Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

That’s what I would have done if I were K’s son and wanted to share this bombshell with a man I’d just met at the K museum who was crazy about K. But first I would test that someone, determine if he really understood and appreciated K’s writings and if he deserved to be privy to such amazing information. I wouldn’t play with him or tease him or draw the revelation out inordinately, as heroes of folk tales sometimes do, or as an older woman does in initiating a young lover into the joys of lovemaking. But if I were K’s son, I would not rush. I would bide my time, balancing deliberation and speed.

I must say it felt rather good — for a few moments it made me feel very special — nurturing this fantasy in my mind, turning the tables on Karoly Graf, I becoming K’s son and he becoming the layman, the doc filmmaker who loved K and who wandered into the K Museum in Prague and was soon to become the possessor of a stunning secret. A secret that Karoly Graf had revealed how many times to how many people? I reveled in the delights of my fantasy, the secret that I possessed and was so willing to share with a select few — hopefully not like Karoly Graf, who no doubt shared it with the unselect many.

Too bad I couldn’t film the delights of my fantasy. Oh, how if the situation were reversed, what a time I would have had in concocting a delicious scenario. Not only would I be K’s son, I would create several other children, some living in Prague, others elsewhere. And, why not? yes, an entire family. And my revelation would not be a simple declarative sentence: I am K’s son. My revelation, offered slowly, gradually, would be the equivalent of a complex sentence, with inner and outer clauses, not necessarily balanced, but as nuanced and ambiguous and multilayered as K’s prose. And then that astonishing many-phrased revelation could be reduced like a rich broth into the mouth-watering gravy of a crisp, declarative sentence with only subject, verb, and possessive:

I am K’s son.

But I’m confident that some day via magnetic resonance, pulse echoes, neurotechnology, or other nano innovations, it will be possible to record thoughts, mental images, scenes running across the screen of one’s imagination and preserve them on film.

Maybe even video dreams.

Terrific. I dreamt impossible dreams but hadn’t yet pressed a button on my camera.

And while I was thinking of making my own film, I felt that someone else was filming me.

Instead of a taxi from Karoly Graf’s faux apartment house back to my hotel I took the modern, comfortable Metro. It was there I changed my mind. About what? Tell you in a minute. But it was inspired by what I saw in the subway car. There, everyone, men and women, seemed to be a golem. It was as if I had landed on the stage of a theater company and everyone was practising how to mime a golem. In the New York City subway system, aside from the nerve-wracking noise of the cars, passengers spoke in dozens of languages. Some to each other, some to themselves. Some sang out, as if performing, as if waiting to be paid. Others mumbled to themselves as though praying by rote. No one kept still. Even those that kept still, kept still noisily, in harmony with the racket of the rails. The cacophony was so thick you could package it.

But here in Prague, silence. The cars rode on rubber wheels; no one spoke. Nevertheless, in the silence I heard words I couldn’t understand. The passengers had stiff, immobile faces that reminded me of the right side of Yossi golem’s face. And then, just then, at that moment, I thought of the mobile, expressive face of the girl in the blue beret. And that’s when I changed my mind. At the last minute. About tonight’s concert.

Why should I sit at home and mope over my lack of assertiveness? When she asked me to buy a ticket, I should have said, I’ll buy a ticket, even two, if you’ll come with me. A left-handed way to ask a girl out, ass backwards, if you will, but it could have worked. Now she was going — with my ticket — and I was staying home. What a date! I had, without even thinking or planning it, invented an entirely new, heretofore unknown, social engagement: the half date.

Would you like to go to tonight’s concert? asks the hero. Why, sure, replies the heroine, cheeks flushed, all — as they say — agog.* Okay, then, is the hero’s retort, Here, buy yourself a ticket. A scene out of an absurdist comedy, no? Or the Masochist’s Handbook.

Seeing those silent golemic faces, and contrasting them with the lively, animated face of the girl in the blue beret, jolted me. That’s when I made up my mind. I was the golem. I was like those people in the car. And I resolved I would no longer be a golem.

I’ll go look for her. I’ll tell her I cancelled my appointment and want to invite her to — wait a minute! I already invited her. How can I invite her again? Well, then — in this topsy-turvy half-date script— I would tell her I’m inviting myself to join her at the concert I already invited her to, that is, gave her a ticket to. That is, if tickets were still available. And suppose only balcony seats were left? She’d sit with my ticket in the orchestra (it was orchestra, I saw, but I didn’t note where) and I’d sit upstairs. Hey, credit me with yet another brand-new social engagement. That’s two in two days. The split date. Still, I was curious to see if she’d agree. Split, or half, if she said, Yes, I’d be delighted. Delighted! The understatement of the decade.

So I went out to the huge square to look for the girl in the blue beret, postponing my visit to Yossi’s friend, Eva, for another day. I inspected every one of the two dozen placard-holders as I went from one end of the square to the other. Like a pawn on my imaginary chessboard I went up one line, down the next like a castle. I crisscrossed the board like a bishop; moved up, down, and across like a queen. No check, no mate, no luck. If I was black there was no white. If white, no black. I couldn’t find the girl in the blue beret.

Perhaps some of the placard-holders would know. I approached a tall blonde and asked her if she spoke English.

“A small.”

“I’m looking,” I said slowly, “for one of your colleagues. A girl from Georgia.”

She shook her head. “Not knowing.”

“A blue beret,” I said, “is what she wore.”

Again she shook her head.

“There is so multitude of we here, we who carry plakat for concert. The turnunder of workers is grand. What name is she called by?”

“I do not know,” I said, “how she is called by name.”

“I am regretful.”

Was the blonde sorry that I never got to know the girl’s name, or that she didn’t know her and can’t help me?

“How can someone disappear from this square just like that?”

I thought of snapping my fingers but feared she might misinterpret the gesture.

“Also I regretful not knowing this.” Then she said softly through almost tight lips, “Make large favor me. Speedily, please, for my overling draws near, so please farewell a concert ticket now from me.”

“I should farewell a ticket?”

“Yes. Please. If you farewell a ticket and give money, I present you ticket. Othersmart, my overling he flames me.”

At first, I thought I was hearing a variation of Jiri’s and Betty’s language in a dialect I thought I knew. Its basics sounded familiar enough, but there was a mystery around its edges. If only I had a converter or a special gearbox. And then, shifting gears to halfway between first and reverse, I got it.

“Why? Why your boss flames you?”

“Yes. Because my overling has big eyes. He grabs me conversationing too muchly with no one farewelling ticket he flames me. Me no wish lose job.”