Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

From my balcony seat, I saw her almost in profile. She had short, cropped hair and she moved her head to the rhythm of the music. After the first figure she just stared ahead, mesmerized by Bach, a lovely smile on her face. She was absorbing the music like a sunbather sunlight and it made her happy. How could one not be happy in Bach’s Garden of Eden?

Up in the balcony, I deluded myself, amused myself, that I had a date with her. After all, I had asked if she wanted to go to the concert and she said Yes, and I treated her to a ticket and here we were— both of us — in the hall. It was a bona fide half date. Of course, I slyly edit out that first she told me sotto voce to quickly buy a ticket, which I offered her, creating that looney half date — credit me for that invention — to the enrichment of society (a boon to shy or other socially maladept people) and to the detriment of me.

The only trouble was that even though we were both here, I wouldn’t talk to her. I decided not to seek her out during intermission, for I didn’t want her to assume I was a liar. Telling her my appointment was canceled and that I decided to come at the last minute would look strange. That would look like a ploy, an attempt to upgrade a half date by fifty percent (to seventy-five percent, for those of you weak in math, who think upgrading a half date by fifty percent makes it equal one full date).

But I did look to see if the girl in the blue beret was interacting with anyone, a man to her right, a man to her left. But no, she didn’t smile or turn to anyone or acknowledge a shared enjoyment. She was off in a world of her own. But once in a while, I saw her turn a couple of times, as if looking for someone.

Now that I was far from her, the video camera in my head replayed for me what my eyes had seen but not noticed while standing close to her. It was like enjoying the forest without noticing the ballet of individual trees, the colors of the leaves. With the vision of memory, isolating the frames of the video, I saw for the first time those unique sea-green, those long green eyes, eyes made all the more green by the black lashes that framed them and the clear white around them, a leaf green with glamour, in the pristine, shamanistic meaning of the word. I wouldn’t say they were witch’s eyes, but they were bewitching, or at least so they seemed to me, as if some enchanter chanting cantabile incantations had made me see an underwater sun-drenched green in her eyes, eyes that cast a spell in the eyes of any beholder who looked into those long green eyes of hers, the color of water you see when you swim underwater in the Mediterranean when the sun is shining, eyes that I was noticing now only in videographic memory, eyes I hadn’t noticed before because I was too busy looking at the whole of the girl in the blue beret.

Another thing I didn’t mention: that dimple in her right cheek, and right cheek only, when she smiled.

As the applause began, signaling the intermission, I saw the girl in the blue beret stand. At once I acted. Again I changed my mind. I ran downstairs, saw the first people coming through the doors to the lobby. Sharp-eyed, I inspected every person who came through the doors. Thump-a-thump beat my heart, excited that I would soon see her, finally learn her name, listen to her thank-you while I smiled modestly. I’d speak to her for the first time without her placard.

But although I looked and looked, I couldn’t find her. I moved laterally in the lobby, not taking my eyes off the doors. The fifteen minutes passed. Now people were returning. A man walked around the lobby playing a little tinkling melody on a small triangle, signaling that soon the concert would resume.

Upstairs, I leaned on the railing of the balcony. Saw her in her seat. Perhaps she had remained there throughout the intermission. Once more she stood, looked back and waved to someone, then sat down. Who could she be waving to? Perhaps a coworker on the square.

Then I saw the old man with a Van Dyke beard again. Again? Yes, again. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him. I had noticed him the other day on the square, strolling slowly, cane in hand, a dreamy look on his face. He used the mode of strolling with a walking stick that was fashionable at the beginning of the century, a manner I had seen in silent films and musical comedies set in fin-de-siècle Europe: a forward motion with the cane, then a rightward semicircle back to the first position, a way of promenading that bespoke elegance, style, class. Now he walked slowly down the right center aisle of the orchestra, dressed in the same blue serge suit I had seen on him the other day. This genteel elegance, aristocratic stance, made me think of Jiri and his distinguished mien, old men with a history, old men with a past. Here is another old man I’d like to speak to. If not for my desire to look for the girl in the blue beret at the end of the concert, I surely would have sought him out.

Outside, I waited and waited but could not find her. I dreamt of a miracle where she would surprise me, tap me on the shoulder, and I would turn. She smiles flirtatiously. Why didn’t you tell me you’d be here? she asks, as members of the orchestra reprise a movement of the Brandenburg, with its dancy rock-and-roll rhythms, and we break into a spontaneous dance.

How could she not have come out the front doors? I wondered, then I answered my own question. Because at the front of the orchestra, on both sides, hung an exit sign. But in my rush to be the first outside, I had not imagined she might leave from the door closest to her.

* A word always modified by “all.” You never see “partially agog” or “agog” unadorned, unmodified, all alone. “Alone” can be “alone” or “all alone.” Not agog.

The following morning I looked for her again on the square, but I was just going through the motions, like someone who has lost a ring on the street looks but knows there’s not a chance it will be found.

I saw the three ticket peddlers I had spoken to the other day: the tall blonde who spoke an invented English, the bearded guy who demonstrated how a placard-holder can walk off in mid-sentence, and the young bald chap who specialized in privacy laws. We looked at and through each other. Either they didn’t remember me, or chose not to — just as I purposely said nothing to them, not even a nod. The girl in the blue beret had disappeared.

What’s happening here? First Jiri Krupka-Weisz disappears. Then Karoly Graf vanishes. And now, number three, the girl in the blue beret. A cluster of three, potentially ominous, if one were superstitious, as I am not. Especially if you’re puzzled how to number them. Should Jiri and Betty, who also disappeared, be counted as one or two? If two, then Graf is three, and the girl is four. But let’s take Jiri and Betty as one. But the girl in the blue beret still cannot be number three for I forgot Danny K. So with him it’s either four or five. No longer an ominous three. Still, a lot of disappearances.

When one such incident occurs, you don’t think about it. You’re puzzled, but you forget it. When two, you begin to be suspicious, which rhymes with superstitious but otherwise has no links. Maybe you’re nervous. Could these disappearances be directed at you? Some private message?

But when it happens a third time, you feel edgy. You ask, Why am I being singled out for this? Am I jinxed? Or paranoid? Or is it just a series of strange coincidences scattered over two continents? A haphazard concatenation of events I happened to witness. But, let’s face it, if this were happening in a film — of which, let’s say, I was the auteur — wouldn’t one (you, that is, I) conclude that this was somehow artistically planned, organized, directed? But if it happens in real life, isn’t it normal to ask questions? Like, Why is this happening to me? How many people do you know who experienced the disappearance of three, four, five people they knew within a month?