Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

“Can anyone? Can you?” Asked like Karoly Graf. Like father, like son.

“But I’m not making an incredible claim.”

“Are you, my boy, who you think you are? Maybe not.”

I showed him my business card.

“Anyone can print a veezeet kart,” he said. “If I showed you my veezeet kart, would you believe me?”

Klein understood my silence.

“Please, Mr. K—” But I couldn’t finish his name. The “lein” got stuck in my throat. “Your claim is — who will believe it?”

“Yes,” he said.

Again that laconic, irritating, sandpaper-on-skin yes.

“You will believe it,” he said. “I don’t care about anyone else.”

I looked at him. For a moment I thought he would make his skin dark brown and his back chitinous; he would elongate himself, lie on the floor or cling to the ceiling with hundreds of tiny suction-padded hair follicles. But if he did that, who knows if he would be able to reverse course and become himself again? What a piece of theatrics to prove a point, to persuade a skeptic about the truth of his words, the veracity of his very existence.

“These books.” He pointed to his packed bookcases. “All of K’s works in the original and in many translations are not enough for you. No. Of course not. Any serious collector, you will respond, any fine library would have them. Even a madman who thinks he’s K. I can understand it stretches reality to assume that a man who died is alive and, what’s more, has lived so long. But imagine how frustrating it is for me to share this news with you, which perhaps only a handful of people close to me know, and for you not to believe me.”

“I’m honored that you’re sharing this with me.” Then I looked at my watch. I stood up to go. “I have an appointment.”

“Tomorrow you will believe what you haven’t believed today.”

“I’ll be here in the morning,” I said. So as not to offend him I didn’t call him Mr. Klein.

He inclined his head. “Thank you again for Papageno.”

But as I crossed the room he ran after me. I was astonished at his nimble stride. He’s going to confess, I thought. I was just teasing you, he’d say.

“What if I were to pull off my plastic face mask and reveal myself, show you my true face?”

I tried to gauge the timbre of his tone; serious or mocking? So I said:

“And what if I were to show you my true face, make my voice an octave higher, like this, remove the onstage mask I’m now wearing, and reveal myself to you as your long-lost daughter?”

“If you pull off your mask I’ll pull off mine,” Klein said.

“Fine,” I said in falsetto. I put my hand under my chin. Then a wave of fear chilled through me. My God, what if when I start tugging a mask really comes off? “I’m ready.”

Mr. Klein did the same. He moved both hands to his throat. He curled his fingers, about to pull — then stopped. With a warm, self deprecating little glint in his eye, he said, somewhat sadly, “I don’t have a mask.”

“Neither do I.”

We both laughed. He clapped me on the shoulder as I opened the door.

But my head was a carousel. Leaving his room, I bumped into the doorpost of the outer door, so dizzy was I. Had Mr. Klein said something I didn’t hear? The hallway was spinning. Not only spinning, but the walls, like in my dream of a few days ago, the walls were angled up and out, like in an amusement park’s hall of mirrors, hall of fun, where distorted reality throws you off balance, makes you bang into walls.

The fresh air outside did not mitigate my agitation. If anything, it sharpened the conundrum. First he’s Jiri’s father; now he’s K. First one man tells me he has the honor of informing me he’s K’s son. And now another tells me he’s K. In other words, if both are to be believed, Mr. Klein is Karoly Graf’s papa. Maybe I should bring these two fakers together for a faux father-son reunion.

As these thoughts buzzed, my mind’s-eye camera was rolling. Even if this is not true, it would still be fascinating. An old man claiming to be K’s son, followed by a supposedly very old man claiming to be K. It fit right into Prague, golem, illusory logic. Right into my film.

It was only when I boarded the Metro that I realized Mr. Klein hadn’t shown me the promised third sign.

I departed in a dream state. I felt I’d been sedated, anesthetized, was walking about half asleep. Klein’s claim had put me into a different world.

Once out of the Metro, I headed for the great Old Town Square and walked around, trying to calm down. I tried to take in slowly the crowds, the tall clock tower, the people streaming in and out of the little lanes. I blended memory of the square — Katya in the blue beret wearing her placard, Katerina Maria and her fractured English— with what I was witnessing. I imagined I’d bump into Katya again, but deep down knew she would not be there.

As much as I wanted to think about Katya, I was overwhelmed by Mr. Klein’s secret. Klein K? The twentieth century compressed? I couldn’t absorb it. History was an express train running past me. What would, what could, Klein do tomorrow to persuade me? Don K’s clothing in the style of his photos from the late teens or early 1920s? Show me a family photo album? Display his handwriting and compare it to K’s memorable slanty calligraphy? Or maybe summon Max Brod back from an ethereal abode? What could he do? What would I do if I claimed to be K and had to convince a recalcitrant visitor? Or what proof could I provide if I claimed to be K’s son? I’d turn to pages of mystical texts and invoke some potent magical formulae.

Klein had shown me a letter from Jiri with the word “Papa” on it, ostensibly proving Jiri was his son and he Jiri’s father. Would he show me a letter tomorrow from his father, or one from him to his father with his signature? But that still didn’t prove anything. Rare book dealers did a thriving business selling letters from famous people. And even signatures could be forged.

That day I spent several hours in the Czech National Library looking for proofs. I inspected old photos of K and various memoirs to see if I could find something personal. Did he limp? But that’s easy to imitate. Was he cross-eyed? Did he have a birthmark on his face or hands? Did he stammer? Also easy to mimic. Were his earlobes large or attached? Alas, there were no surviving family members. The Germans had taken and murdered K’s sisters and their families. I could find nothing. I even asked Dr. Hruska of the K Museum if he had anything in his archives or in storage. I could see my question hurt him. His eyes dimmed, as if not the museum but he himself had been insulted.

“We have no back rooms, no storage, no archives, no space, no revolving exhibits. What we have on view is what we have.”

If I could convince myself that Mr. Klein was K, I would run out to the streets and cry: K lives. K’s here. K’s back. People of the street, good citizens of Prague, do you know who is living among you? But I know I would be taken as a madman, in the same league with those who shout Jesus lives, or the Messiah has come, or those who claim, I am K’s son. People would stare at me, smile indulgently, and move away.

And what if he wasn’t K? What if he had taken someone else’s identity? There were plenty of stories of people assuming another’s identity after the war. Folktales had plenty such stories. Shakespeare is full of switched identities. The great Italian storyteller, Franco Sacchetti, has an amusing tale where an abbot who can’t answer questions put to him by the local lord asks a smart miller to don his hat and cloak and switch identities. And there’s a famous story about the Baal Shem Tov and his coachman switching places, just for a lark. When they come to a village and a local asks the faux Besht a hard question, the clever coachman just laughs and says, “That’s so easy even my coachman can answer it.”