Curt Leviant: Kafka's Son

“Why did you stay in Czechoslovakia after the war?”

Jiri looked down at the sidewalk. The sun shone on the little stone fragments embedded in the concrete. They glittered in the light like tiny gems. The little clusters of people who had gathered to chat after services had gone. We were now alone in front of the shul. The street was as quiet as a country lane.

“My wife and son were killed…”

I felt a tweak in my heart. “I’m so sorry.”

He nodded pensively. “But I still had some family in Prague. You see, Polish survivors couldn’t go home, and if they did, couldn’t stay. The Poles threatened them, made life miserable for them, even killed them a year after the war. But the people of Prague, the Czechs in general, are more humane. They hated the Germans too. Remember Lidice?”

“I certainly do. The Germans killed every man in that town in revenge for the killing of the SS leader Heydrich.”

“And what’s more, I had a profession to return to.”

“Doctor?”

“Doctor yes, physician no. I have a PhD in Jewish history.”

“A professor at the university?”

Jiri shook his head. “No, but a researcher and archivist at the Jewish Museum. My specialty was the history of Prague Jewry.”

“The famous Jewish Museum?”

“The one.”

“Did you have a good career there?”

He looked over my head, as if seeing Prague, the Jewish Museum, maybe even his office.

“For a while. Eventually, I became the director. But after the 1968 Soviet invasion, it became more difficult. The Czechs wanted to out-Soviet the Russians. I muddled through, as one of Dickens’ characters says, another twelve years until 1980 and then, while on a business trip to London, I decided not to return. Later, I came to the USA and got a part-time position here in New York’s Jewish Museum.”

“And now?”

“Retired for five years, with some occasional consulting. And you? You said something about films.”

“Yes. I make documentaries. Videos are my specialty.”

“Do you have your own studio? A big staff?”

“Oh no. I basically do all the work myself. I’m the photographer, editor, director, writer, idea man. A solo artist.”

“And has it gone well for you?”

“I think so. A couple of my films were shown in Cannes. One, about Sholom Aleichem’s family, on the Public Television Network and another one on NPR.”

“National Public Radio? How do they manage to show a film on radio?”

I laughed. “Good question. It was on All Things Considered . They played some excerpts from the audio of my film on Dutch Jews hidden as children on farms during World War II, and then they did an interview with me.”

“How wonderful! And Prague, have you ever been back to Prague?”

“No. I didn’t want to visit under communism. People told me it was a depressing place. In fact, it was Arnošt Lustig who said the people are grey, the buildings are grey, the sky is grey.”

“Very true, but now,” Jiri said, “for the past three years…”

“I know. I heard the change is striking since the fall of communism. In fact, I’m thinking about going soon. I have an idea for a film.”

“About whom, if I may ask?”

“How can one make a film in Prague without reference to Jews, to the Altneu Synagogue, to the golem, to K?”

“Good. Excellent.” Jiri actually clapped his hands in approval. “Go now. Now is the time. The country is free. No one will follow you. You won’t have to look over your shoulder. And I’ll send you to someone who will introduce you to interesting people.”

“That’s so kind of you. I can’t wait to start that documentary. I feel that’s where the real world is. In films. And you, have you been back?”

“Yes. Just once. Two years ago. But I didn’t feel comfortable there anymore…” Jiri looked back at the synagogue, as if he didn’t want to elaborate on his visit. “Seems to me this is your first time here, right? Any special occasion that brings you to the Eldridge Street Shul?”

“Let me put it this way,” I explained. “I’m not a regular shul-goer, but when I’m in a foreign city, or, like today, have the opportunity of seeing a historic synagogue, especially after the New York Times feature, I make it my business to go.”

After bidding goodbye to Jiri, I took the yarmulke off my head, put it into my pocket, and made my way home.

A week later I returned to the shul — to see Jiri again. Once more we chatted outside after services, but this time he said:

“How about coming up to my apartment for Kiddush? It’s only a few blocks from here.” And in fatherly fashion he took me by the arm.

In the book-filled living room of his small apartment, he introduced me to Betty. I had expected to see an equally aristocratic woman. Instead, I saw a small, stocky, rather coarse-looking hausfrau. As European as Jiri looked, so Betty looked American. Traces of her Lower East Side background dotted her speech. What a mismatched pair, I thought. A professorial type with a working-class woman. How did this happen? Her Sabbath garb astonished me too. She wore a short-sleeved blue sweater and dark brown slacks, not the dress or skirt one would expect on a woman whose husband had just attended an Orthodox shul. Contrasting the warm, good-natured expression in Jiri’s eyes was the furrowed-brow look of suspicion she gave us as we walked in and wished her “gut shabbes.”

“Imagine. He was also born in Prague,” a smiling Jiri told her with a bounce in his voice.

“Your parents are Czech?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then why were you born in Prague?”

I saw Jiri put both hands out, palms facing her, as if telling her to slow the pace of her inquisition.

“You see,” I answered her, “my parents were both survivors, my mother Polish, my father French of Polish descent. They met in Italy after the war. Then they got a job with a Jewish relief agency and were transferred to Prague. And that’s where I was born.”

“What year?”

“Betty!”

“That’s okay. The young man is not a woman who has to hide her age. If he has something to hide he’ll tell me and I’ll shut up. Do you have something to hide?”

“That’s not the point,” the exasperated Jiri said. “He hardly came through the door and already you’re asking him so many personal questions.”

“It’s all right,” I said, uncomfortable with marital discord. “I was born in 1951.”

Betty thought a minute. “So you’re forty-two. You look much younger, mister. You seem more like thirty.”

“That’s what everyone says. I always looked thirty, even when I was fourteen.”

Jiri laughed gaily, but no smile cracked Betty’s stolid countenance.

“Are you…” she started to say, but Jiri interrupted:

“Now I see it…” he said suddenly, loudly too, as if to override Betty’s as yet unsaid words.

At this, perhaps piqued that Jiri had cut her off, Betty marched back to the kitchen. I heard dish closet doors opening and closing and the clatter of crockery.

“Now I see it,” Jiri said softly as he inspected my face. He leaned back like an artist viewing his model. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw you last shabbes and now I see it. Do you know who you resemble?”

Of course I knew it. I’ve always known it, but I wanted him to say it. Surely Jiri didn’t know Danny K. But he did know his hometown hero, the other K.

“Who?” I said innocently, all guile.

“K as a young man. The resemblance is quite remarkable. Especially when you laugh.”

When could he have seen K laugh? I wondered.

“Some people say that after a while husband and wife start to resemble each other,” was my response. Oops, I shouldn’t have said that. What a comedown for Jiri if he would start to look like Betty. But if he caught the slip he was too gracious to react. “When I was younger people would say I looked like Danny K, you know, the comedian and film star. But ever since my later years in college my well-read friends say I look like the other K. Which leads me to conclude that if you read a lot of a writer’s work you begin to look like him. As if reader and book are husband and wife.”