous! Imagine how poor Franz Kafka would feel, knowing that you would turn up here almost a century later. He would be mortified!”
“Who?” Josef K. asked.
“Franz Kafka… Your author”.
Josef K. shook his head and laughed. “I don’t know who this ‘Franz’ Kafka might be, but I can assure you that my author was a genial young man by the name of Dave. Dave Kafka. And he lives right this moment, in the fair city of Basingstoke”.
Zazzo Thim frowned. “So you’re not..”
“Heavens, no! I’m not the Josef K. I’m Dave Kafka’s Josef K. My full name is Josef Krimbleshaw.”
“And the novel which exploded over the promenade earlier this evening…?”
“Was ‘Honk Your Nose If You Think I’m Sexy’.”
“Ah… “, Zazzo said. He had lost interest in the whole affair. “Well..”, he said, I’d really better be off”
Obligingly, Josef K. reached under his bowler hat to produce a white rabbit. “See?” he said. “See?”
Zazzo stood and left the table without looking back. For a moment he thought about calling Dave Kafka and letting him know where he might be able to find his character, but when he turned back and looked through the window to see Josef Krimbleshaw leering at the busty young woman behind the bar, he thought better of it.
“Hark!”, a voice said, ahead of him. “Who goes there? Have ye seen a white whale?”
Armed with a musket, Captain Ahab lurched towards him.
“Yeah”, Zazzo said, “Right”. And he carried on his way.
Robert Garnham 