Kafka Page #14

Bizzlebek, perched on his usual stool, turns to see Kafka at

his side.

KAFKA:

You work in the cemetery.

BIZZLEBEK:

A man must eat --

(raises glass)

And drink.

KAFKA:

The Castle cemetery.

CUT:

CEMETERY - NIGHT

Ancient tombstones crumbling with age, slanting out of the

ground at bizarre angles, and cluttered so close together

that a way can scarcely be made between them.

Bizzlebek leads Kafka along the crooked little pathways,

overgrown with crawling weeds, upwards towards the high

section of the cemetery under the dark wall of the Castle.

Bizzlebek, who knows his way around, seems more cheerful here

than we've seen him before. Kafka more fearful. Wind

WHISTLES. Leaves RUSTLE. CREAKING trees cast ghastly

shadows. Scary tombs, all shapes and sizes, strange symbolic

symbols on them, mystical figures and designs.

Trying to keep up with Bizzlebek, Kafka spots a horrendous

shape looming ahead of him. He starts to bypass it -- and

jumps when a tall plant brushes against him.

BIZZLEBEK:

(waits for Kafka)

Are you sure you wouldn't prefer

going through official channels?

The awful dark shape turns out to be no more than a

particularly large tombstone, crumbled in places to give it

an animal-like suggestion.

KAFKA:

Official channels -- a lot of good

they've done me. My only hope is

to approach the officials personally.

He keeps walking -- and we SEE that he's carrying the bomb-

briefcase he found at Eduard's.

BIZZLEBEK:

-- I'm flattered, of course, to be

considered a friend -- even without

knowing all the details.

(Kafka doesn't take

that cue)

-- To see such determination is

reward enough for me.

KAFKA:

The Kafka men are famous for it,

you know. Delivering meat barefoot

in the depths of winter, picking up

sacks of flour with their teeth --

A BIRD rapidly swoops down from a tree, zipping past Kafka's

head with a shrieking SQUAWK!

KAFKA:

(gulp)

-- Oh, yes, determination runs in

the family.

BIZZLEBEK:

There is one thing I'd like you

to tell me.

KAFKA:

I'm trying to find things out myself

-- that's the whole point.

BIZZLEBEK:

What made you think I'd be able to

get you into the Castle?

KAFKA:

The cemetery is nearer the Castle

than anywhere else -- wasn't it part

of the Castle originally? -- I

always assumed there'd be a gate or

something.

(stops again, concerned)

Isn't there?

BIZZLEBEK:

In a manner of speaking.

CUT:

HIGHER GROUND - NIGHT

They're at the graves at the very back of the cemetery, right

up against the bottom of the Castle wall that stretches high

above them into the black sky of night.

Trees quiver around them. Shadows dance. Bizzlebek pauses

at a particular grave, apart from the others, more hidden by

overgrowth. He runs his fingertips over the old, strangely

lettered inscription. He looks around the graveyard, making

sure they're alone, then he moves to one side of the stone

and leans his weight against it, pushing. It shifts and

slides open, uncovering the hole that lies beneath.

BIZZLEBEK:

I was restoring some stones here

in the upper section one day --

and I found this.

KAFKA:

(unclear)

An empty tomb?

BIZZLEBEK:

A cenotaph -- a monument to someone

whose remains ended up elsewhere.

But look --

Having lit the lantern he's brought with him, he holds it

over the dark hole -- revealing a shaft and the rungs of a

ladder.

BIZZLEBEK:

The Castle gates were blockaded

in the time of the great plague --

it's an escape route.

(offers Kafka the

lantern)

Don't get stuck.

KAFKA:

(accepts it)

Not a chance. I'm the thinnest

person I know.

THE SHAFT:

Kafka starts to climb down, shoes loud on the rungs affixed

to the stone wall of this well. But then he remembers

something, pops back up.

KAFKA:

-- You appreciate my writing.

BIZZLEBEK:

(taken aback)

Yes.

KAFKA:

Will you do me a favor then?

BIZZLEBEK:

Another one?

KAFKA:

If I don't see you later -- go

to my house and find my notebooks --

and destroy them. All my

manuscripts -- just burn them.

Please.

BIZZLEBEK:

What an extraordinary request!

KAFKA:

It's my last and final one.

BIZZLEBEK:

Then its authority is in doubt.

KAFKA:

A true friend would do it.

BIZZLEBEK:

Not necessarily.

(a pointed look)

A wife would.

CUT:

SECRET PASSAGEWAY - NIGHT

A stooping Kafka makes his way along this gloomy underground

artery, the lantern lighting the way.

He comes to the end of it and what appears to be a little

door. He bends low to listen at it -- then unlocks the

latch. He pushes -- and the door moves forward.

OTHER SIDE:

Kafka stands up -- and he's inside a big filing cabinet

drawer.

He steps out of it and looks around. He's in an entire room

full of file cabinet drawers. A morgue of file cabinet

drawers. He shuts the one he came out of before walking

away. "D-7" says the label on the outside of it.

CUT:

VAULTS AND CRYPTS

Kafka makes his way through the shadows down here in the

underground depths of the Castle. A fiery glow and noise

comes from an archway ahead of him. When he gets to it and

looks through he sees a sweating STOKER shoveling coal into a

giant furnace.

CUT:

NEAR THE END OF A THIN PASSAGEWAY

A sudden door SLAM. Kafka dodges back around a corner. He

HEARS:
the quick cry of a man's agony, a scuffle of shoes on

hard stone floor, a dull thud, a wave of peculiar shouts,

running footsteps, more mumbled mingled voices -- which soon

die out, leaving silence.

AROUND THE CORNER

Kafka walks slowly, straining his neck a bit in expectation

of whatever lies ahead.

The passage brings him to a row of dungeon cells. A line of

doors with a barred window in each. One of them isn't closed

-- and lying across the threshold is the Laborer who chased

Kafka from the quarries the other night. The knife is gone

from his sheath and his scull is caved in, a wooden stool

lying on the floor beside him. At the other end of the row

of cells another door swings open at the top of a few steps.

SUDDENLY fingers spear through the bars of another cell to

touch Kafka! A GAUNT MAN inside.

GAUNT MAN:

You've killed him! Like a dog!

Kafka dropped his lantern in surprise, and shrinks back,

CRUNCHING glass.

GAUNT MAN:

-- They won't like that. Not a bit!

KAFKA:

I didn't --

The inhabitants of the other cells start RATTLING their bars

and beseeching Kafka. He looks around, bewildered and

horrified. Hideous faces looking back at him.

GAUNT MAN:

You'll incriminate the rest of us!

Let me out too!

Shuddering, Kafka is moving away, making it through the

shocking gauntlet, toward the door at the other end.

HORRIBLE VOICES:

Help us! -- release us!

GAUNT MAN:

(yelling above the din)

You're in the bowels now, my friend!

You've thrown yourself in it now!

A HAGGARD MAN who may have had his tongue cut out gestures

desperately at a lever on the wall to unlock the cells.

Kafka starts to tentatively reach for it -- when there's a

sudden SHRIEK beside him. He whirls to see, behind more

bars, the raving, convoluted face of the creature that

stalked him at his office (whose loose eye has now gone

completely) -- BANGING violently against his door.

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