Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

Two of the three who vanished I liked. Jiri I liked as if he were family. Karoly Graf I liked too, more perhaps for professional reasons. Danny K I adored for years. And the girl in the blue beret was simply attractive. Her gentleness and allure caught me. Now all three or four were gone. What was worse, no one could tell me where to find them. Across that wide brook were no stepping stones; no third or fourth parties to suggest a former employer or distant kin. These disappearances reminded me of an Ingmar Bergman film I’d once seen where actors vanish in a split second before your eyes: phhtt, wwwhish — gone.

Gone?

Gone.

How gone?

Gone gone.

All right. In mysteries people vanish. In surrealistic stories characters disappear. In films, a minor figure is never seen again. But in real life? Maybe once in a while. Like Judge Crater, or is it Carter, who disappeared in about 1930? Or, seven years later, the aviatrix Amelia Earhart. But five people in the space of a month or so? Could it indeed be that someone was trying to send you, that is, me, a message? And if message it was, what kind of message? And in what language? Gibberish? Tutu? Half-baked, Double Dutch Ural Altaic?

No impact on me that message, if message it was. The warning meant nothing, if warning. And why should these four or five good people disappear to create some kind of stupid, inchoate message or warning? It was totally absurd. And having concluded that, I realized it was totally meaningless as an interpretative act. All this was absolutely coincidental. And I would continue to do whatever I was doing — look for a vibrant opening, memorable, dramatic, unforgettable, A Major Discovery, for my film on Prague — without inner trembling or change of plan.

During the fifteen-minute underground ride to Eva Langbrot, Yossi golem’s friend, the train stopped at five or six brightly lit stations. The walls were sparkling azure tiles, decorated with large, framed reproductions of works by Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Mondrian, and Klimt. But, oddly, no one entered or left my car. No one budged from his seat. Perhaps the lifelike creatures in the car were dolls, installed by the Prague Metro Authority to give new riders like me a sense of security. But it did just the opposite. Why were these mannikins entombed here with me? I thought of asking one of the passengers the time but feared a silent rebuff would unnerve me.

Again I saw golems everywhere, golems with stiff, expressionless faces. Any minute the roof of the subway car would crumple along with the steel and concrete vault of the tunnel, and all the people in the car, now vivified, would simply raise their hands and support the collapse like the golem did in the silent film.

I couldn’t wait to leave the Metro. The library silence in the car had become oppressive. Emerging from the subway into the singing sunlight was a pleasant surprise. I was now in the suburbs, even though Yossi golem had told me that Eva lived in Prague.

Up a rather steep cobblestoned street of private villas bounded by flower-filled gardens I made my way. Many houses had wrought iron fences painted white, blue, or black, with flower-edged lawns in front and gardens in back. At the top of the street I saw a grove of tall pines, no doubt the beginning of a park — a bit of countryside on the outskirts of the city.

Up I walked, up up a slightly curving street. I imagined I was floating through a late-nineteenth-century movie set. Because of the hill, the houses looked atilt. Of course they were not. The houses stood straight. The ground was slanted and the foundations were higher on the downslope. Between the houses I saw hills — and at one point, the Charles River below.

Ahead of me walked someone with a blue beret. Oh my God, was that a placard on her back? What a miracle! Wait, I shouted. Wait, girl in blue beret! I sprinted up the hill, getting closer. But the girl turned out to be an old man; the placard, a grey overcoat. The disappointment slowed me down but my heart still raced. At times we don’t see with our eyes. We see what our hearts want us to see. The only thing I saw correctly was the blue beret. And even that wasn’t the usual beret, at least not the one the girl wore. Hers fitted tightly. Made of soft cloth, it hugged the shape of her head. The one the old man wore had a stiff leather rim that made the beret sit on his head.

He was rather tall, the old man. One usually thinks of the phrase “little old man” due to the shrinking effect of osteoporosis or degenerative disc disease. But this man was tall and lanky. His walk was neither spry nor slow, but he seemed to be making his way up the street without difficulty, not hesitating but maintaining a steady, even pace that gave the impression of speed.

As I passed him, I turned and nodded. He had a white Van Dyke beard, I saw, a smooth, unwrinkled face, and wise eyes. He was even taller than me. He bowed his head slowly for a moment as if to say, Yes, I acknowledge your greeting, which I now reciprocate. That’s a lot of words and imputed thoughts for a slow, slight incline of the head, but the gracious, musical, even dance-like andante nod bespoke Old World cortesia.

Could he be, I wondered, the same old man with a cane I’d seen at the concert the other night, and on the square with his walking-stick pirouette a day or two earlier? But maybe all old men look alike. The old man on the square — with the crush of people of varying sizes, I hadn’t noticed his height — had ambled along slowly with a cane, using that unique, almost affected mode of promenading. However, the man I had just passed moved forthrightly. I turned once to look at him but he didn’t notice me.

A few minutes later I found Eva’s house, entered the hallway. What looked like a private three-story villa was actually subdivided into apartments. I walked up one flight and stood before a name-plate on a door that read: E. Langbrot/Ph. Klein.

I rang. A woman with white hair tied in a bun opened the door. At once her warm, motherly smile filled the space of the doorway.

I introduced myself.

“Ah, yes, hello. Come, come right in, my boy. I have been expecting you.”

Clasping both of my hands, she drew me in. I regretted I hadn’t thought of bringing her flowers.

I looked at her; she radiated kinship. What is it with people? I wondered. Some you can know for ages and they don’t penetrate your heart. And for others my late, beloved father had a three-word Yiddish phrase: “a liblicher mentch,” lovable person; better, a person you instantly fall in love with. Like Jiri. With a few words and genuineness of spirit, they make you feel you’ve discovered long-lost kin.

That’s what I felt with Eva Langbrot as soon as I saw her round, open face, her light blue eyes, the color of the bright sky I had just seen, a patch of rose on each cheek.

“Yossi told me you’d be coming…I’ve been waiting for you. Why didn’t you come sooner?” Her English, I now noticed, had the same accent as Jiri’s.

“I—”

Then she clapped her hand over her mouth. “God gave ten measures of speech to mankind and nine of them to women… Who am I to be asking you why you didn’t come sooner?… Come in, sit down. I just put up some tea — and you’ll also taste my cookies.”

She served me and placed some bright red paper napkins on the kitchen table.

I thanked her and told her about my first days here and my brief friendship with Jiri.

“We all loved Jiri,” Eva said. I saw tears welling in her eyes. “Did my friend Yossi tell you what Jiri did during the war?”

“Yes. He also told me you too fought with the underground against the Germans.”

Eva made a disparaging gesture.