“The attacks. Yesterday a walk 
with the dog in the evening.”

Kafka’s Diary

July 27, 1922

     Under the light of the streetlamp the dog stopped to scratch. A thin almost stick figure in a dark coat and hat let the chain go slack and watched the dog’s leg become near invisible with motion, gray before the dull fur. Dizzied, he saw his breath exit from his mouth in dry coughs that hovered then evaporated like steam in the hot air just above. One hand held the leash, the other reached out toward the lamppost to anchor himself. Only a few passersby on their way home from work turned his way to look at the silhouette as it bent over the curb near the waiting dog.

     Next day he recorded the attack and the dog and the walk without emphasizing which was the most important. He never even mentioned what it was he was thinking as he left the house that warm Prague evening in July, passing before his father in the front room, who said not a word nor acknowledged him or the dog that trailed in his steps and shivered with eagerness anticipating the walk.

     Every day on coming home from the Insurance Company he would first go upstairs, extract from his briefcase the few scraps of paper with drafts of his stories and notes for his books that he had written down during his breaks or while on the trolley home, close the drawer, lock it, take the leash from the hook beside the mirror, attach it to the creature’s collar when they reached the front door, and make their way together to the park at the end of the boulevard where the fireflies and crickets dueled with light and sound in the bushes just opposite their favorite bench.

     What he didn’t write down on the following day, though, were his ponderings this evening, July 26th, concerning the protean views of himself, what he thought others thought he was, while he rested on the park bench and inhaled razors into his lungs…a benevolent hand and benefactor to his dog, to his doctor a waning patient with tuberculosis, a failed first son to his father, a spineless miscreant to his God, a kind mentor and spiritual sage to his friend Gustav, a demanding, insightful poet with a sense of humor to his literary friend Max, a conscientious ear to his younger sisters, a faithful, diligent employee to his company, a shy neighbor to the family across the street—all of these yet none of these to himself.

     Once the dog had taken care of its own affairs the two of them leisurely made their way over the cobbled sidewalk home. At the top of the stairs before he was able to turn the key in the lock of the front door he was out of breath. He took mental note of it. The light from the living room window spilled in a broken geometry over the steps: “Father must still be reading in the living room.”

     Without commotion the dog entered first, head bowed, toward its cushion in the kitchen by the stove while the shadow of Franz’s thin body almost apologized for passing through the front hall then disappeared up the stairs.

©Vincent Montenegro

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