Reimagining Kafka's Grete

Grete gently rubbed her stomach under the dining table. The bump was barely there, but she could the feel small movements inside as if a small seedling had sprouted and was brushing up against her, searching for sun. Her eyes were fixed on the blaring television across the living room, but all she could think of was the overwhelming feeling of nausea which had now become a daily occurrence at the dining table.

Father's moustache twitched with anticipation.  “Hurry up, woman, I’m starving”

Mother hurried over from the kitchen, balancing a plate of oven-roasted vegetables in one hand and a jug filled with steaming gravy in the other. She hastily threw her oven mitts onto the counter and sat at the table, taking both Grete and Father’s hands into her own.

“Let us pray”

 

Grete swallowed hard and lowered her eyes, trying to keep down the sour bile that was rising up into her throat. The three of them sat around the small table, holding each other’s hands in prayer as the boisterous laughter erupted from the television and sirens wailed from the streets outside. Mother prayed the same prayer that she had for the past two weeks.

“We pray for our daughter Grete. May she return to work as soon as possible, Lord. Please open Mr Goldman’s eyes to her beauty, and may you open up her heart to him…”

Grete shuddered involuntarily, but father and mother did not seem to notice.

"Amen”

As soon as the prayer was done, father hastily let go of both their hands. He plunged his spoon into the pile of mashed potatoes, dipping into the golden pool of melted butter which had formed on its surface and sending steam swirling into the air. Only a month ago, Grete would have been a close second to father in savouring her favourite dish, but now, she could barely stand its sickeningly rich aroma. She lowered one hand onto her stomach against, as if by instinct.

“Grete, why aren’t you eating? How are you going to find the strength to go back to work if you don’t eat?”

Father spoke without taking his eyes away from his plate.

“You have to remember that you’re barely out of high school. You could be replaced in the blink of an eye”

At the very mention of returning to that place, Grete’s fingers pressed uncomfortably hard onto the skin of her stomach.

 

She had taken over two weeks off from her work on sick leave, and her parents had been simply unable to bear the thought of their daughter spending so many days away from the office, from so many new financial opportunities, and from Mr Goldman, her charming and unmarried boss. It was like their heads were stuffed with the thought of money, business contracts stamped in red ink, and most of all, finding their daughter a wealthy, clean-shaven husband in a crisply fitted suit who could fill their bank accounts with more cash than they could ever dream of from their daughter. As soon has Grete had been hired, all they had asked her about was Mr Goldman; how he carried himself around the office, and about his family, and whether he would perhaps consider visiting for dinner one night after work? At first, he had seemed so charming and gentle and Grete had been so swept away by the idea of living out her parent’s fairy-tale, that she had almost lost everything…

 

A wave of nausea overcame her, and she swayed in her seat.

“Just a moment. I need the bathroom

 

 

Grete returned to work the next day. She wore the same dress that she had always worn, but she took off her belt and tied a loose cardigan around her waist instead.

It almost felt like she had never left the office; she still couldn’t stop looking at him from across the room, and she could equally feel his gaze burning into her skin whenever he thought she was looking away from his direction. Every muscle clenched in her body when he passed by her table, and she jumped at the sound of his voice as he spoke to someone else behind her table. Her skin prickled whenever he passed by her desk. Being so close to him made her feel like throwing up.

 

When the minute hand of the clock reached 12, she calmly packed her leather briefcase, then took the elevator reserved for injured staff because her feet were red and swollen from sitting down all day. She threw off her heels as soon as she got in the car and began to drive down the busy street in the opposite direction from her house. She tried to tell herself that it was just another afternoon, like any other drive after finishing work, but she couldn’t stop the wave of panic that washed over her as she pulled into the carpark of the clinic. She kept replaying the sound of the receptionist’s voice from the phone call she had made the previous night to book the appointment:

it'll be over in 15 minutes; you won’t even feel a thing… you are so strong for doing this”

 

The waiting room was busier than she expected. She sat in the very back corner, openly cradling her small bump as she looked around at the other people who were also seated in the room. There was a young girl who must have been only two or three years younger than her, swaying slowly in her seat with eyes glazed over in shock as if she had just seen a ghost. There was another woman with pale green bruises spotted all over her arm, as if a beast had climbed into her body and had pressed its blue fingers all over the inside of her skin. Both women had one hand resting on their stomachs. The older woman beside Grete was openly weeping with her head bowed into her chest, her shoulders shuddering with her sobs. When the receptionist called the woman’s name, she flinched violently and had to take deep heaving breaths to steady herself.

 

Grete could read their stories as if it had been printed in black ink on their skin. Looking around the waiting room was like gazing at the shelves of a library, at each of the books which had been marked with the fingerprints of those who had borrowed and delved into them, except they all shared the same journey of pain and loneliness. Even without opening their pages, she felt the same fears as they sat together in that waiting room, because she too had swum in the same river of trauma and self-hatred that had led them here.

 

The surgery was painless. She walked out into the carpark forty minutes later without a single scar on her body to suggest what had just happened. She wept in silence as she drove home, mourning the loss of the beautiful soul she had shared her life with for the past three months, then wiped her tears away as she pulled into the driveway of their house so that her parents wouldn’t notice.

 

She studied herself in the bathroom mirror that night, facing the side and slowly rubbing her stomach. All that remained was a silver, crescent-shaped stretchmark below her belly button, a faint smile of the bump that had once been there before.