The door opened and a young man with a red face, dressed in a dark suit, ran out, fairly shaking with rage. As he left the man who had spoken – I assumed this to be the examining magistrate – shook his head sadly and the courtroom started to chatter about Josef K's outburst. The magistrate, a small, fat man who breathed heavily, looked at me and said.
'Thursday N?'
'Yes, sir?'
'You're late.'
And he shut the door.
'Don't worry,' said Miss Havisham kindly, 'he always says that. It's to make you ill at ease.'
'It works. Aren't you coming in with me?'
She shook her head and placed her hand on mine.
'Have you read The Trial?'
I nodded.
'Then you will know what to expect. Good luck, my dear.'
I thanked her, grasped the door handle and, with heavily beating heart, entered.
18
The trial of Fräulein N
* * *
'The Trial, Franz Kafka's masterpiece of enigmatic bureaucratic paranoia, was unpublished in the writer's lifetime. Indeed, Kafka lived out his short life in relative obscurity as an insurance clerk and bequeathed his manuscripts to his best friend on the understanding that they would be destroyed. How many other great writers, one wonders, penned masterworks which actually were destroyed upon their death? For the answer, you will have to look in among the sub-basements of the Great Library, twenty-six floors of unpublished manuscripts. Amongst a lot of self-indulgent rubbish and valiant yet failed attempts at prose you will find works of pure genius. For the greatest non-work of non-non-fiction, go to Sub-basement 13, Category MCML, Shelf 2919/812, where a rare and wonderful treat awaits you – Bunyan's Boot-scraper by John McSquurd. But be warned. No trip to the Well of Lost Plots should be undertaken alone…'
UA OF W CAT – The Jurisfiction Guide to the Great Library
The courtroom was packed full of men all dressed in black, chattering and gesticulating constantly. There was a gallery running around just below the ceiling where more people stood, also talking and laughing, and the room was hot and airless to the point of suffocation. There was a narrow path between the men, and I slowly advanced, the crowd merging behind me and almost propelling me forward. As I walked the spectators chattered about the weather, the previous case, what I was wearing and the finer points of my case – of which, it seemed, they knew nothing. At the other end of the hall was a low dais upon which was seated, just behind a low table, the examining magistrate. Behind him were court officials and clerks talking with the crowd and each other. To one side of the dais was the lugubrious man who had knocked on my door and tricked me into confessing back in Swindon. He was holding an impressive array of official-looking papers. This, I assumed, was Matthew Hopkins, the prosecution lawyer. Snell joined me and whispered in my ear:
'This is only a formal hearing to see if there is a case to answer. With a bit of luck we can get your case postponed to a more friendly court. Ignore the onlookers – they are simply here as a narrative device to heighten paranoia and have no bearing on your case. We will deny all charges.'
'Herr Magistrate,' said Snell, as we took the last few paces to the dais, 'my name is Akrid S defending Thursday N, in Jurisfiction v the Law, case number 142857.'
The magistrate looked at me, took out his watch and said:
'You should have been here an hour and five minutes ago.'
There was an excited murmur from the crowd. Snell opened his mouth to say something but it was I who answered.
'I know,' I said, 'I am to blame. I beg the court's pardon.'
At first, the magistrate didn't hear me and began to repeat himself for the benefit of the crowd:
'You should have been here an hour and … what did you say?'
'I said I was sorry and begged your pardon, sir,' I repeated.
'Oh,' said the examining magistrate as a hush fell upon the room. 'In that case, would you like to go away and come back in, say, an hour and five minutes' time, when you will be late through no fault of your own?'
The crowd applauded at this, although I couldn't see why.
'At Your Honour's pleasure,' I replied. 'If it is the court's ruling that I do so, then I will comply.'