Forgiving the Angel Read Online Free PDF

eyes. Besides, if he didn’t look, he could also hope that somewhere in the folder there was a strongly worded letter telling him
not
to burn his stories, perhaps even instructing him to publish them.
    But publish Franz’s diaries? His agonized letters to Felice? No, Franz would never have authorized those. Now that he’d even momentarily doubted Franz’s good faith, though, nothing could stop him from publishing them, and so the world would benefit from Max’s despair.
    The folders worked nicely enough, too. He might occasionally be reminded of the unperformed command, or what the
demone italiano
had said about Kafka’s motives; but if that soured his stomach, he need only blindly put one or two more pages in the folder, and he’d immediately feel some ease.

12
    FOR A LONG WHILE, people who had a page of manuscript or letter by Kafka sent them to Max, so there’d always been new things for publication or for the folder. But in the last year, the stream of pages was finally drying up and at the same time the stomach pain and bilehad grown much worse. He still treated them by shoveling a letter or two into the folder, but he had to ration the pages. Maybe it was too little; it didn’t seem to help his stomach.
    The last month, he had no appetite. He grew skinny, could trace the lump of thick bone that was his back as if it had only the thinnest covering of parchment. He’d no fecal matter when he defecated, but plenty of dark blood.
    Esther noticed, of course. Max said his problems were caused by his being Kafka’s literary executor. “The ghosts are finally coming after me.” He smiled, though he had also meant it.
    Esther had never heard the piercing conviction with which Kafka talked of these creatures, so she didn’t take the ghosts seriously, which he felt was at once sensible and philistine of her. She made him see a doctor. Within the week, he’d been booked into the hospital for tests, and when they came back, into the operating theater for surgery.

13
    THE DAY HE WAITED in his room for drugs to take hold so he could be wheeled under the knife, he heard squat, pugnacious Esther demand a private room for him when he returned.
    “Beds are precious this week,” the nurse said.
    “Beds are always precious,” Esther replied. “And so is your patient. He’s Max Brod. He has published more than seventy volumes. He is the director of our national theater.” Even through the haze of the drugs, Brod thought,
She hasn’t made Dora’s mistake
. Esther knew that sensitivity wasn’t a currency that won protection for anyone.
    The nurse looked down at his chart, as if to check the name. “The man who was Kafka’s friend?”
    Esther smiled. Perhaps, Max thought, Kafka made him his executor not to ensure Franz’s own spurious sanctity, but so Max could get a private room after surgery.

14
    AND AS THEY wheeled him into his single room after the operation, he was delighted to see what Kafka and Esther had obtained for him while he’d been under the knife. The room was spacious, with freshly painted white walls and a balcony where he might sun himself as he recovered. Esther must have gone somewhere to pick wildflowers. They filled every table and shelf.

15
    WHEN HE AWOKE AGAIN, the drugs had worn off and he was in terrible pain. The walls of the room had turned sickly yellow, the balcony had evaporated, and the wildflowers had become arrangements ordered from florists, sent to him by well-wishers, theater companies, publishers—organizations more than individuals. They had a lacquered look, like Esther’s hair as she sat by his bed, putting entries in a ledger.
    When she saw he was awake and staring at her, she said he should try to take a little soup, even held a spoonful out for him. Max felt as though he’d swallowed a ball of fire, but to please her he slowly bent forward toward the spoon—until he saw the look of pity in her eyes for a very sick man. That disgusted him. It provided further