The Trial

The Trial

 

 

 

By: Firooz Emamy

 

I had a series of interviews with several different people in this organisation. First time in my life that it was required to do so many interviews. It was kind of stressful. In the end I was told I should go to New Zealand for another interview, this time face to face. The title of General Manager sounds too good to be true. I kind of guess there should be a catch. But all doors are closed. I decide to go. Take a 5-hour flight to Sydney and catch the flight to New Zealand.  And then “They” come for me. Talk over the phone and ask me some stupid questions including have I been rejected a visa to any country before. The answer is yes but the question is asked so that I assume “Americans” are behind this. And I know they are not. I know all the trouble I went through has been designed for this moment, so that I become angry and do something stupid while onboard the plane. They have forgotten I am the god of emotional intelligence. Calmly follow them to the hall where I drop the F bomb of political literature: “Fascists….”.

Then, as expected, the same protocols of coverup and denying responsibility are executed. In the end the New Zealanders accept the responsibility. I am not given any reason at all. I write several letters and drop the F bomb again and ask for the reason they removed me from the flight. In the end they promise to inform me about the reason later. They still fail and after my pressure, they finally release the reason: They held “information” that prohibited me from travelling. That nonsense after weeks that they promised they would tell me the reason just reminded me of an old story from my childhood. I felt they were saying: “You’ll find out later”.

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My father only trusted his old Mercedes Benz to Armenian and Jewish repairers. He particularly had a friendship with the Jewish one who had an interesting sense of humour. He, who knew my father was a devoted Muslim, every time called his son and told him: you drink, you gamble, you womanise, you lie and cheat…When my father reached this part of the story he tried to copy his Jewish friend and pretending anger in his voice and with Jewish accent said: “just come out…Tell me that you are a Muslim”!

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After years I needed to read “the Trial” by Kafka again, to remember how intelligent some of the childish games I invented were when I was a child. The main actor in one of these games was a small plastic gorilla that belonged to my brother. He liked this game of mine so much that always gladly provided me with the poor gorilla who was arrested by some very rough people. I spoke for anybody. Every time I spoke for the gorilla, my father asked why it spoke in a tone and accent like the one he used for his Jewish friend. The gorilla, having a very rough appearance, had an incredibly soft and even childish and innocent tone, all the time asking: “what I have done?”. Years have passed and now I am baffled about huge symbolic load of that childish game, particularly when I think about the Jewish accent of the gorilla and considering what was going to happen to him at the end of the game.

Every time the gorilla asked same question, those who answered spoke with a very manly and rough tone: “YOU’LL FIND LATER”. And that was the only answer the poor gorilla received during the whole saga. The complexity, intelligence and symbolism of the game becomes clearer just before the ending scene in which the poor innocent gorilla is hanged.

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Today I was reviewing the whole stories of my life and the rejections and the pain after reading “The trial” again. And then I remembered the poor gorilla in the last scene. He again with his soft and innocent voice and for the last time asked those rough men: “What I have done?” He got an answer and then was hanged. The answer was: “YOU’LL FIND LATER”.