Franz Kafka asked Max Brod, his lifelong friend, to burn all his papers after his death. He died in 1924, but Brod kept the papers. Some he published, and some he took to Israel when the Nazis invaded Prague in 1939. He kept publishing some of the papers from Israel. He asked his secretary and mistress, Esther Hoffe, to pass the papers to an Israeli public archive after his death. When he died in 1968, though, she started selling the papers. When she died in 2007, some of the papers remained in the hands of Hoffe’s daughters. The case has been with the Israeli court for five years. The verdict came only a few days ago, and the remaining papers will finally go to a public archive. And all this due to Brod’s failure to follow his lifelong friend’s last wishes. Alternatively, all this because Kafka failed to burn all his papers before his death. Come to think of it, perhaps Kafka wanted Brod not to burn the papers after all. Perhaps he actually hoped the story would eventually end up in court, as well as linger there for as long as possible. With some luck, the trial would turn endless.