Il caso Kafka - Text fragments

(...) (A sign appears: Kafka Evening: recital-conference of the actor Yitzchak Löwy.)

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you for the kindness which has brought you here to listen to my poor impressions of an extraordinary man. It is extremely painful for me to remember my friend Franz Kafka. Even more difficult, no, impossible, would it be for me to recite his texts. But at the same time, I could say that it is completely natural, as natural as praying.

Since Franz died, I clumsily carry the heavy burden of the fortuitous episode which made it possible for us to meet at the Café Savoy in Prague in 1911, and which saw the birth of our friendship. I must confess that I have often found myself having to respond to questions about Kafka, questions that I am by no means entitled to answer in any plausible way.

I must also confess that sometimes I avoided Kafka, his silent phone calls, his absent way of laughing, how he put the world in parentheses, the way he icily gazed into my eyes.

Some time ago, a professor from I can't remember which university, wanted to meet me and talk about Kafka. I couldn't say no. I gave him an appointment at the Café Luzern, but when I saw him arrive and go round the tables in search of Mr. Löwy, I hid in the bathroom.

And so, today, in the face of your kind invitation, the weight of the unease I feel from that fragment of Kafka that remains caught within me, is unbearable. For all these reasons, I think it best to delegate my mandate as improbable witness to Mr. Ovadia, another actor – he says he's Jewish, like me, like Franz, as us all, Jews, always capable of telling lies. In the name of truth. (...)