Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

I nodded.

“Do you want to see the goylem?” he asked softly, almost seductively.

I didn’t know what to say. Perhaps the shamesh had taken a liking to me and, seeing the disgraceful reception I had just gotten, pitied me. In compensation, he would show me the legendary attic that no one in modern times had seen. And then I could bring my camera and photograph the place where the golem had Iain. Wonderful! My Prague film was taking shape nicely. K’s son; the little museum; the golem; the attic.

“Well?” the shamesh said.

I didn’t want to answer too quickly. I pretended I was thinking it over. Even faked a thinking pose by holding my chin with thumb and forefinger.

“All right,” I said languidly, desultorily, as if bored, as if it were, if not the last thing I wanted to do, then at least next to last.

“You don’t sound very entuziastish,” the shamesh mingled English and Yiddish.

“How can one be enthusiastic about a legend? If, for instance, I asked you, Do you want to see Moses…?”

“Him I see all the time. Every time I read the Torah I see him…”

“All right, let me rephrase the question. If I asked you, do you want to see Sholom Aleichem, or, closer to home, K, would you jump up and down for joy?”

The shamesh — I wondered how old he was. Eighty? Ninety? — put his hands on his hips and regarded me. A clever look sparked in his rheumy eyes. He had to be clever, serving as a shamesh here for probably decades, under the communists who, besides their anti-Semitism and anti-Israel Soviet party-line stance, were also anti-religious.

“I see you’re a smart yungerman… But tourists always come up to me and ask me, privately, quietly…” Here he put his hand over his lips and said softly, “and they look this way and that way as if on the lookout for spies. Some even slip a folded five-dollar bill or ten-dollar bill into my hand or my pocket and say, ‘Take me to the attic. Please. It’s my life’s wish. My dream, ever since I read about the Maharal and the goylem he made. So, please, please, take me, I’ll pay anything.’ I look at the ten-dollar bill and say, ‘This is anything? Beh! This is nothing. Less than nothing.’ Embarrassed, they say: ‘I’ll add to it. Here.’ And they give me a twenty-dollar bill, which I give back. Because I don’t take bribes. ‘All right,’ I say. ‘I’ll show you the goylem.’ And they, their faces are in rapture, as if they’ve seen the Divine Presence at Sinai. And they don’t know the surprise that’s coming.”

“You actually show them the golem?” I say, astonished.

“I actually do. I tell them I show the golem and I show the golem. I promise and I keep my promise. I am the shamesh.”

He stopped. Took a breath.

“You want to know how? Sure you want to know how. Here is how.”

The little wizened shamesh put his hand into his jacket pocket and withdrew a little mirror, the sort women carry in their purses. He held it in front of my face.

“Na! Here! Look! I tell them. Here, in front you, is the goylem. Der emesser goylem . The true, the real, the authentic goylem. Now you’ve seen him, is what I tell them. You wanted to see the goylem and now you’ve seen the goylem.” And the shamesh laughed merrily.

Was he reprising for me what he had done for countless others, or was it at me he was now aiming his jibe? He laughed with such joy it seemed he was laughing at me as he was laughing at the foolishness of people who finally got to see the goylem they sought. Still, his little act was so subtle, full of subterfuge, I couldn’t figure him out.

But I laughed too, and saw myself laughing at the golem in the little glass. The shamesh, pleased with himself, now put the mirror back into his jacket pocket.

“A marvelous ploy. Terrific. Original. Clever. Unusual. It has the making of legend. It deserves to be filmed…I’ll film you. I’ll make a movie — I’m a producer of documentary films — a movie of this shul and I’ll film you doing just this.”

Another great scene for my film, I thought. The scenes were just piling up, one after another. Falling into my lap. And I hadn’t even taken out my camera.

The shamesh took a comb out of another pocket, looked at the little mirror again, combed his hair and patted it down.

“I suppose you want to know where the attic is,” he said, addressing the mirror. Then he looked down at his shoes. Careful, I said. But I didn’t heed my own warning and didn’t hear the ambiguity in his voice.

So this time I didn’t play coy or hard to get. At once I said:

“Yes.”

“And you also want to see the goylem.”

“Not a second time,” I said with a smile. “Once is enough.”

The shamesh too smiled.

“Ah! Now you sound entuziastish.”

“Yes.”

“Follow me, yungerman.”

We entered the shul again through the anteroom. I saw the other men holding their tallis bags standing in clusters chatting. The man who had let me in nodded to me. The morning service was over but the after-sound of prayers still hovered in the air.

“Look up,” the shamesh said. “Do you see the vaulted arches?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how high up it is?”

I looked up, saw the huge, five-part vaulted pillars, purposely architected so that it would not look like a cross. I saw the banner that King Charles V had presented to the congregation in 1357 as a symbol of their independence. No conquerer of Prague had ever removed the flag.

“Um, I’d say seventy feet.”

“Not bad…ninety-two feet. Now follow me once more.” Again we went out into the anteroom and made a semicircular right turn. Now we were in the tiny women’s section, which had only a few chairs and no visibility except for some window-like openings chiseled into the deep stones, maybe fourteen inches high and seven inches wide. The openings were cut into the three-foot-thick stone walls and looked into the men’s section. How uncomfortable it must be, I thought, for women to pray here.

“Look up. Up up up. Do you see doors? A staircase? Steps?… Look…look…do you see anything?”

“No.”

“You want to look in the mirror again?”

“No.”

“Now you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Is there an attic up there?”

I felt like Schweik. I was itching to say, Yes.

“Do I get a prize if I answer correctly?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“A trip to the attic…. So what’s the correct answer? Is there an attic up there?”

“No.”

“Right. You get a prize. I’m apprising you there is no attic. There was no attic. There is no attic. There will be no attic. The Al-tnigh-shul never had an attic. It’s a bobbe-mayse , a legend, like the goylem… Now, when will you film me? I want to look good, to get a haircut…when?”

Again the shamesh took out his little mirror, looked at himself, fussed a bit with some wispy tufts of white hair.

“I haven’t set up my schedule yet. As you know, I just got here. But I’ll be in touch with you.”

“Wait a minute, yungerman.”

I stopped.

“What’s your Hebrew name? Next time you come I’ll give you an aliya.”

“Amschl ben Moshe.”

The shamesh gave a start. His head and torso were thrust back. “I haven’t heard that name for a long time. But do not worry, I’ll remember it. Amschl ben Moshe.”

As soon as the shamesh left, Yossi golem came up to me, shaking his head, his lips compressed, a look of disdain on the left side of his face.

“Disgraceful. Those asses. No consideration. And they call themselves God-fearing, observant Jews. Did you see the way they laughed at you, derided you, made a mockery of you? Rocking back and forth in laughter like metronomes. Please accept my apologies on their behalf. But let’s forget them. Back to business. I’ll try to help you, for you were sent to me by my dear friend, almost a kinsman, Jiri of blessed memory. Now I’m going to send you to another family friend, her name is Eva, and she’ll be helpful too. She has lived here all her life and knows people. No doubt that’s the person Jiri wanted you to meet.”