Leonard Kriegel
IN KAFKA'S HOUSE
Ever since I took sick with polio at the age of eleven, I have
been terrified ofwaking up one morning to discover
I
am once again helpless.
I
am not talking about the prospect of stroke or heart attack or cancer. No
matter how life-threatening, ordinary illness is simply among the risks one
takes by having been born and growing older.
I
am talking about my night–
mare of an enforced isolation, in which
I
am held captive by the ability of
others to structure the aftereffects of my disease.
One can be imprisoned by the world and yet not stand within it. At the
heart of my dread,
I
see a human being begging for the space he occupies
and the air he breathes. The vision consumes me, even as fantasy.
I
cannot
rid myself of the belief that a man has the right to hold on to the self he has
created.
My idea that
I
have created a self may simply be another false god
I
choose to worship.
I
recognize that. Still, the prospect of being forced to func–
tion as others command me to function
is
terrifYing.
I
think
I
could lie without
moving, a sentient vegetable, ifonly
I
still believed
I
could maintain allegiance
to my idea of who
I
was and what
I
had made of my life.
I
know, of course,
that every man and woman desires a strong sense of self. But the prospect
of discovering that one's capacity for living can be defined by others is
particularly haunting to a man who has been conscious of his helplessness at
some other point in his life.
A few months ago, my terrified vision of helplessness was reawakened
as two old friends - a husband and wife visiting the States from the Nether–
lands - told me of what had recently happened to their oldest son. Their
story had the effect of making me tremble, so intense was the rage it called
forth.
Let me call him Michael. We are curiously tied together, Michael and
I,
each of our lives radically altered by a physical handicap. We first met when
I was the Fulbright lecturer at the University of Leiden during the academic
year 1964-65. My wife and I and our two-year-old son were frequent
visitors at Michael's parents' house. Michael was then a young man who had
just turned nineteen, twelve years younger than I was. We would talk in a
Dutch-English patois. Michael was intent not only on what the future held in
store for him but on the very visible fact that, like him, I was physically
crippled. Having lost the use of my legs, I walked on double long-legged
braces and crutches.
Michael's own handicap was considerably more severe. He had been
born in the early summer of 1945, soon after the war in Europe came to an
