Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

The girl at the front desk, thin, slight, and with swarthy skin, perhaps part gypsy from Slovakia, mistaking me for a businessman, asked if I wished to be awakened at a certain hour.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I’ll get up on my own.”

As soon as my head sank into the soft pillow — so good to rest, that warm featherbed over me — I fell into a deep, anesthesized sleep. The last thought that flitted through me was, I know I won’t get up at six thirty. Not only wouldn’t I be able to, I had no desire to.

I woke late. I knew it was late but didn’t realize how late it was until I look at my little portable square clock, which I turned several ways to make sure I was reading the numbers correctly. It was eleven; I had even missed the buffet breakfast. I was so drugged with sleep and exhaustion, a potent chemical mix, that at first I didn’t know where I was and why I was wherever I was. Then, slowly, like mixed letters of words reassembling, ym eadh yslowl cleared. 11:05 a.m. I still couldn’t believe it. I usually get up at 6:30 every day. Well, I guess it wasn’t in the script that I be in the synagogue at seven my first morning in Prague.

A quick, cool shower woke me. I’ll go to the Altneushul tomorrow. First, a walk to the huge Old Town Square — the essence of Prague, like the Eiffel Tower to Paris or Piazza San Marco to Venice — which was just a few minutes away from the quiet, cobble-stoned street my hotel was on.

I took a deep breath, breathing in light and air. Finally, in Prague. The spacious square opened before me like a flower. At one side was the famous clock tower, and nearby — according to my map — in the same building where the K family had once lived at the end of the nineteenth century, the K Museum.

I looked around, at the throngs of people, at the buildings. Prague had its arms outspread. The communists gone. The city, one of the most beautiful — if not the most beautiful — in Europe was magically back to its former glory. Under the communists, as I told Jiri in New York, greyness covered the city like a mold. But now sunshine was everywhere. Lambent in the darkest corners. At night; in shadows; inside houses; within clouds. On people’s faces. Light.

Books always had Prague as a center of intrigue, filled with double and triple agents who had so many presumed loyalties that when they woke in the morning they didn’t know whose side they were on. I had my own intrigue. I was supposed to meet a man whose name I forgot, who would recommend me to other people whose names I didn’t know. All of a sudden, perhaps because of my febrile imagination and the sense of the fantastic inspired by the great writer of Prague, perhaps because of the pen that spoke in guillotined words, I thought of myself as an agent bringing secret messages, phrases in a language I didn’t know, an innocent pawn in a three-dimensional chessboard bringing word to the king in his castle.

I saw conspiracies, hidden messages, everywhere, as if all of Prague was a CIA outpost or a set for a spy movie, which was strange, for I didn’t watch spy movies. Jiri and Betty were part of this too, and the secret message I had intercepted was “nepa tara glos”—not too old. Intercepted, yes. Even deciphered. But to whom do I bring my prize? And what if “nepa tara glos” were not the secret password, but “nepa tara pilus”? For I remember Betty in the hospital room throwing me a significant glance when she said either “nepa tara glos” or “nepa tara pilus.” But which was the right phrase? Maybe both together were the magic combination.

On the square, I saw at least a score of college-age youngsters and a few older people walking around carrying placards on their chests and backs advertising the many concerts offered daily in Prague. They reminded me of the men who hang around New York’s Eighth Avenue and Fifth Avenue touting bargain leather jackets or bargain diamond rings.

One girl in particular attracted my attention. As I told Betty, I’m not looking, but I do keep my eyes open. When I saw that girl’s face my eyes were open. She had a classically oval face, dark eyes, impeccable skin, and black hair covered by a navy-blue beret worn at a fetching angle. I imagined her at the mirror, tilting the beret this way — no, that way — until she had the proper slant. That lovely blue beret, the crowning touch, set her apart, made her look like a cover girl. Does the hat make the face, or does the face add allure to the hat?

But look down and see the poster she carries for tomorrow night’s Dvořák concert, featuring his Piano Quintet in A major, at the great Dvořák Hall. Perhaps a hidden message to me. A major. A major something awaited me. If only I could find it. First morning on the square. Or maybe it was a message to meet someone at a major location. The box office perhaps. Another poster told of an all-Vivaldi concert. The RV number of the Vivaldi composition might be the first three digits of a phone number I was to call. But what if it was my own hotel? And what if I answered?

I ate lunch at a vegetarian restaurant at the edge of the square, then wandered around in the square itself, delighted with the little men moving up in the huge clock as the hour struck. I made my way through the press of people and again I saw the girl in the blue beret. Aside from that little fantasy I was concocting about secret messages — I don’t believe in omens and oppose superstition — seeing such a lovely girl a second time my first day in Prague made me happy. I considered it a blessing. She must have recognized me, for she smiled at me. I noted the place and time of the concert.

Suddenly, another guy wearing a placard for a competing concert for tomorrow night approached her. I thought they would bump into each other — but no, they joined forces and marched toward me as if a mini parade were staged just for me. I looked at the fellow’s sign. It read: MAJOR DISCOVERY: HITHERTO UNKNOWN SYMPHONY BY REICHA.

The two stopped. He stood to the left of the girl in the blue beret. The message was clear. From left to right I read the message directed at me. Now I could no longer doubt it, or think it was chance, coincidence. A chill rolled down my back. The words flashed in black and white, but they could very well have been in color too: A Major, Major Discovery.

Then, their mission accomplished, the two turned, took two steps forward, and parted ways.

I stopped for a moment to absorb what was happening. I took a deep breath. The fresh air of that mild, sunny morning entered my lungs. Next stop, the K Museum. No, I hadn’t forgotten the Altneushul. First of all, it was too late. And anyway, K, you should know by now, was at the top of my list.

First things first. Which you can read any way you like. Forward, backward, or upside down.

I went into the little K Museum, saw what I saw (more on that later), and stepped out of the K Museum. An encounter outside the door was to have more meaning for me than what I had just seen inside.

An elderly gentleman, tall and thin, with slightly hollowed cheeks and a prominent Adam’s apple approached me. He too had just emerged from the museum. At first I thought it might be a beggar. The hair on his unshaven cheeks was two days old. I couldn’t tell an old man’s neglect from a growing beard. On the other hand, his jacket and tie were surely not a beggar’s garb.

“Excuse me,” he said in heavily accented English. “I just saw you upstairs on the second floor, is that not correct?”

I felt my cheeks, my lips, stiffen, the normal reaction when a beggar or other person you want to avoid approaches you. Before I had a chance to speak, he added:

“It is nice to see someone so enamored of K. I was listening to you speaking to your friend—”