Screen Two (1985–2002): Season 2, Episode 7 - The Insurance Man - full transcript
Franz, a young man, works in a dye factory in Prague. One day he notices a skin-rash, like eczema, growing on his hands. All attempts to treat it with ointment fail, and the rash gradually spreads over his body. After complaining to the management he is laid off work; his relationship with his fiancee is affected. In an attempt to get compensation from his former employers he goes to insurance firm Assicurazion Generali, where he encounters an enigmatic clerk called Kafka.
Lotty?
Lotty?
Lotty!
My housekeeper must be in the cellar.
What's it like, breathing?
Well, we've been having
some cold weather.
- No pain?
- Not pain as you'd call pain.
In peacetime, you might call it pain.
These days, illness is a luxury.
They've hung somebody
from your lamppost.
Last night.
Still, we don't want to lose you, do we?
Sit down, get your breath back.
Does this mean bad news?
You might as well drink it,
before the Russians do.
Was it what you suspected?
Don't know. Never had the x-ray.
Infirmary got cut off.
Still, I'm pretty sure it's what
I said it was,
just a fibrous condition of the lungs,
nothing malignant.
So, I'm not going to die?
You have to live long enough
to be able to die.
No! You could go on for years.
You could be lucky and live to be hung
from a lamppost.
It's funny. You come along
thinking this is the day of judgment
and it never is.
Or it always is.
Tell me, out of sheer curiosity,
what other jobs have you done
apart from the railway?
Apart from the railway, nothing.
I started as a porter, I ended up
stationmaster of the central station.
Nothing else?
I was in a dye works once,
for about five minutes.
A dye works?
When I was young.
We're talking about
before the First War, now.
Terrible place.
It's funny,
I thought I was a goner then.
I'd just got engaged.
And I woke up one fine morning,
found there was a strange patch
on my skin.
- Don't come in.
- Why?
You can't show me anything new.
My husband was in the armed forces.
I'm not sure I like all this coming
and going last thing at night.
You need all your energy
to get on in life.
We're going to be married.
This room used to be let
to a fully-fledged optician.
He was quite alone. He had diplomas.
I didn't dare tell my fiancée.
And to begin with,
I didn't let on to anybody.
I was just hoping it would go away.
Only it didn't.
It got worse.
- Aye, does it itch?
- No.
Funny process, dyeing.
Saw a lad once, scales gone there down.
Ending up spending all day in the bath.
Slept in it, not with dye.
Went to the board with it.
They just pretended
it was something in the family.
Have you reported it?
Dyeing won't do you any harm.
- Does it itch?
- No, sir.
- Sore?
- No, sir.
Have you been doing something
that you shouldn't be doing?
- No, sir!
- "No, sir. No sir."
Is it on the back?
Take off your trousers.
Come on!
There's some.
Oh, be God, we're all doctors now?
His proper skin is lovely.
And it isn't to do with the dye?
Well, nobody else has it.
Don't blame the dye, blame yourself.
He's only young.
You're insured.
These are cornflowers.
I love blue.
You're insured.
Ask.
Take this along to the cashiers.
I haven't done anything, sir.
What have I done?
We're not ungenerous,
you got your full bonus.
- There's generally a whip-round.
- Something like that.
I've got me other work people
to consider.
Come on, lad.
Have you got clothes in your locker?
I don't know what he's been doing.
I thought it was simple cleanliness.
I want to ask about insurance!
I never said anything.
It doesn't apply.
Beatrice, it doesn't apply.
When you're young,
you don't give your body a thought.
Now I was thinking about nothing else.
And yet, it was as if
it didn't belong to me.
I wasn't myself any more.
I'm enjoying this, Mother.
Does Franz want some more, Christina?
I think he's old enough to speak
for himself, Mother, don't you?
One of the family now.
I had to keep my skin
to myself.
I felt like an animal.
Don't rush her, Rosa.
One mouthful at a time.
That's right.
And I hadn't told my fiancée
I'd lost my job.
It's like everything else.
I daren't.
The girl in the office
had given me a form.
She said I had a claim.
I had to take the form to the
Workers' Accident Insurance Institute
on Poric Street.
Gone now,
though the building's still there.
That building.
Wipe your feet, wipe your feet!
You're not coming into a factory now.
Oi! This isn't your door,
that's your door.
Good morning, Herr Doctor.
Out of the way! Out of the way!
Hey, this way.
Just because you've got one leg
doesn't mean to say
you can act like a wild beast.
- Am I in the right place?
- They like you to wait.
He's slipped up.
You never want to be first.
You're better off in the middle.
Try and be routine.
I don't even wear my glasses.
You don't want a face
anybody remembers.
These are my documents.
I crocheted the cover myself.
I shall be all right today,
my friend's on.
He's very refined.
I've seen him in a café.
There's the tribunal.
That coat's cashmere.
Next!
Next!
Don't want to see that.
Don't want to see that.
I've seen that.
Well? Nothing else?
Next!
He's got mistaken.
He's confusing me with someone else.
Why Vienna?
I fancy the change.
Don't we all?
Dustbin job.
Quite, but which one?
The fourth floor dustbin,
or the second floor dustbin?
Who are we not friends with?
- 404?
- 404.
Anyway, they're supposed to like
work Jews.
That's this way.
Good morning.
- Good morning.
- They said, was I sleeping?
I wasn't sleepy. I don't get sleepy.
Lift and push, lift and push...
How can you get sleepy?
It's a skilled job.
Then they let out the safety guard
wasn't in position.
It was in position,
I mean, I've got little hands.
The guard is meant for a man's hands.
Spindles go in and out,
stitching the pattern into the cloth.
So naturally, it stitched me
into the cloth.
Good morning.
Door! Door! Door!
Now, it's possible that your
firm will try to put the blame on you.
- Me?
- Yes.
Just because you're the injured party,
it doesn't mean
you are not the guilty party.
Oh, no. Not me.
You haven't seen me, I'm not here.
- Your grade are putting in five.
- My grade.
It says here you were scalded.
- What with?
- Jam.
- Jam?
- Jam...
You must understand, sir,
that jam is not like water.
- It's syrup, it sticks.
- I know jam.
I had two racks.
The foreman said,
"I'm going to give you two racks.
"Normally, it would only be one,
but I'm going to give you two."
How long is the scar?
- I washed it.
- No, it looks different.
- No, just not...
- Do you want me or not?
Some of us are trying to work.
Everybody's putting in,
it's for the Director.
- How much?
- It's optional.
- Rubbish.
- Five marks.
Here's four.
I'm not like these other fellows.
- I have to look after my money.
- Excuse me.
- But aren't you a friend of my daughter?
- No.
Didn't she invite you to go on a
cycling holiday in the mountains?
- No.
- So, the name Rosa means nothing to you?
It seems rude to interrupt,
but we appear to be losing sight
of the job at hand.
The lawyer pays,
the government pays.
- The shops say they are not responsible.
- Well, they normally do.
What did you do with the ink?
Did you save it?
It's not important.
You realise you're taking a risk
being alone in a room with me?
Women can't keep their hands off me,
do you know that?
- It's only a gesture.
- So is that.
Not now.
Does it discommode you in any way,
having one ear? Do you wear glasses?
"Can you or can
you not lead a normal life?
"And since it is firmly apparent that
you can,
"I advise you to go away and lead it."
I was at the opera last night
and it occurred to me...
- Good morning, Head of Department.
- The motorcar.
Head of Department?
Potentially a significant accident
statistic or not?
No, is my instinctive answer.
Still, I'll give it some thought.
- Do.
- Oh, and Head of Department...
Congratulations.
...was bound to be drawn into
the cutter space if it slipped.
In such accidents,
usually several joints
and even whole fingers
were severed. Amen.
My brother-in-law tells me
he is starting a factory.
Can I help him?
Earrings today?
Do they go right through?
You had a hole dug in your ears.
- What courage.
- It's my body.
This is the fellow you want to see.
You have been in the wars.
- Yes, sir.
- Our old friend the mincing machine.
You stupid fool, putting your arm down.
The throat was too long.
The truncheon wouldn't reach.
You have to put your hand down.
Wasn't there a guard on the worm?
I took it off, sir.
Well, then, it serves you right, then,
doesn't it?
In any case you don't belong here,
you should be downstairs, in 272.
I've just come from there.
Go back.
And if they try and send you
somewhere else,
say Dr Kafka says to say
you're not a football.
Yes, sir.
So, having fed himself into his machine,
we now feed him into ours.
Sir...
Have you noticed how, often,
when claimants are telling you
about their accidents, they smile?
Why do they smile?
They're apologising. They feel foolish.
Utterly blameless, yet they feel guilty.
Bricks falling on someone's head.
Do they ever do anything else?
I say, do they ever do anything else?
Yet another firm trying to make out
the fact they had an accident
was sheer accident.
Accidents, as we well know,
are never an accident.
Give us a point.
Get on! Get on!
I thought of Japan.
Bricks don't fall on people there.
They have paper houses.
Indeed they do, they do. Dr Kafka...
Why is everything so heavy?
This chair.
This desk.
The poor floor carrying the burden.
The sheer weight of Prague.
Dr Kafka...
it's no secret
we're losing our Head of Department,
elevated to the fifth floor.
Higher things.
A chance for a modest celebration.
A presentation.
A speech, perhaps?
Excuse me, Head Clerk,
but you have a small smut on your chin.
- Oh.
- Don't be alarmed.
- Well?
- Help!
I must go and put my head
under a circular saw.
Is it my imagination, or do we get more
shit than anybody else?
Of course, there are 400 people
working in this company.
Since only two of them are Jews
and one of them happens to be Dr Kafka,
we get sent a lot of shit.
It's only natural.
I don't seem to be able to trace it.
When did you...
When did you have this accident?
It wasn't exactly an accident. I'm ill.
- Through work.
- Well, I'm ill through work.
We're all ill through that.
My skin's broken out, look.
No, we deal in accidents.
You haven't had an accident.
I get splashed with the dye,
that's an accident.
- It happens all the time.
- So, it's not an accident, is it?
But it's fetched my skin up.
Look, this number here means that
your firm has a policy
that covers factory premises.
It isn't a comprehensive cover
for the firm's employees
- outside those premises.
- Well, he doesn't want a rundown
on the filing system.
Why don't you put your foot
on your own desk?
Because I haven't got any scissors.
- Lunchtime.
- I'm going to have to refer you back.
- It was their battle.
- They're not our pigeon.
Now you've ruined
a perfectly good appetite.
It may clear up.
- It's spreading all the time.
- Hmm.
Somebody said I should see Dr Kafka.
If he's a doctor, he might know.
Ah, he's not that sort of doctor.
It must be the dye,
what else could it be?
I just got engaged to be married.
Whatever it is, the answer's no.
Anyway, he's gone to look at a sawmill.
No, no.
You should know better than this.
It's a borderline case,
he may be interested.
Oh, don't be ridiculous.
Of course he'd be interested.
He's got enough on his plate.
He remarked on my new earrings.
You haven't.
Lovely earrings.
I've put it on his desk.
- Come back tomorrow.
- What I want is an independent
medical examination by a specialist.
It must be the dye!
I put it on his desk.
- I just got engaged.
- So you keep telling me.
Come tomorrow.
I'd started
going to the gym at night.
I didn't want anybody to see my skin.
At the Institute, where I did want
somebody to see my skin,
nobody would look.
I went again and waited.
Do you hear that?
Because I can hear a river.
I never used to be able to hear a river.
They say, "Well,
a river's nice to hear."
Not in your own head, it isn't.
First thing I'm going to get
is some new chair covers.
Delayed concussion.
How long have I been in this department?
Four... I thought it was five years.
I thought it was five years,
but it can't be.
Because when the Head Clerk
wants someone to make a presentation
to the Director, does he ask me?
No, he doesn't.
He asks Dr Kafka, who's only been here
one year.
So maybe I haven't
been here five years,
maybe it only seems like five years.
Maybe I only came here yesterday.
Maybe I don't work here at all.
Well, we'll see about that
because I am now going to start
making my presence felt.
Docket, show me, come on.
Docket.
Docket. Docket.
Well, you don't belong here for a start.
- I was told.
- You mustn't believe what you're told.
Not in this place. I was told this was
going to be a job with prospects.
I don't care what you were told.
This is a P-406.
It is not our pigeon.
Out. Out. Out. Out.
You've no business here, either. Out.
- Out. Out.
- I'm supposed to see Dr Kafka.
Dr Kafka is a busy man.
Dr Kafka has factories to inspect.
Dr Kafka has a speech to prepare.
Out! Out! Out! Out! Out!
Out! Out! Out! Out! Out!
Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out!
Back, madam!
Back to where you came from!
Out! Out! Out! Out!
Someone's on the warpath.
Charles.
I want to see this young man.
He's a dye worker, some sort of eczema.
Gone. I've just sent him away.
Ah.
He wasn't our responsibility.
I'm sure you're right.
You're always right.
Incidentally,
I've been landed with a speech
of farewell for the Head of Department,
I was wondering, could you give me
a pointer or two?
Happy to.
How's Mother?
She's well.
- Very well.
- Good, good.
About this dye worker,
can you retrieve him?
Uh...
I think I fancy a bit of
a promenade myself.
452. Next!
I've got it. I've got my pay!
I've got it. I've got it.
I can't believe it. I've got it.
I've got it. I've got it.
I've got my name on it. I've got it.
452.
- To what do we owe this pleasure?
- We've lost a claimant.
- Inquiries said they'd sent him up here.
- I haven't seen him.
You're talking to someone who's just
received a summons to the fifth floor.
If he surfaces, point him back upstairs,
would you?
I'll do the same for you sometime.
Can I have that in writing?
He said, "You got that fast
in the loom?"
He said, "Well, you're lucky."
He said, "If I'd had to take it off
in the theatre,
"it couldn't get any cleaner than that."
Then he said, "You're fortunate in
another respect." I said, "Yes?"
He said, "You're an extrovert."
He said,
"You got the right attitude of mind."
I said, "I have."
It's a bit unsightly,
but I'm not incommoded.
In some respects, the reverse.
More room in the bed,
more scope for manoeuvre.
I haven't noticed the wife complaining.
Mind you, it's a wonder
I didn't lose more than a leg.
Mind you, that was no cradle
on the shaft.
After I had me accident,
I said to the foreman,
"You haven't got a leg to stand on."
He said, "You can talk."
He said, "They'll claim you were drunk."
I said, "Drunk? Pull the other one."
He said, "What other one?"
I said, "Precisely."
Oh, you have to laugh. Anyway...
- last lap.
- End in sight.
Where will you go tomorrow, eh?
Where will you go?
Won't know you're born.
It's a way of life.
You're used to people coming and going.
It's our big day.
Keep it down. Keep it down.
Here, yeah. Sit this side.
More leg room.
- I say, this brings back memories.
- Eh?
- I say, this brings back memories.
- Oh, my goodness me.
I'm wanting a certificate
to see the doctor.
- What doctor?
- Their doctor.
You haven't seen the doc...
Hey, hey!
- He hasn't even seen the doctor.
- He hasn't seen the doctor.
Keep it down! Keep it down!
- How long have you been coming?
- Today.
This is your first... Listen, it's taken
me six months to get this far.
It's taken me a year.
Not every day?
All I want is to be a normal person.
Keep it down. Keep it down.
I went three months,
never heard a thing.
You haven't assembled any documents.
You've got to assemble your documents.
- I just want to see the doctor.
- This isn't the doctor.
This is the tribunal.
It's the panel, is this.
You don't belong here.
- What should I do?
- Well, don't ask me!
We don't want them upsetting you,
you've no business here.
Now, clear off. Go on.
- Go on, get out.
- Clear off!
- You want it plain sailing. Bugger off.
- Bugger off. Go on.
Next!
- Go on.
- Get out!
Well?
I made a good impression.
How many are there?
Three. One doesn't speak,
just looks.
Looks?
I was missing my birth certificate.
One of them said could I give them
my word that I had been born?
- They all laughed.
- They laughed?
They said now
to try and lead a normal life.
All right, all right.
Disallowed.
They always tell you at the last stage,
they always tell you.
Now, make sure
you've all got your documents
and that they're in order.
Are you on this list?
Not interested.
Not interested, list only.
Out!
Where do you want?
Oh they'll take that in here, yes.
My documents have just gone in.
They're studying them now. Possibly.
Hello, Theresa.
Their dog's poorly,
she's got a lot on her mind.
Sure I shouldn't tell them I'm here?
No, you'll go to the bottom of the pile.
The girl said last week my file
was taken out by the assistant manager.
Of course, I know them all here,
I'm like one of the family.
Sheila.
Sheila.
I'd like to have worked
in a place like this.
Sedentary occupation
but with some coming and going.
Banter, whip-rounds.
Relations between the sexes.
Sat at home is no game, is it?
Come away.
- They're just digesting the facts.
- Get off!
No, you're young, you don't understand.
Look, I could be stuck here all day.
There's nobody here.
- Come and see.
- No.
I'll wait till I'm called.
There's nobody there.
- Look!
- Don't shout.
There's offices everywhere.
Leave off, I'm a woman!
I've had a head injury.
- It's an empty room.
- Stop it.
- You just can't see.
- It's empty.
- Patience.
- Look at it.
- Empty!
- Look.
- These are important.
- They're not important.
- They're rubbish.
- That's wicked.
Wicked, you're not supposed to hit me.
- You're mad!
- Everybody is mad!
You're wrong in the head.
These are important,
these are to do with my case.
- You're mad!
- You're young.
You don't know!
Ignorance of the facts.
We all become immune to it.
You've got to keep track.
You don't understand.
Breaking the left arm,
causing widespread abrasions
to the chest and abdomen,
the scars from which
you can plainly see.
Well, not all that plainly, surely.
Quite plainly.
Look. Raise your arms again.
Yes.
Yes.
Go on, shall I?
She reports some loss of feeling
on her left side.
Of course she does, she's not stupid.
Some dozy general practitioner
most probably has said to her,
"Do you have any loss of feeling
on your left side?"
And lo and behold, she suddenly finds
she's got some loss of feeling
on her left side.
Her doctor reports there to have been
some personality change.
Probably the same doctor.
She's subject to
violent changes of mood,
incapable of sustained attention...
I don't believe any of this.
I beg your pardon?
Has it ever occurred to you
that everyone who comes
before this panel
has, prior to their accident, been of a
sunny and equable disposition,
capable of long periods
of sustained attention?
Unvisited by headaches
or indeed any infirmity at all?
The mind alert,
the body in perfect order.
A paragon of health.
Take this young woman.
Previously a cheerful soul,
she is now said to be anxious
and depressed, so...
previously an optimist,
she is now a pessimist.
Is that such a bad thing?
One could say that this accident
has brought her to her senses
rather than deprived her of them.
She now takes a dim view of the world.
So do I.
She can't keep her mind
on the matter in hand,
nor can I.
She winces when she looks
in the mirror, so do I.
- She's crying.
- So am I.
We cannot compensate people
for being cast out of paradise.
All these sheaves of reports
are saying is
"I didn't know how lucky I was
till this happened."
So, now they do know,
they have achieved wisdom,
and a degree of self-knowledge.
They should be paying us, not we them.
We appear to have a visitor.
What are you doing here?
I want someone to tell me
what's wrong with me.
You have no business here.
- This is outrageous.
- The idea.
- Get out.
- Not until someone tells me where to go.
Call someone, call the doorman.
- Doorman!
- Sir.
Mad!
Mad!
Mad, sir.
- Mad.
- Stop it, you animal.
- You're not on a farmyard.
- Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
Let me see that paper.
Come with me. Any excuse to get away
from this collective idiocy.
Idiocy!
Come along.
I hope you're all word perfect
on your personality changes.
It's a wicked world,
it's a wicked, wicked world.
I have lost my faith.
Doctor loses faith,
doctor goes way of other doctors.
It just needs one person,
just one to come before that panel
and say, "Doctor, since suffering this
grievous affliction, I am a new man,
"a better person.
"The loss of my hand
has been an education.
"Blinded, I can now see."
Instead of which, it's,
"How much is it worth?"
Doctor!
How much do you think
this is worth, eh?
How much is whatever you've got worth?
I'm not a doctor any more,
I'm an accountant.
Is there anyone who cares?
Journey's end.
Ah, the lost sheep.
Blessed are the maimed
for they shall be compensated.
Come on.
Don't you sometimes just long
to see one single able-bodied person?
Someone who doesn't lack an arm here
or a finger there?
Who doesn't pull up their shirt
without wanting to reveal
some frightful burn?
Somebody normal?
Your lost sheep.
- Oh, take a seat.
- I was here this morning.
I've been all over,
I was supposed to see Dr Kafka.
Dr Kafka has gone home.
- Does that mean I've to come back?
- His hours are eight until two.
You've reached the beginning.
You're about to start.
- You've been allowed to enter the race.
- Look, I'm covered in scale.
You're not.
Your face is perfectly normal,
don't exaggerate.
This gives you an appointment
with the institute doctor.
They're having public clinics
on Thursdays.
He will look at you
and decide if this...
skin complaint is anything to do
with an accident at work.
I've told you,
I haven't had an accident.
So why go on?
Stop now before it's too late.
No new process? No new chemicals?
Nothing new in your life?
I've just got engaged.
Any accident there?
I'd written to my father.
He was a peasant, a farm labourer in...
Well, it's now Germany.
He came to Prague.
I think of my father then as an old man.
But he was younger than I am now
He had remedies of his own.
All in all
it's a pretty mixed bag,
but slanting on the whole
in the direction of injury at work.
I've got some teasers for the people
in the fourth year
and also some interesting examples of
occupational disease.
Increasing industrialisation means
that this field of medicine
is bound to expand.
I imagine that's why
many of you are here.
Physical conditions,
some of which you will see,
take time to declare themselves.
And I would ask you to remember
that we are seeing today
casualties of conditions in the industry
of 20, even 30 years ago.
I'm a miracle.
I've got a hole in me stomach.
They watched the food passing through.
He's had an article written about him.
Show him your article.
And doubtless in 30 or 40 years' time,
when I hope I shall be
safely tucked up in my grave...
He's famous with doctors.
...will still be stood here.
Somebody came from Paris
to see him, and they paid.
Shh!
Nowadays, the mesh may be wide.
But if you believe in progress,
which I do not,
the mesh will get smaller
and the number of people
suffering from industrial injury
will dwindle.
But it won't, of course,
because there will be new industries
and new industries mean new diseases.
You have chosen
a wise profession, gentlemen.
Doctors will never be unemployed.
Now, could we have
our first conundrum, please?
Come on.
Disrobe, will you?
Mmm-hmm.
Well?
- Yes?
- Is this a form of psoriasis?
Wonderful.
Anybody got any brilliant ideas
about the aetiology?
The patient is in no discomfort.
Infected areas don't itch, not sore.
Well, come on, come on!
What sort of questions
should we be asking?
Um, what age is the patient?
How old are you?
- 26.
- 26.
- Married or single?
- Single.
Is it venereal in origin?
- Did you get it from a tart?
- No.
Patient says no.
Patient probably right.
- Well?
- Could it be nervous in origin?
Are you asking me
or are you asking the patient?
We know what he does,
he works in dye works.
But what sort of fellow is he?
Is he nervous? Highly strung?
Cheerful? Not cheerful?
Look, what are we
supposed to be doing here?
Who are you? I mean, I thought you
were supposed to be medical students.
What is it?
What have I done?
Give me something,
give me something for it.
Stop it.
It's all over my body!
Why?
Why?
Gentlemen will note
agitation of patient.
You will need to assess
the degree of proper agitation
due to patient's physical condition
and behaviour,
as distinct from evidence of
degree of neurotic instability.
Next patient, please.
Some of you might say that there is
nothing wrong with this patient.
Once upon a time, she met
with a slight accident at work,
a box fell on her head.
She took a few days off
and she felt none the worse.
But then she heard
that in this enlightened age,
there is compensation for those
who have suffered injury at work.
Is she entitled to this, she wonders?
And the wondering turns to worrying.
And she begins to lie awake at night,
suffering from headaches.
She is increasingly unhappy.
And so begins her quest
for compensation.
But for what?
Not for the injury,
for she scarcely suffered one.
And yet she's not malingering,
for the headaches are real.
And to those of you who say
there is no injury,
therefore there can be no compensation,
she can say, "But I was not like this
before my accident.
"I had no quest.
"Looking for what is wrong with me
"is what is wrong with me."
The good doctor
didn't want you to feel left out.
And the cigar?
In my four districts,
people fall off the scaffolding
as if they were drunk.
Or they fall into the machines.
All the beads topple.
All embankments give way,
all ladders slide.
Whatever people carry up falls down,
whatever they hand down,
they stumble over.
And I have a headache
from all those girls
in the porcelain factories
who incessantly throw themselves
down stairs
with mountains of dishware.
Why do you work here?
This is a terrible place.
It's a place of torture.
One has to do something.
I need your papers,
for your file.
I don't want money!
I want it to be given a name!
How can I ever get rid of it
if it doesn't have a name?
Voilà, an accident.
The Director guards us,
the workers of
the Workers' Accident Institute,
against our own institutional accidents.
And I don't mean falling over the holes
in the linoleum on the bottom corridor.
Maintenance, please note.
I mean blindness to genuine need.
Deafness to a proper appeal
and hardness of heart.
These are our particular
professional risks,
for which there are no safety guards,
no grids, no protective clothing,
only a scrupulous and
a vigilant humanity.
A toast, then.
To the benevolent umpire
in our absurd games.
Our firm but kindly father,
to whom without fear
we can always turn as we do now,
and say, "Herr Director."
Herr Director.
- He can talk.
- Of course he can talk.
But I can talk.
You haven't heard me talk.
Haven't I?
- Not in a formal situation.
- Does that make a difference?
I'd have told him.
I'd have used the opportunity
to let them know
exactly what's wrong with this place.
Yes.
- Yes?
- The dye worker.
Not again, really!
Silence!
Please, sit down.
I've been told you're kind.
I've been told you're the one to see.
They say you're a human being.
No.
I do a very good imitation
of a human being.
You're harder to see than anybody.
There has to be a procedure, a system.
Is that so terrible?
What did you want to say to me?
There is nothing to say.
It is a hopeless case.
People coming in wanting money.
I don't want money.
Nobody ever does.
I sometimes wonder
what they think they're doing here,
it comes as such a shock.
"You mention money to me
when I've lost my precious fingers?"
"All my treasured auburn hair,
gone up in smoke
"and you ask me how much it's worth?"
Some things are beyond money.
Really?
I've yet to find them.
We'd all rather have our health
than the money.
Correction.
We'd all rather have our health
and the money.
You are asking for a justice
that doesn't exist in the world.
And not only you, more people.
More people every year.
A man works in the carding room
of a cotton mill.
Dust everywhere, the air, dust.
Taken ill.
Examined by the company doctor,
unfit for work, discharged.
Nothing unusual in that.
Except...
...somebody decides to put in a P48,
a claim for compensation,
just as you did.
Not applicable, either of them,
not accidents.
Quite. But bear with me.
Take this mill worker.
No beam has fallen on his head,
no bottle has exploded in his eye,
he has not got his shirt
caught in the shaft
and been taken round.
All that has happened is that
he has been inhaling
cotton dust for some years.
And day by day this cotton dust
has crept into his lungs
but so slowly, so gradually,
that it cannot be called an accident.
But suppose our lungs
were not internal organs?
Suppose they were not locked away
in the chest,
and suppose, further,
they were not made of flesh
but of glass,
or something like glass,
not yet invented,
something pliable.
And thus the effect of each breath
could be seen.
The deposit of each intake of air
calculated, weighed, even.
What would we say then?
As we saw the dust accumulate,
the passages clog,
the scalaries close down,
as cell by cell these lungs hardened,
withered,
died.
Hmm?
But that still wouldn't be an accident.
You can't conduct an insurance company
on suppositions like that.
Can you?
This man has no claim because
he is suffering from a condition.
But isn't a condition
the result of many small accidents
that we cannot see or record?
So he's living, or dying.
There is no alternative but to breathe.
And this man,
a young man,
so regularly doused in dye,
he has begun to grow a second skin.
Isn't that an accident?
A long, slow accident?
People will be wanting compensation
for being alive next.
I do understand.
What good is that to me?
You can't do anything.
You're worse than them, not better.
You say you understand.
Well, if you understand
and you don't help,
you're wicked.
You're evil.
Don't speak like that to Dr Kafka.
He has a university degree.
I don't want money.
I'm not offering you money.
I know of a factory that is starting,
it will be in a month or two.
- This is a terrible place.
- Is it?
I always forget that,
I find it almost cosy.
But then, I'm just an official,
I'm accustomed to office air.
If you cannot find a job,
I may be able to help.
Don't expect anything too wonderful,
it's very, very rudimentary.
Well, one factory is
very much like another.
But why am I telling you?
You've got expertise.
You know about factories.
You've seen plenty.
It's not as if I'm asking you
to go into something blindfold.
And here, shipments could
come in and out.
You see...
You see, it's ideal.
I know I can succeed, Franz.
Do you ever have that feeling?
Only when I'm very depressed.
Father!
Franz, Franz!
People to see you in the office.
Coughing still?
No!
This is something to cough about.
Three more orders this morning,
I'm run off my feet!
- So, you're still interested in the job?
- Yes, very much so.
- You look well.
- Yes, I'm better.
My skin's cleared completely.
A miracle.
Why is that, do you think?
I don't know, I've never been so well.
This is my fiancée,
Beatrice.
Let me show you.
- So what is it you're producing here?
- Building materials.
Mainly asbestos.
Thank you. You saved my life.
It's so long ago.
Do you think it may have been
that factory?
It's possible.
Who knows?
I was happy working there,
though it was only for a year or two.
The place went bankrupt.
They say no good deed goes unpunished.
He worked there too.
Dr Kafka, part-time.
So I suppose the same thing
could've happened to him.
You weren't to know. He wasn't to know.
You breathed, that's all you did wrong.
You breathed in the wrong place.
I've a feeling he died.
But he was a Jew,
so he would have died anyway.
I know the name.
The place sold fancy goods.
I bought some slippers there once.
I wonder how long they're going to leave
that body out there?
I heard him,
battering at some door last night,
begging to be let in,
somebody was after him.
When the door was opened,
he thought he was safe.
But they were there first.
Well, take care.
Lotty?
Lotty!
My housekeeper must be in the cellar.
What's it like, breathing?
Well, we've been having
some cold weather.
- No pain?
- Not pain as you'd call pain.
In peacetime, you might call it pain.
These days, illness is a luxury.
They've hung somebody
from your lamppost.
Last night.
Still, we don't want to lose you, do we?
Sit down, get your breath back.
Does this mean bad news?
You might as well drink it,
before the Russians do.
Was it what you suspected?
Don't know. Never had the x-ray.
Infirmary got cut off.
Still, I'm pretty sure it's what
I said it was,
just a fibrous condition of the lungs,
nothing malignant.
So, I'm not going to die?
You have to live long enough
to be able to die.
No! You could go on for years.
You could be lucky and live to be hung
from a lamppost.
It's funny. You come along
thinking this is the day of judgment
and it never is.
Or it always is.
Tell me, out of sheer curiosity,
what other jobs have you done
apart from the railway?
Apart from the railway, nothing.
I started as a porter, I ended up
stationmaster of the central station.
Nothing else?
I was in a dye works once,
for about five minutes.
A dye works?
When I was young.
We're talking about
before the First War, now.
Terrible place.
It's funny,
I thought I was a goner then.
I'd just got engaged.
And I woke up one fine morning,
found there was a strange patch
on my skin.
- Don't come in.
- Why?
You can't show me anything new.
My husband was in the armed forces.
I'm not sure I like all this coming
and going last thing at night.
You need all your energy
to get on in life.
We're going to be married.
This room used to be let
to a fully-fledged optician.
He was quite alone. He had diplomas.
I didn't dare tell my fiancée.
And to begin with,
I didn't let on to anybody.
I was just hoping it would go away.
Only it didn't.
It got worse.
- Aye, does it itch?
- No.
Funny process, dyeing.
Saw a lad once, scales gone there down.
Ending up spending all day in the bath.
Slept in it, not with dye.
Went to the board with it.
They just pretended
it was something in the family.
Have you reported it?
Dyeing won't do you any harm.
- Does it itch?
- No, sir.
- Sore?
- No, sir.
Have you been doing something
that you shouldn't be doing?
- No, sir!
- "No, sir. No sir."
Is it on the back?
Take off your trousers.
Come on!
There's some.
Oh, be God, we're all doctors now?
His proper skin is lovely.
And it isn't to do with the dye?
Well, nobody else has it.
Don't blame the dye, blame yourself.
He's only young.
You're insured.
These are cornflowers.
I love blue.
You're insured.
Ask.
Take this along to the cashiers.
I haven't done anything, sir.
What have I done?
We're not ungenerous,
you got your full bonus.
- There's generally a whip-round.
- Something like that.
I've got me other work people
to consider.
Come on, lad.
Have you got clothes in your locker?
I don't know what he's been doing.
I thought it was simple cleanliness.
I want to ask about insurance!
I never said anything.
It doesn't apply.
Beatrice, it doesn't apply.
When you're young,
you don't give your body a thought.
Now I was thinking about nothing else.
And yet, it was as if
it didn't belong to me.
I wasn't myself any more.
I'm enjoying this, Mother.
Does Franz want some more, Christina?
I think he's old enough to speak
for himself, Mother, don't you?
One of the family now.
I had to keep my skin
to myself.
I felt like an animal.
Don't rush her, Rosa.
One mouthful at a time.
That's right.
And I hadn't told my fiancée
I'd lost my job.
It's like everything else.
I daren't.
The girl in the office
had given me a form.
She said I had a claim.
I had to take the form to the
Workers' Accident Insurance Institute
on Poric Street.
Gone now,
though the building's still there.
That building.
Wipe your feet, wipe your feet!
You're not coming into a factory now.
Oi! This isn't your door,
that's your door.
Good morning, Herr Doctor.
Out of the way! Out of the way!
Hey, this way.
Just because you've got one leg
doesn't mean to say
you can act like a wild beast.
- Am I in the right place?
- They like you to wait.
He's slipped up.
You never want to be first.
You're better off in the middle.
Try and be routine.
I don't even wear my glasses.
You don't want a face
anybody remembers.
These are my documents.
I crocheted the cover myself.
I shall be all right today,
my friend's on.
He's very refined.
I've seen him in a café.
There's the tribunal.
That coat's cashmere.
Next!
Next!
Don't want to see that.
Don't want to see that.
I've seen that.
Well? Nothing else?
Next!
He's got mistaken.
He's confusing me with someone else.
Why Vienna?
I fancy the change.
Don't we all?
Dustbin job.
Quite, but which one?
The fourth floor dustbin,
or the second floor dustbin?
Who are we not friends with?
- 404?
- 404.
Anyway, they're supposed to like
work Jews.
That's this way.
Good morning.
- Good morning.
- They said, was I sleeping?
I wasn't sleepy. I don't get sleepy.
Lift and push, lift and push...
How can you get sleepy?
It's a skilled job.
Then they let out the safety guard
wasn't in position.
It was in position,
I mean, I've got little hands.
The guard is meant for a man's hands.
Spindles go in and out,
stitching the pattern into the cloth.
So naturally, it stitched me
into the cloth.
Good morning.
Door! Door! Door!
Now, it's possible that your
firm will try to put the blame on you.
- Me?
- Yes.
Just because you're the injured party,
it doesn't mean
you are not the guilty party.
Oh, no. Not me.
You haven't seen me, I'm not here.
- Your grade are putting in five.
- My grade.
It says here you were scalded.
- What with?
- Jam.
- Jam?
- Jam...
You must understand, sir,
that jam is not like water.
- It's syrup, it sticks.
- I know jam.
I had two racks.
The foreman said,
"I'm going to give you two racks.
"Normally, it would only be one,
but I'm going to give you two."
How long is the scar?
- I washed it.
- No, it looks different.
- No, just not...
- Do you want me or not?
Some of us are trying to work.
Everybody's putting in,
it's for the Director.
- How much?
- It's optional.
- Rubbish.
- Five marks.
Here's four.
I'm not like these other fellows.
- I have to look after my money.
- Excuse me.
- But aren't you a friend of my daughter?
- No.
Didn't she invite you to go on a
cycling holiday in the mountains?
- No.
- So, the name Rosa means nothing to you?
It seems rude to interrupt,
but we appear to be losing sight
of the job at hand.
The lawyer pays,
the government pays.
- The shops say they are not responsible.
- Well, they normally do.
What did you do with the ink?
Did you save it?
It's not important.
You realise you're taking a risk
being alone in a room with me?
Women can't keep their hands off me,
do you know that?
- It's only a gesture.
- So is that.
Not now.
Does it discommode you in any way,
having one ear? Do you wear glasses?
"Can you or can
you not lead a normal life?
"And since it is firmly apparent that
you can,
"I advise you to go away and lead it."
I was at the opera last night
and it occurred to me...
- Good morning, Head of Department.
- The motorcar.
Head of Department?
Potentially a significant accident
statistic or not?
No, is my instinctive answer.
Still, I'll give it some thought.
- Do.
- Oh, and Head of Department...
Congratulations.
...was bound to be drawn into
the cutter space if it slipped.
In such accidents,
usually several joints
and even whole fingers
were severed. Amen.
My brother-in-law tells me
he is starting a factory.
Can I help him?
Earrings today?
Do they go right through?
You had a hole dug in your ears.
- What courage.
- It's my body.
This is the fellow you want to see.
You have been in the wars.
- Yes, sir.
- Our old friend the mincing machine.
You stupid fool, putting your arm down.
The throat was too long.
The truncheon wouldn't reach.
You have to put your hand down.
Wasn't there a guard on the worm?
I took it off, sir.
Well, then, it serves you right, then,
doesn't it?
In any case you don't belong here,
you should be downstairs, in 272.
I've just come from there.
Go back.
And if they try and send you
somewhere else,
say Dr Kafka says to say
you're not a football.
Yes, sir.
So, having fed himself into his machine,
we now feed him into ours.
Sir...
Have you noticed how, often,
when claimants are telling you
about their accidents, they smile?
Why do they smile?
They're apologising. They feel foolish.
Utterly blameless, yet they feel guilty.
Bricks falling on someone's head.
Do they ever do anything else?
I say, do they ever do anything else?
Yet another firm trying to make out
the fact they had an accident
was sheer accident.
Accidents, as we well know,
are never an accident.
Give us a point.
Get on! Get on!
I thought of Japan.
Bricks don't fall on people there.
They have paper houses.
Indeed they do, they do. Dr Kafka...
Why is everything so heavy?
This chair.
This desk.
The poor floor carrying the burden.
The sheer weight of Prague.
Dr Kafka...
it's no secret
we're losing our Head of Department,
elevated to the fifth floor.
Higher things.
A chance for a modest celebration.
A presentation.
A speech, perhaps?
Excuse me, Head Clerk,
but you have a small smut on your chin.
- Oh.
- Don't be alarmed.
- Well?
- Help!
I must go and put my head
under a circular saw.
Is it my imagination, or do we get more
shit than anybody else?
Of course, there are 400 people
working in this company.
Since only two of them are Jews
and one of them happens to be Dr Kafka,
we get sent a lot of shit.
It's only natural.
I don't seem to be able to trace it.
When did you...
When did you have this accident?
It wasn't exactly an accident. I'm ill.
- Through work.
- Well, I'm ill through work.
We're all ill through that.
My skin's broken out, look.
No, we deal in accidents.
You haven't had an accident.
I get splashed with the dye,
that's an accident.
- It happens all the time.
- So, it's not an accident, is it?
But it's fetched my skin up.
Look, this number here means that
your firm has a policy
that covers factory premises.
It isn't a comprehensive cover
for the firm's employees
- outside those premises.
- Well, he doesn't want a rundown
on the filing system.
Why don't you put your foot
on your own desk?
Because I haven't got any scissors.
- Lunchtime.
- I'm going to have to refer you back.
- It was their battle.
- They're not our pigeon.
Now you've ruined
a perfectly good appetite.
It may clear up.
- It's spreading all the time.
- Hmm.
Somebody said I should see Dr Kafka.
If he's a doctor, he might know.
Ah, he's not that sort of doctor.
It must be the dye,
what else could it be?
I just got engaged to be married.
Whatever it is, the answer's no.
Anyway, he's gone to look at a sawmill.
No, no.
You should know better than this.
It's a borderline case,
he may be interested.
Oh, don't be ridiculous.
Of course he'd be interested.
He's got enough on his plate.
He remarked on my new earrings.
You haven't.
Lovely earrings.
I've put it on his desk.
- Come back tomorrow.
- What I want is an independent
medical examination by a specialist.
It must be the dye!
I put it on his desk.
- I just got engaged.
- So you keep telling me.
Come tomorrow.
I'd started
going to the gym at night.
I didn't want anybody to see my skin.
At the Institute, where I did want
somebody to see my skin,
nobody would look.
I went again and waited.
Do you hear that?
Because I can hear a river.
I never used to be able to hear a river.
They say, "Well,
a river's nice to hear."
Not in your own head, it isn't.
First thing I'm going to get
is some new chair covers.
Delayed concussion.
How long have I been in this department?
Four... I thought it was five years.
I thought it was five years,
but it can't be.
Because when the Head Clerk
wants someone to make a presentation
to the Director, does he ask me?
No, he doesn't.
He asks Dr Kafka, who's only been here
one year.
So maybe I haven't
been here five years,
maybe it only seems like five years.
Maybe I only came here yesterday.
Maybe I don't work here at all.
Well, we'll see about that
because I am now going to start
making my presence felt.
Docket, show me, come on.
Docket.
Docket. Docket.
Well, you don't belong here for a start.
- I was told.
- You mustn't believe what you're told.
Not in this place. I was told this was
going to be a job with prospects.
I don't care what you were told.
This is a P-406.
It is not our pigeon.
Out. Out. Out. Out.
You've no business here, either. Out.
- Out. Out.
- I'm supposed to see Dr Kafka.
Dr Kafka is a busy man.
Dr Kafka has factories to inspect.
Dr Kafka has a speech to prepare.
Out! Out! Out! Out! Out!
Out! Out! Out! Out! Out!
Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out!
Back, madam!
Back to where you came from!
Out! Out! Out! Out!
Someone's on the warpath.
Charles.
I want to see this young man.
He's a dye worker, some sort of eczema.
Gone. I've just sent him away.
Ah.
He wasn't our responsibility.
I'm sure you're right.
You're always right.
Incidentally,
I've been landed with a speech
of farewell for the Head of Department,
I was wondering, could you give me
a pointer or two?
Happy to.
How's Mother?
She's well.
- Very well.
- Good, good.
About this dye worker,
can you retrieve him?
Uh...
I think I fancy a bit of
a promenade myself.
452. Next!
I've got it. I've got my pay!
I've got it. I've got it.
I can't believe it. I've got it.
I've got it. I've got it.
I've got my name on it. I've got it.
452.
- To what do we owe this pleasure?
- We've lost a claimant.
- Inquiries said they'd sent him up here.
- I haven't seen him.
You're talking to someone who's just
received a summons to the fifth floor.
If he surfaces, point him back upstairs,
would you?
I'll do the same for you sometime.
Can I have that in writing?
He said, "You got that fast
in the loom?"
He said, "Well, you're lucky."
He said, "If I'd had to take it off
in the theatre,
"it couldn't get any cleaner than that."
Then he said, "You're fortunate in
another respect." I said, "Yes?"
He said, "You're an extrovert."
He said,
"You got the right attitude of mind."
I said, "I have."
It's a bit unsightly,
but I'm not incommoded.
In some respects, the reverse.
More room in the bed,
more scope for manoeuvre.
I haven't noticed the wife complaining.
Mind you, it's a wonder
I didn't lose more than a leg.
Mind you, that was no cradle
on the shaft.
After I had me accident,
I said to the foreman,
"You haven't got a leg to stand on."
He said, "You can talk."
He said, "They'll claim you were drunk."
I said, "Drunk? Pull the other one."
He said, "What other one?"
I said, "Precisely."
Oh, you have to laugh. Anyway...
- last lap.
- End in sight.
Where will you go tomorrow, eh?
Where will you go?
Won't know you're born.
It's a way of life.
You're used to people coming and going.
It's our big day.
Keep it down. Keep it down.
Here, yeah. Sit this side.
More leg room.
- I say, this brings back memories.
- Eh?
- I say, this brings back memories.
- Oh, my goodness me.
I'm wanting a certificate
to see the doctor.
- What doctor?
- Their doctor.
You haven't seen the doc...
Hey, hey!
- He hasn't even seen the doctor.
- He hasn't seen the doctor.
Keep it down! Keep it down!
- How long have you been coming?
- Today.
This is your first... Listen, it's taken
me six months to get this far.
It's taken me a year.
Not every day?
All I want is to be a normal person.
Keep it down. Keep it down.
I went three months,
never heard a thing.
You haven't assembled any documents.
You've got to assemble your documents.
- I just want to see the doctor.
- This isn't the doctor.
This is the tribunal.
It's the panel, is this.
You don't belong here.
- What should I do?
- Well, don't ask me!
We don't want them upsetting you,
you've no business here.
Now, clear off. Go on.
- Go on, get out.
- Clear off!
- You want it plain sailing. Bugger off.
- Bugger off. Go on.
Next!
- Go on.
- Get out!
Well?
I made a good impression.
How many are there?
Three. One doesn't speak,
just looks.
Looks?
I was missing my birth certificate.
One of them said could I give them
my word that I had been born?
- They all laughed.
- They laughed?
They said now
to try and lead a normal life.
All right, all right.
Disallowed.
They always tell you at the last stage,
they always tell you.
Now, make sure
you've all got your documents
and that they're in order.
Are you on this list?
Not interested.
Not interested, list only.
Out!
Where do you want?
Oh they'll take that in here, yes.
My documents have just gone in.
They're studying them now. Possibly.
Hello, Theresa.
Their dog's poorly,
she's got a lot on her mind.
Sure I shouldn't tell them I'm here?
No, you'll go to the bottom of the pile.
The girl said last week my file
was taken out by the assistant manager.
Of course, I know them all here,
I'm like one of the family.
Sheila.
Sheila.
I'd like to have worked
in a place like this.
Sedentary occupation
but with some coming and going.
Banter, whip-rounds.
Relations between the sexes.
Sat at home is no game, is it?
Come away.
- They're just digesting the facts.
- Get off!
No, you're young, you don't understand.
Look, I could be stuck here all day.
There's nobody here.
- Come and see.
- No.
I'll wait till I'm called.
There's nobody there.
- Look!
- Don't shout.
There's offices everywhere.
Leave off, I'm a woman!
I've had a head injury.
- It's an empty room.
- Stop it.
- You just can't see.
- It's empty.
- Patience.
- Look at it.
- Empty!
- Look.
- These are important.
- They're not important.
- They're rubbish.
- That's wicked.
Wicked, you're not supposed to hit me.
- You're mad!
- Everybody is mad!
You're wrong in the head.
These are important,
these are to do with my case.
- You're mad!
- You're young.
You don't know!
Ignorance of the facts.
We all become immune to it.
You've got to keep track.
You don't understand.
Breaking the left arm,
causing widespread abrasions
to the chest and abdomen,
the scars from which
you can plainly see.
Well, not all that plainly, surely.
Quite plainly.
Look. Raise your arms again.
Yes.
Yes.
Go on, shall I?
She reports some loss of feeling
on her left side.
Of course she does, she's not stupid.
Some dozy general practitioner
most probably has said to her,
"Do you have any loss of feeling
on your left side?"
And lo and behold, she suddenly finds
she's got some loss of feeling
on her left side.
Her doctor reports there to have been
some personality change.
Probably the same doctor.
She's subject to
violent changes of mood,
incapable of sustained attention...
I don't believe any of this.
I beg your pardon?
Has it ever occurred to you
that everyone who comes
before this panel
has, prior to their accident, been of a
sunny and equable disposition,
capable of long periods
of sustained attention?
Unvisited by headaches
or indeed any infirmity at all?
The mind alert,
the body in perfect order.
A paragon of health.
Take this young woman.
Previously a cheerful soul,
she is now said to be anxious
and depressed, so...
previously an optimist,
she is now a pessimist.
Is that such a bad thing?
One could say that this accident
has brought her to her senses
rather than deprived her of them.
She now takes a dim view of the world.
So do I.
She can't keep her mind
on the matter in hand,
nor can I.
She winces when she looks
in the mirror, so do I.
- She's crying.
- So am I.
We cannot compensate people
for being cast out of paradise.
All these sheaves of reports
are saying is
"I didn't know how lucky I was
till this happened."
So, now they do know,
they have achieved wisdom,
and a degree of self-knowledge.
They should be paying us, not we them.
We appear to have a visitor.
What are you doing here?
I want someone to tell me
what's wrong with me.
You have no business here.
- This is outrageous.
- The idea.
- Get out.
- Not until someone tells me where to go.
Call someone, call the doorman.
- Doorman!
- Sir.
Mad!
Mad!
Mad, sir.
- Mad.
- Stop it, you animal.
- You're not on a farmyard.
- Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
Let me see that paper.
Come with me. Any excuse to get away
from this collective idiocy.
Idiocy!
Come along.
I hope you're all word perfect
on your personality changes.
It's a wicked world,
it's a wicked, wicked world.
I have lost my faith.
Doctor loses faith,
doctor goes way of other doctors.
It just needs one person,
just one to come before that panel
and say, "Doctor, since suffering this
grievous affliction, I am a new man,
"a better person.
"The loss of my hand
has been an education.
"Blinded, I can now see."
Instead of which, it's,
"How much is it worth?"
Doctor!
How much do you think
this is worth, eh?
How much is whatever you've got worth?
I'm not a doctor any more,
I'm an accountant.
Is there anyone who cares?
Journey's end.
Ah, the lost sheep.
Blessed are the maimed
for they shall be compensated.
Come on.
Don't you sometimes just long
to see one single able-bodied person?
Someone who doesn't lack an arm here
or a finger there?
Who doesn't pull up their shirt
without wanting to reveal
some frightful burn?
Somebody normal?
Your lost sheep.
- Oh, take a seat.
- I was here this morning.
I've been all over,
I was supposed to see Dr Kafka.
Dr Kafka has gone home.
- Does that mean I've to come back?
- His hours are eight until two.
You've reached the beginning.
You're about to start.
- You've been allowed to enter the race.
- Look, I'm covered in scale.
You're not.
Your face is perfectly normal,
don't exaggerate.
This gives you an appointment
with the institute doctor.
They're having public clinics
on Thursdays.
He will look at you
and decide if this...
skin complaint is anything to do
with an accident at work.
I've told you,
I haven't had an accident.
So why go on?
Stop now before it's too late.
No new process? No new chemicals?
Nothing new in your life?
I've just got engaged.
Any accident there?
I'd written to my father.
He was a peasant, a farm labourer in...
Well, it's now Germany.
He came to Prague.
I think of my father then as an old man.
But he was younger than I am now
He had remedies of his own.
All in all
it's a pretty mixed bag,
but slanting on the whole
in the direction of injury at work.
I've got some teasers for the people
in the fourth year
and also some interesting examples of
occupational disease.
Increasing industrialisation means
that this field of medicine
is bound to expand.
I imagine that's why
many of you are here.
Physical conditions,
some of which you will see,
take time to declare themselves.
And I would ask you to remember
that we are seeing today
casualties of conditions in the industry
of 20, even 30 years ago.
I'm a miracle.
I've got a hole in me stomach.
They watched the food passing through.
He's had an article written about him.
Show him your article.
And doubtless in 30 or 40 years' time,
when I hope I shall be
safely tucked up in my grave...
He's famous with doctors.
...will still be stood here.
Somebody came from Paris
to see him, and they paid.
Shh!
Nowadays, the mesh may be wide.
But if you believe in progress,
which I do not,
the mesh will get smaller
and the number of people
suffering from industrial injury
will dwindle.
But it won't, of course,
because there will be new industries
and new industries mean new diseases.
You have chosen
a wise profession, gentlemen.
Doctors will never be unemployed.
Now, could we have
our first conundrum, please?
Come on.
Disrobe, will you?
Mmm-hmm.
Well?
- Yes?
- Is this a form of psoriasis?
Wonderful.
Anybody got any brilliant ideas
about the aetiology?
The patient is in no discomfort.
Infected areas don't itch, not sore.
Well, come on, come on!
What sort of questions
should we be asking?
Um, what age is the patient?
How old are you?
- 26.
- 26.
- Married or single?
- Single.
Is it venereal in origin?
- Did you get it from a tart?
- No.
Patient says no.
Patient probably right.
- Well?
- Could it be nervous in origin?
Are you asking me
or are you asking the patient?
We know what he does,
he works in dye works.
But what sort of fellow is he?
Is he nervous? Highly strung?
Cheerful? Not cheerful?
Look, what are we
supposed to be doing here?
Who are you? I mean, I thought you
were supposed to be medical students.
What is it?
What have I done?
Give me something,
give me something for it.
Stop it.
It's all over my body!
Why?
Why?
Gentlemen will note
agitation of patient.
You will need to assess
the degree of proper agitation
due to patient's physical condition
and behaviour,
as distinct from evidence of
degree of neurotic instability.
Next patient, please.
Some of you might say that there is
nothing wrong with this patient.
Once upon a time, she met
with a slight accident at work,
a box fell on her head.
She took a few days off
and she felt none the worse.
But then she heard
that in this enlightened age,
there is compensation for those
who have suffered injury at work.
Is she entitled to this, she wonders?
And the wondering turns to worrying.
And she begins to lie awake at night,
suffering from headaches.
She is increasingly unhappy.
And so begins her quest
for compensation.
But for what?
Not for the injury,
for she scarcely suffered one.
And yet she's not malingering,
for the headaches are real.
And to those of you who say
there is no injury,
therefore there can be no compensation,
she can say, "But I was not like this
before my accident.
"I had no quest.
"Looking for what is wrong with me
"is what is wrong with me."
The good doctor
didn't want you to feel left out.
And the cigar?
In my four districts,
people fall off the scaffolding
as if they were drunk.
Or they fall into the machines.
All the beads topple.
All embankments give way,
all ladders slide.
Whatever people carry up falls down,
whatever they hand down,
they stumble over.
And I have a headache
from all those girls
in the porcelain factories
who incessantly throw themselves
down stairs
with mountains of dishware.
Why do you work here?
This is a terrible place.
It's a place of torture.
One has to do something.
I need your papers,
for your file.
I don't want money!
I want it to be given a name!
How can I ever get rid of it
if it doesn't have a name?
Voilà, an accident.
The Director guards us,
the workers of
the Workers' Accident Institute,
against our own institutional accidents.
And I don't mean falling over the holes
in the linoleum on the bottom corridor.
Maintenance, please note.
I mean blindness to genuine need.
Deafness to a proper appeal
and hardness of heart.
These are our particular
professional risks,
for which there are no safety guards,
no grids, no protective clothing,
only a scrupulous and
a vigilant humanity.
A toast, then.
To the benevolent umpire
in our absurd games.
Our firm but kindly father,
to whom without fear
we can always turn as we do now,
and say, "Herr Director."
Herr Director.
- He can talk.
- Of course he can talk.
But I can talk.
You haven't heard me talk.
Haven't I?
- Not in a formal situation.
- Does that make a difference?
I'd have told him.
I'd have used the opportunity
to let them know
exactly what's wrong with this place.
Yes.
- Yes?
- The dye worker.
Not again, really!
Silence!
Please, sit down.
I've been told you're kind.
I've been told you're the one to see.
They say you're a human being.
No.
I do a very good imitation
of a human being.
You're harder to see than anybody.
There has to be a procedure, a system.
Is that so terrible?
What did you want to say to me?
There is nothing to say.
It is a hopeless case.
People coming in wanting money.
I don't want money.
Nobody ever does.
I sometimes wonder
what they think they're doing here,
it comes as such a shock.
"You mention money to me
when I've lost my precious fingers?"
"All my treasured auburn hair,
gone up in smoke
"and you ask me how much it's worth?"
Some things are beyond money.
Really?
I've yet to find them.
We'd all rather have our health
than the money.
Correction.
We'd all rather have our health
and the money.
You are asking for a justice
that doesn't exist in the world.
And not only you, more people.
More people every year.
A man works in the carding room
of a cotton mill.
Dust everywhere, the air, dust.
Taken ill.
Examined by the company doctor,
unfit for work, discharged.
Nothing unusual in that.
Except...
...somebody decides to put in a P48,
a claim for compensation,
just as you did.
Not applicable, either of them,
not accidents.
Quite. But bear with me.
Take this mill worker.
No beam has fallen on his head,
no bottle has exploded in his eye,
he has not got his shirt
caught in the shaft
and been taken round.
All that has happened is that
he has been inhaling
cotton dust for some years.
And day by day this cotton dust
has crept into his lungs
but so slowly, so gradually,
that it cannot be called an accident.
But suppose our lungs
were not internal organs?
Suppose they were not locked away
in the chest,
and suppose, further,
they were not made of flesh
but of glass,
or something like glass,
not yet invented,
something pliable.
And thus the effect of each breath
could be seen.
The deposit of each intake of air
calculated, weighed, even.
What would we say then?
As we saw the dust accumulate,
the passages clog,
the scalaries close down,
as cell by cell these lungs hardened,
withered,
died.
Hmm?
But that still wouldn't be an accident.
You can't conduct an insurance company
on suppositions like that.
Can you?
This man has no claim because
he is suffering from a condition.
But isn't a condition
the result of many small accidents
that we cannot see or record?
So he's living, or dying.
There is no alternative but to breathe.
And this man,
a young man,
so regularly doused in dye,
he has begun to grow a second skin.
Isn't that an accident?
A long, slow accident?
People will be wanting compensation
for being alive next.
I do understand.
What good is that to me?
You can't do anything.
You're worse than them, not better.
You say you understand.
Well, if you understand
and you don't help,
you're wicked.
You're evil.
Don't speak like that to Dr Kafka.
He has a university degree.
I don't want money.
I'm not offering you money.
I know of a factory that is starting,
it will be in a month or two.
- This is a terrible place.
- Is it?
I always forget that,
I find it almost cosy.
But then, I'm just an official,
I'm accustomed to office air.
If you cannot find a job,
I may be able to help.
Don't expect anything too wonderful,
it's very, very rudimentary.
Well, one factory is
very much like another.
But why am I telling you?
You've got expertise.
You know about factories.
You've seen plenty.
It's not as if I'm asking you
to go into something blindfold.
And here, shipments could
come in and out.
You see...
You see, it's ideal.
I know I can succeed, Franz.
Do you ever have that feeling?
Only when I'm very depressed.
Father!
Franz, Franz!
People to see you in the office.
Coughing still?
No!
This is something to cough about.
Three more orders this morning,
I'm run off my feet!
- So, you're still interested in the job?
- Yes, very much so.
- You look well.
- Yes, I'm better.
My skin's cleared completely.
A miracle.
Why is that, do you think?
I don't know, I've never been so well.
This is my fiancée,
Beatrice.
Let me show you.
- So what is it you're producing here?
- Building materials.
Mainly asbestos.
Thank you. You saved my life.
It's so long ago.
Do you think it may have been
that factory?
It's possible.
Who knows?
I was happy working there,
though it was only for a year or two.
The place went bankrupt.
They say no good deed goes unpunished.
He worked there too.
Dr Kafka, part-time.
So I suppose the same thing
could've happened to him.
You weren't to know. He wasn't to know.
You breathed, that's all you did wrong.
You breathed in the wrong place.
I've a feeling he died.
But he was a Jew,
so he would have died anyway.
I know the name.
The place sold fancy goods.
I bought some slippers there once.
I wonder how long they're going to leave
that body out there?
I heard him,
battering at some door last night,
begging to be let in,
somebody was after him.
When the door was opened,
he thought he was safe.
But they were there first.
Well, take care.