On Franz Kafka’s 99th death anniversary, a parable from his parable, ‘Before the Law’

At the door of the law sat a gatekeeper. His name was Alim. Alim means wise but Alim did not know the meaning of his name. He was a Tatar, or Tartar, depending upon where you are from and what language you speak. Alim never went to school, and no one ever told him the meaning of his name. He knew a little bit about his homeland from what his father had told him before he died, and later on from the few men of his tribe in the alien neighbourhood where they lived. The only time the Tatar men found time to talk about the past was when they sat around together for a smoke after dinner. Alim’s ancestors were from a peninsula surrounded by two seas. His father, a peasant working in a vineyard in the southern mountains, left the country when the Russians annexed it. He believed it was a more dignified option than living under the orders of the Czar. Alim was twelve years old, his nose already becoming prominent, when the family crossed the Black Sea. His mother, either from a reluctance to leave the country or because she could not keep pace with the...

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