Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

“Shamesh! Sir! Please wait! You describe a scene from the memoir of the Maharal’s son-in-law and yet tell me there is no attic in the Al-tnigh. Explain. Please.”

The shamesh scratched his cheek. “Maybe in his day it was a phenomenon created just for that purpose. For that one time. Like the Torah says about the earthquake when the earth opened up its mouth that one time and swallowed up Korah and his band of rebels. Remember what Moses said? ‘And if God now creates something entirely new, a new phenomenon, you will know that it is the deed of God.’ So that is what it probably was. A phenomenon. Created tem-po-ra-ri-ly.”

“Then it went away.”

“Maybe. Could be. Perhaps.” The shamesh thought a moment. “Absolutely. For sure and for certain. Because for sure that attic isn’t here now…. Now you want me to tell Hollywood how there is no attic?”

“Yes. Please.”

“And…” The shamesh hesitated. He bit his lip, looked at me shyly, questioningly. “How to say it, is there any payment for an actor in a film?”

“Not for a documentary. I’m not a big Hollywood producer.”

“You not?”

“No. I’m a one-man operation.”

“You also a doctor, chirurg, surgeon too?”

I laughed. “Operation is another word for business. I’m a very very small businessman. I do everything myself.”

“So it’s not Hollywood.”

“You disappointed?”

“Is all right.”

“How much money did you expect? Want?”

He looked over my shoulder, gazed out into the distance. He blinked his red-lidded eyes.

“Twelve dollars.”

“Why twelve?”

“I figured two times the five dollars people offer me and a twenty percent bonus.”

“You know what? I’ll make it eighteen.”

“Okay. But why eighteen?”

“I figured twenty dollars for the twenty you refuse as a bribe, less ten percent discount. And, anyway, eighteen dollars is chai for life.”

“Very nice of you…. Plus a copy of the film.”

“Fine. You have a VCR?”

“What’s that?”

“A machine you put the video in.”

“No.”

“You have a television set?”

“I don’t watch television.”

“But you need both to see the film.”

“So you need two machines? A VRC and a television?”

“Yes.”

The shamesh looked disappointed.

“Show me the attic,” I said.

“I told you last time. No attic.”

“I know.” And I laughed again. “I meant, let’s go inside and you’ll tell me again all about it.”

I began filming.

Inside, he showed me the banner King Charles V had given the Jewish community, the arched vaults, and the women’s section, pointing to the ceiling each time, saying:

“Look. Up there. Do you see a ladder? A trap door? No, right? Nothing. It’s a bobbe-mayse . Fantasy. Legend. There is no attic. There was no attic. There will be no attic. Everyone thinks the goylem is in the attic. Maybe if there was a attic there would be goylem. But there’s no attic, so obviously there is no goylem. Except the one in the mirror. So even if I wanted to take you to the attic to see the goylem, I couldn’t. There is no attic. Hence, no goylem. The only goylem—”

Here he went into his pocket and took out his mirror again.

“—the only goylem is you, dear viewer. The one in the mirror. You. You. You.”

Here the shamesh surprised me. By pulling out his mirror, he did something a good director would have done, tying together theme A and theme B, making them one in essence.

“Thank you. Thank you very much. That was wonderful, shamesh. Superb. Thank you.”

Just as soon as we walked outside a man wearing sunglasses rushed towards me.

“You,” he said.

“I,” I replied.

“It’s you.”

“True. I’m the only you here except for you.”

“And you’re a cameraman and don’t know when a film is being made.”

“Do I know you?” I asked him.

“You should know me. You knocked me over the other day and I don’t like it.”

He took off his sunglasses and handed them to the shamesh.

“Here, hold them for me.”

I had no intention of getting into a fight. I hadn’t even fought when I was a child. I couldn’t stand the idea of one person hitting, hurting, another. Fighting is for beasts and human lowlifes.

“Why didn’t you react,” I asked him, “when I tripped over you?”

“I don’t fight when I’m working.”

“Well, I’m working now,” I said.

“But I’m not,” he said and began pushing me, once, twice, three times.

“You can push all you want,” I said, brushing his hands off my chest. “I don’t fight. I’m not going to fight you. I don’t fight, neither when I’m working nor when I’m not.”

“Watch out!” the shamesh cried in a voice tinged with fear. “Here comes the goylem.” He took the mirror out of his pocket and flashed it.

The actor stopped, as if frozen.

“You were scared to start up with me,” I told him, “when everyone was looking the other day. You didn’t want to make a bad impression. You didn’t want to risk being fired.”

“You fell over me, knocked me down, and didn’t even apologize.”

“I certainly did. That’s the very first thing I did. I begged your pardon and said it was an accident. But you walked away and didn’t even turn around.”

“Mmm,” he said, apparently mollified. Maybe he was considering what to do next.

“Aha! Ahem!” the shamesh shouted.

My antagonist turned. The shamesh flashed his little mirror again. I don’t know if it was the reflected sunlight that stopped him or if indeed the shamesh had a magic mirror. In any case, the fellow’s attitude completely changed. He became a lamb, like the wild beasts in Mozart’s opera when the beautiful melody is sounded by the magic flute.

I shook him.

“Where is Katya?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You make a film with her and don’t know where she is?”

“She was hired at the last minute. She’s not part of our crew.”

I shook him again. He didn’t resist.

“Tell me where she is. No one in the entire city of Prague knows where she is. How can a girl disappear like that?”

“If she liked you so much, she would look for you, just like I looked and found you…. Is Prague, mister. City of mystery. Things disappear. I don’t know where she is. And even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”

I let him go. “Go,” I said.

The shamesh put his mirror away.

“I wish you to disappear,” the actor grunted. He turned to the shamesh. “May I have my sunglasses?”

“What sunglasses?”

“The glasses I gave you a few minutes ago. To hold.”

“These?” The shamesh pulled his old horn-rimmed specs from his jacket pocket.

“No. Those are your glasses.”

“I know they are my glasses. That’s why I didn’t give them to you.”

“I meant my sunglasses.”

The shamesh tapped his pocket. “I don’t have your sunglasses, mister.”

“But I gave them you. Come on, those are designer glasses.”

“Oh! Designer glasses. That’s a different story.” The shamesh turned to me. “Did you see him give me designer sunglasses?”

“No,” I said. “The sun was in my eyes before. I couldn’t see.”

“What’s wrong with you?” the actor shouted at the shamesh. “I just asked you to hold my glasses.” Then he turned to me. “And you heard it too.”

I didn’t say a word.

“Maybe,” the shamesh said, “you asked me, but you never gave them to me. Why don’t you look carefully in your pants pocket?”

The actor automatically tapped his trousers pockets and pulled out the sunglasses.