Franz Kafka, “The Helmsman”

“‘Am I not the helmsman here?’ I called out. “You?” asked a tall, dark man and passed his hands over his eyes as though to banish a dream. I had been standing at the helm in the dark night, a feeble lantern burning over my head, and now this man had come and tried to push me aside. And as I would not yield, he put his foot on my chest and slowly crushed me while I still clung to the hub of the helm, wrenching it around in falling. But the man seized it, pulled it back in place, and pushed me away. I soon collected myself, however, ran to the hatchway, which gave on to the mess quarters, and cried out: ‘Men! Comrades! Come here, quick! A stranger has driven me away from the helm!’ Slowly they came up, climbing the companion ladder, tired, swaying, powerful figures. ‘Am I the helmsman?’ I asked. They nodded, but they had eyes only for the stranger, stood around him in a semicircle, and when, in a commanding voice, he said: ‘Don’t disturb me!’ they gathered together, nodded at me, and withdrew down the companion ladder. What kind of people are these? Do they ever think, or do they only shuffle pointlessly over the earth?” Franz Kafka, “The Helmsman” © D. Callahan “The Travels of Audrey Green” 2 “The Travels of Audrey Green” ONE 3 “The Travels of Audrey Green” 4 “The Travels of Audrey Green” SWIMMING LESSONS Antony Green was a devious child with a subversive sense of adventure. He dabbled in far more than was known. Any discoveries — mischievous transgressions of adult rules and applied English order — were counted as youthful exuberance by a too-kindly parental perspective. At age of six, Antony was intelligent and owned a highly developed sense of play. Imaginative, a leader in all sorts of games — the army soldier, the explorer, doctor, thief — Antony’s scenarios tended to be surreal, insights unique and only to be seen with his peculiar eye. He had a habit of conscripting his younger sister Audrey in his games. She, at four years, was greatly amused by her brother. The children’s parents feared a bad influence, but it was difficult to separate them. Pay no mind , they dismissed, the boy’s just trying to get our attention. However, he was very difficult to ignore. He could not be switched off, as a light. He was to be heeded. So, when the boy wriggled in the crushed rumper seat of the family motorcar, on that summer Sunday in 1953, and whispered into Audrey’s ear, his words spilled over, filling the bones of every passenger… “There’s something in the car,” he said, with a growl. It was a jest, but also a revelation. The cranked windows curled wind into hair, leaving the girls in tangles and the boys bracing. If the motorcar were to crash, a whole generation would end. Winsey Green, the oldest daughter at sixteen, was followed in years by two boys — Windham and Dexter — and preceded by the three younger siblings: Clifford, Antony, and littlest Audrey. The family rested like fragile, fresh eggs on the white vinyl seats of their import, father and mother clutching hands near the wheel. No one complained. No one cried, or fussed, or teased. There was no evident spark for this sickening feeling, Antony’s words giving a foggy voice to their thoughts. There was just something . Something in the car. 5 “The Travels of Audrey Green” “Turn back,” it warned, at different points during the daytrip, moving in relay. Each passenger would open a mouth, lips cracking, a warning ripe and ready to roll over their tongues . “Turn back.” They were all fearful of an argument — of having to defend the command with no evidence to support it. The words crawled back into their stomachs, where they stayed, unspoken. It was the same beach every time. Only a short drive from the Greens’ house on Dooley Boats Road, standing in the small southeastern village of Dorry, was this treasured spot. Simon Green, age forty-one, along with his wife and their six children, enjoyed this beach more than any other family in England. Every Sunday of the summer, they would load their brood bright and early, drive the countryside to the coast, and stay the whole day ‘til sundown. The floorboards of the import would return littered with sand, the children tucked tightly in the back, lying asleep on each other’s shoulders. Those were the best days. Simon Green considered this particular beach to be his own property. On occasion, they may find another family already bathing, or a lone squatter in filthy rags, but this wasn’t often enough to deter Simon. From his slim wages, he had only the deed for the shabby two-up in Dorry to pass along to his children — nothing else except his jazz records. The beach was the best part of his inheritance, he told himself, and at least something precious he could leave behind should he suddenly be killed, even if it was only windblown memories. On this particular Sunday, the waters of the English Channel were unusually rough. Mrs. Green, a loving but studied wife, had tried to talk down the idea of a day at the beach, but Simon was insistent. He didn’t care for the weathermen. All that sun, all that sand, and a moment away from the bookkeeping offices of Winton, Wallace, & Smith, were just too difficult to refuse. “We’re going,” he declared at a quarter past nine, “so start packing the sandwiches and that yellow umbrella.” 6 “The Travels of Audrey Green” Mrs. Green was not the kind to argue. Simon was due his moments of leisure. They were too far apart nowadays. If he wanted to go to the jazz clubs, or to the beach, she would acquiesce. Her husband worked fourteen hours a day in those maddeningly strict offices. By the hour of his arrival home, she’d be too tired from tending to the children to really be of much use to him. She wanted to show how much she appreciated his presence. Agreeing was her consolation. There had always been a hint of distance in her husband’s eyes, but he had the ability to listen and the desire to love. The children were of such a range, and he had no obligation to embrace them, yet there was never a discernible tuning in his affections. He loved them all equally. ( Well, maybe Audrey a little more , thought Mrs. Green. As expected, she supposed, Audrey being the youngest and Simon’s only natural child. The rest were from another man — Mrs. Green’s first husband, thankfully gone from their lives.) Antony was rambunctious, a boy who liked to crawl over people and speak his own language, but Simon was patient even with that. The man enjoyed this bond between little Antony and his daughter, Audrey, despite disciplinarian implications. She now had a playmate. Simon was a father even to Winsey, who was by far the worst behaved and at the cusp of womanhood. He always had a moment to discuss the papers, or boys. He was human, in a way Mrs. Green would have liked to be — in a way she admired. She felt cold by comparison, and often shut away her feelings — (Like this buzz of nervousness, unexplained, as she spread the jam on the bread for the picnic basket. The argument was raging in her head, registering this strange, quiet concern, needle shifting to a mild abatement. No matter , she thought, Si is always right… he always is, you know… followed in the car by that voice, saying, Turn back .) Mrs. Green loaded the basket with eight sandwiches, water flasks, two tins of sardines, crackers, cheese, and a pint of 7 “The Travels of Audrey Green” beer for her husband. Then she took the basket and placed it into the boot of the family car. She smiled at everyone as they piled inside, Antony and Audrey barely awake but laughing. Clifford sat on his mother’s soft lap, and Simon started the auto’s ignition. The five in the back were cramped, but quiet, as they pulled away from the house and took to the country. They arrived alone on the beach. Simon Green plunged the metal pole of the yellow umbrella into the sand, letting it fly open and cast a shadow over the sand. The umbrella had taken on a territoriality. The yellow of the Greens. “This is our beach,” it declared. “We claim it.” The inlet was quite extraordinary for three reasons: First , the sand was pure gold and composed of very few rocks. This allowed the children to run about barefoot, without worry of cuts from coils. It was like stepping into the warmest flesh, as if the beach was alive. Second , the beach felt very contained. There were high cliffs on either side, like bookends. Shorn rocks hid the path to the roadside. The cliffs themselves were remarkably jagged, and their breaks sticky with moss. It looked almost tropical, not at all like the beaches of Wooster or Liberty. Lastly, the beach had breakers in a semi-circle thirty meters out. Simon swam to them once and discovered they were stone and cement pillars leftover from the war against the Germans. The army must have noticed this small hole in the perimeter of England’s defenses and had decreed to plug it up. These pillars were not serious battlements, though. After all, the beach itself wouldn’t hold anything more than an expeditionary force — a compliment of Nazi spies at best — but in wartime it probably seemed necessary.

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