By the time he got to the office, after a solemn breakfast during which he saw no one he knew, word had already reached K’s colleagues about his suspension. They could only spare a moment to make some conciliatory remarks and pull some sympathetic faces, before they returned to the rush of the day’s work. Tollswhip had already assigned one of his underlings to take over the sorting and filing in K’s absence. This person, a boyish-looking young woman with a sun-starved complexion and famished appearance arrived as K was taking his leave, and would scarcely meet his eye as he thanked her for filling in at a moment’s notice. The team gave her a warm welcome, which brought a shy smile to her face like a ray of sunlight on a winter’s morning – all except Enid, that is, who shot the newcomer a dirty look, and began muttering under her breath, goodness knows why. From the instant the girl was seated, however, it was as if K had ceased to exist, and he’d have felt a little put out about this, had he not been filled with curiosity and wonder as to what he would doing with his time off.
In a few minutes – minutes that had already passed as he was reflecting on them – he had had his status turned upside down. This status was not now one of loss or dereliction, but of freedom. In spite of Tollswhip’s rigidity and draconian hostilities, K thought that the real authorities up here on the estate must be pretty forgiving in their treatment of minor indiscretions, and he was right to imagine so, though it were only the lucky hunch of a beginner. It didn’t occur to him that it was the lowliness of his position that determined the relative severity (or rather, the mildness) of his sentence.
He wandered, as usual, through the corridors as he pondered on these things – free and happy as a child – opening his eyes to whatever spectacles and opportunities revealed themselves. There were few residents about; mostly he saw cleaning staff and messengers making their rounds. For a bit of amusement he decided to tail one of these – a bulldog-faced man with slicked back hair and a slumped forward posture. Something in his face reminded K of a dog he’d used to play with as a boy in his village – something, too, in his dogged, plodding progress with a knapsack full of post. He kept a safe distance, to avoid startling the man, but it was slow-going, and after half an hour of nothing interesting happening (save getting more and more lost in the bowels of the estate), K began to feel rather silly. Just as he slowed his pace, ready to call off the exercise, the old boy span around, however, with a grin on his big be-jowled face.
‘What’s the matter, laddy? Can’t keep up?’ He barked good-humouredly, hiking the knapsack up on his shoulder, and coming back to meet K where he stood.
‘Don’t think I can’t sniff out an idler, and a mischief-maker when he comes nosing around my route. The name’s Horace, and you are?’ He held out a plump little paw, which K took in a firm handshake, despite his growing embarrassment.
‘Joseph K, I’m the lawyer. At least, I was; I’ve been suspended...’
‘So you’re wandering around at a loose end? Well, you could’ve picked a worse person to tail. Any one of my colleagues might’ve boxed you on the ears for that, but I recognise an innocent soul when I see one, and a free spirit. I tell you what, I’ve only got a few letters left to deliver this morning – then I have a lunch break. What do you say to sticking around a little longer, and then we can have a chat – that is, if I don’t decide to box your ears after all.’
That bulldog face was transfigured by speech of such forgiving and amiable intent – as miraculous to K’s eyes as if he’d really met a talking animal. He accepted the offer gladly, thinking himself very lucky.
It wasn’t long before Horace had finished, and true to his word, plodded off with K to the breakfast hall for an early lunch. He’d been on the early shift; starting before K had woken up, and was due to finish at 3. On the way to lunch he chatted with K about the role; how each messenger had his or her particular patch; the rivalries between them; their endless striving for ever greater efficiency in pursuit of promotion – to the role of master, then minister, and so on… up the scale of ranks that could take you, if you had it in you, up to the very residence of the Lord and Lady itself. He put it across quite matter-of-factly, for he was brusque and sparing in speech, but to K’s ears there was a graciousness, even a poetry, in it. That, or the concept of life in such an ever-ascending progression of promotions, captured his imagination in a way that made him rather envious of Horace’s place in the organisation. He asked the messenger whether it was the same case, that lawyer could make his way up with the same orderliness and assurances.
‘Not being a lawyer, I can’t say.’ Horace replied, now pulling a pipe out of his pocket and filling it with tobacco.
‘You say you’re the only one we’ve got – so I’d reckon we can’t afford to lose a man in your position, unless of course you have a successor in mind.’ He struck a match and lit the pipe, his face at once disappearing in a cloud of fragrant, mellow and oaky smoke. They had reached the breakfast hall, and found a table by one of the windows, so that Horace had somewhere to exhale all those murky vapours without blasting them in K’s direction. He thanked him for the consideration, but the messenger only shrugged, and continued puffing away in silence.
Joseph sat there, appreciating the company, and let his gaze wander out the window once again. There was no mist out there any more, but all the lawns were shimmering in bright sunlight, with barely a breath of wind. It was remarkably peaceful and still, and yet K wondered at this, thinking for some reason of Macarius, whom he’d not seen since he’d stood but twenty yards from the spot, only the day before. He was about to turn away and serve himself some food when a sudden move from Horace startled him. The man had stuck his head out of the window and was now addressing someone whom K couldn’t see from his vantage point.
‘Sweetheart, up here, it’s your old man!’ he called, his brusque voice tinged with tenderness.
A young woman approached them shyly. Thin and leggy, she moved with a light step, like a young doe.
‘What a state you’re in my dear! What’ve you been up to then?’ her father was asking now. It was true that the clothes she was wearing – a short, dull-coloured dress and hand-embroidered shawl – were soaked through and soiled in parts, and her face and hair were sopping wet. Yet K thought her very pretty, and marvelled that nature could bring forth such offspring from the gruff and grizzled canine beside him, but there was something in her face – some mark of woe – that called to mind Mrs. Gunnering. He wondered for half a second if she were not the young woman’s mother.
‘Prim’s run off again.’ She answered, blushing at her dishevelled appearance. ‘I had a hold on her and she dragged me through a puddle.’
‘Dragged you through a hedge backwards, by the look of it!’
Horace replied, rather unkindly for him, for he was very fond of this, his eldest, daughter. She only looked away, biting her tongue, so that he hastened to add:
‘Just, mind who sees you. I’m not chastening you, love, it’s the management I’m thinking of.’
K felt uneasy at the way her eyes rose up to rest on him at those words, narrowed in suspicion, and he leaned back from the window instinctively, but Horace added:
‘Oh, he’s alright! Never you mind!’ Both K and the young woman coloured at this, and while Horace continued in conversation with his daughter, K attended to his food with the express intention of cutting himself out of the picture. She was soon on her way again, looking purposeful, if a little weary at her father’s remonstrances, and Horace returned his attentions to K.
‘A lovely girl, my Livy. No position, no papers, but she does her parents proud.’ He looked at him with steely eyes as he said this. ‘I’m the only one of us with a job on the estate books. Four mouths to feed, and only she and her mother have any paid work, but that’s off the books, you see, which is a different matter. There’s no rights in it. No assurances. You take what comes you way, when – or if, I should say – it does.’
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
He spoke of all this without bitterness, as though he were simply educating K on the ways of the estate, as an independent observer. Then he took out an old tin lunch-box ‘prepared by the missus’, and K watched as he tucked into a meal of pulses, herbs, and some kind of purplish, leafy flowers. It looked so wholesome that K looked upon his own hearty meal as quite as stodgy as the labourers’ food, by comparison. He made some remark to this effect, but Horace only grunted – as if he’d had little choice in the matter. In the end, K offered to swap, purely out of curiosity, ‘since no one is likely to know’, and Horace agreed with a crisp bark of a laugh. The packed lunch really was delicious – clean and fragrant; the beans had a mellow, nutty flavour and delicate texture; the herbs were mild, not pungent, but well balanced with the sweetness of the purple flowers – mallow – Horace explained, which grew copiously on their plot at home.
This got them onto the topic of where the family lived, and K was interested to discover by what means the paperless ‘unofficials’ of the estate subsisted. It turned out, as Horace explained in his laconic way, that many acres of land had been set aside as part of her Ladyship’s charitable mission to the poor and paperless, including some decent farmland, pasture for grazing, and woodland for felling and building with. In fact, this move had not won her great approval, for there were few who knew how to farm or work the land in any way, and most were accustomed through generations of servitude to depend on the good graces and superfluity of the estate for work and food. Moreover, most of the land had been undeclared anyway, so it had been more a question of legitimising the squatters, while still not granting them official rights or recognition.
Nevertheless, there were many – including Horace’s family – who adored the Lady for this move, and it was common to see her portrait on one of the walls or mantle-pieces of their ramshackle dwellings. The more hopeful among them regarded this change as the start of something better; others eyed it with suspicion, as a pacifying but ultimately insubstantial response to their problems. Horace was far too practically minded to fall either way – he saw only that it immediately benefited his family in providing them with a safe living space; room for a house and garden of their own, where the children could play and where they could grow herbs and vegetables. He himself was a man between worlds, with his body on the estate, but his soul out of the grounds, where his wife kept their household.
Discoursing on all this between mouthfuls of potatoes, carrots, and red meat, and draughts of red wine, Horace never lost track of the time, for he cut himself short – mid-sentence – and leapt up to go on his afternoon shift.
‘Got to keep an eye on the clock in this profession,’ he explained, pulling his bag over his shoulder and snapping shut the lunch-box under K’s nose. Even as he was leaving, he arranged to meet K when his shift had ended, saying:
‘I’ll take you round to see the place – it’s not often we get to host a guest for dinner, for I don’t count the locals. They’re more kin than company, I say.’ And he gave the lawyer another handshake to seal the matter.
K sat for some minutes, the smell of Horace’s sweet tobacco smoke still lingering in his nostrils, thinking how well this suspension was working out for him so far. The hall was gradually filling up with people, now that it was approaching one o’clock, and when he saw Tollswhip stride in through the double doors – flanked by two of his underlings – K took his cue to get out of there. He wasn’t sure what he was expected to get up to whilst suspended, but he didn’t fancy being told off for loitering.
Alas, he picked precisely the wrong moment to make a getaway, for who should appear right then and there but Mrs. Gunnering? K tried to speed up to get past her, but she intercepted – surely having sprung out of some hidden trapdoor or cubby-hole linked to the kitchens – and grabbed him by the collar.
‘What did I tell you? Honestly, you little thing...’
‘Mrs. Gunnering, please. Unhand me now and I’ll give you my full attention, but don’t lets make a scene!’ K surprised himself at the authority with which he spoke these words, and he blushed as he noticed that several diners seated nearby had looked up to see what all the fuss was about. Even more surprising was Mrs. Gunnering’s response, for she let go instantly, letting her shoulder slump with resignation, and beckoned him aside without another word. K followed her into a corner of the hall where they could talk less conspicuously, impressed at this newfound discretion, and opened his ears to what she had to say.
As usual, she would not look him in the eye, but spent several moments murmuring incoherently towards the floor, as if her lips were searching for the right words with which to begin her next tirade.
‘Can’t say I didn’t warn you, Mr. K… knew something like this would happen. I tried, honest, I tried!’ She began, whether to herself, to K, or to some mysterious third party, who can say?
‘Are you talking about my suspension? Because it’s really not so bad as far as I can see.’ K interrupted, gently.
‘Not so bad! Huh! Wait till your life hangs in the scales, an’ you’ve nowhere else to lay your head but here, then let’s talk about suspensions! I warned him, didn’t I?’
‘I’m very grateful for the warning, Mrs. Gunnering,’ K said, half honestly, ‘but you know I am new here, I have things still to learn and I need a bit of freedom to make mistakes. Do you understand?’
‘Oh, freedom! With these little young people it’s all about freedom, isn’t it? Never respect for your elders, never responsibility!’
‘Mrs. Gunnering, I do not know you. You cornered me the other day and began doling out advice without knowing anything about me or my circumstances. I respect you as a private individual, and as my elder, but really I don’t see how my affairs are any of your business.’ K felt himself growing hot as he spoke these words, and he almost regretted them, when he saw how cowed Mrs. Gunnering had become by hearing them. Her eyes bulged slightly, and her face fell; lips still contorting, but no sounds coming out. She nodded her head slowly, jerkily, and then all of a sudden bid him good day, and shuffled off back to her own domain.
K was left there, wondering whether he’d done the right thing, when he remembered Tollswhip, and so hastened to move along. ‘How confusing this place is!’ he reflected, passing out of the breakfast room and moving out into the entrance hall. Nothing had prepared him for this side of the estate – neither the etiquette and social niceties, nor the strict hierarchy and his place within it. It was, he thought, simply pointless to rebuke himself for his ignorance in these matters while he was still a beginner. The time would come when pleas of ignorance would not suffice, but until then he would put such doubts out of his mind. Instead, he checked his watch, wandering to and fro, waiting for Horace’s return; satisfied to have gained another ally in this place – or so he hoped.
The front doors stood open, framing one of the more picturesque views he’d yet had of the grounds. Whereas the gardens had been shrouded in mist on his arrival, or else glimpsed from a low angle, now he saw the design of the place unveiled in all its glory, like an architect’s model laid out on a board. A single avenue cut through the array of shrubs towards the very brink of the cliffs a kilometre ahead, and branched off into other ways through the garden, lined with flower beds and leading to various secluded spots, framed by hedges. The hodgepodge of bushes, too, now revealed itself to have a complex order and asymmetry, which unfurled on a grander scale than he’d imagined. They’d been planted according to some mathematical formula that was both purposeful, logical, and yet unpredictable. It rather made his head spin to try and follow the various patterns he could find in it with his eyes.
Yet in all of this not a single human soul was to be seen, and K felt this gave the place an air of melancholy. He could easily imagine various Lords and Ladies strolling among the flower beds and in the lanes between the hedges; chatting, laughing; at some party hosted by the authorities, but he had the feeling the place had not seen such life in a long while. Probably, he thought, the only human beings who regularly trod those paths were the gardeners who trimmed the grass and watered the flowers. With that in mind, he resolved to return at some later date and take a walk there himself, since he could see no reason why he shouldn’t.
At present, however, he still had an hour or so to wait for Horace, and the sun was beating down hot on the steps to the entrance. He thought of taking refuge in some shadier part of the grounds, and at once remembered Macarius – how he’d sheltered under one of the shrubs. These were not all of the same species, he noticed, as he passed down onto the lawns to look at them. Indeed, dotted throughout them were low, sprouting trees – Irish yew with their old outstretched limbs, lilac, and weeping elm. Not much caring whether he would get dirty, Joseph took refuge under one of the former, for the heat was getting quite uncomfortable in the open air. The grass grew up thicker around the outer edge of the tree, so that once he had shuffled under its branches, he found himself shielded in a snug little basin. It was very dark to his sun-blinded eyes, but cool and dry lying on the bare earth. K felt very safe.
Yet as he lay there, looking up and letting his eyes adjust to the soft light filtering down through the leaves, he noticed a low, whistling sound – gentle, and rhythmic. It sounded very much like someone breathing. Slowly, and yes, slightly fearfully, he rolled over onto his side to see what man or beast was holed up in there with him. He was only very slightly surprised (and greatly relieved) to see the slumbering form of old Macarius, stretched out just a few feet away under the very same tree.