Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

One mitigating factor in favor of Mr. Klein’s story was his fingers. He had long elegant fingers, a fact noted in biographies. A voice one can imitate; stance, walk, even personalities can be copied. A writer’s works can be memorized; lists of the imitatee’s friends, names, places, bios, can be learned. But the length of a person’s fingers, like the classic birthmark that identifies a child of royal birth in the folk stories, that cannot be replicated. Those ten digits were a kind of birthmark: singular, unique, inimitable. Like fingerprints or DNA.

Of course I would return the next day. But Mr. Klein had a mountain to climb to convince me.

The next morning I went back to the Altneushul for a morning minyan, but I felt trepidatious. After what Mr. Klein had told me, I now saw Yossi in a different light. Yossi knew Mr. Klein; after all, he had sent me to his friend, Eva. Still, Klein puzzled me, saying he heard my remark about the Shawmee State from Yossi, when actually I had told it to Karoly Graf. It showed some contact between Graf, Klein, and Yossi. But now I knew something that perhaps Yossi didn’t know, and I certainly wasn’t going to share it — especially since I was still skeptical myself.

It wasn’t Yossi I wanted to see but the shamesh. However, since I sat in the back with Yossi after the service, I asked him:

“Did you ever hear of, or meet, a man named Karoly Graf?”

Yossi thought for a moment. The good side of his face lit up; the damaged side stayed flat, unmoved.

“I can’t say I have…. Why do you ask?”

“I met him at the K Museum and, seeing how enthusiastic I am about K’s works—”

“You like K’s works?”

“Of course. That’s one of the reasons I’m in Prague. Didn’t Jiri tell you that?”

Yossi shook his head.

“Anyway, when Graf saw how much I love K, he told me — as we stood outside the museum — he told me he has the honor of informing me that he is K’s son.”

As soon as Yossi heard this he let out a roar of laughter. The same raucous cackle as the first time we met, when I said I wanted to see the attic. This time both sides of his face flushed. Even the glass eye gleamed.

“K’s son!” He tried to stifle his laughter with his hand. “That’s hilarious. Ab-so-lute-ly hi-la-ri-ous!”

“So you never heard of him?”

“Who?”

“We’re talking about Karoly Graf, who said he was K’s son.”

“Oh, him. I’m so busy laughing at the wild idea of it that I forgot there was a man behind it.”

“Mr. Klein told me that you told him that I come from the Shawmee State.”

“What state is that?”

“It’s Missouri, but never mind that. I told that to Karoly Graf when he told me he was K’s son.”

“He told me that you told us that we told him. My head is spinning. You have to be a genius to follow all these tolds. I never said that. I never even heard of the Shawmee State. The old man must be mistaken.”

“Then how do you know he’s old?”

“Only an old man could be so demented.”

“So you never heard of Graf?”

“By name, no. But now that I think of it, I may have heard of a man who claimed that. I mean, there aren’t too many people around who have the honor of saying that. How old a man is this Graf? Fifty?” And he slapped his knee and burst out laughing again at his own joke.

I too had to smile.

“Or perhaps he’s ninety,” and again Yossi laughed. “Yes, ninety. Old and demented.”

I waited, annoyed. Yossi saw this and calmed down.

“Do you really want to know how old I think he is, or will this be another occasion for more derisive laughter?”

Yossi’s face fell. He had never seen me angry and he apologized.

“I would say in his mid-seventies,” I said.

Yossi looked thoughtful.

“But you’ll admit,” he said, “that there is something funny about this.” And he began laughing again, this time more subdued.

Now the shamesh approached.

“I heard laughter, Yossi. When I hear laughter, especially yours, I have to know what’s funny.”

“He asks me if I heard of a man named Karoly Graf.”

The shamesh pouted, shook his head. “And that’s funny? That’s not funny to me. Usually, when you laugh, it’s something funny. So why are you laughing?”

“He says he met Graf in the K Museum,” Yossi explained, “and Graf told him he has the honor of informing him he’s K’s son.”

“K’s son? Now that’s funny.” And the shamesh began laughing and Yossi joined him and the laughter invaded both sides of his face. His cheeks shook and both the good eye and glass eye shot sparks of laughter and delight. I thought back to my first visit, when they both began cracking up at my desire to see the attic, the very reason I was here now, to discuss the matter with the shamesh. One man’s mirth bounced off the other’s; each enhanced the other. Two merry men were they.

Soon, from somewhere, although I hadn’t seen any of them, the chorus of fellow cacklers would appear and approach and join in, and the shamesh, after all of them had laughed themselves out, would quiet them and scold them for humiliating and making fun of a guest. I realized how wise it was that I hadn’t told Yossi that Mr. Klein claimed to be Jiri’s father. I didn’t need another bundle of sarcastic laughter. And only a certified masochist would have shared the news with Yossi about Klein insisting he was K!

“As if we didn’t have enough to laugh at in Prague,” the shamesh said, out of breath, red in the face from the exertion of endless laughter. “Now we have K’s son.”

Which prompted both men to initiate another round of laughter.

“I was trying to find out where he lived because I wanted to see him,” I blurted out against my will, unable to subdue the fool within me pushing me to reveal everything. “You see, he gave me his veezeet kart, but when I went to the address on the card—” I should have stopped but didn’t.

“—he wasn’t there!”

But it wasn’t me who said that; it was Yossi, gleefully, bursting out again, joined by the shamesh who, with tears rolling down his cheeks, cried out, “I knew it. I knew it. Of course he wasn’t there.”

“And why not there?” Yossi asked. They both quieted down now, but I could see they were keeping in another salvo of laughter, doing their best to restrain themselves.

I imagined myself spinning around, turning my back to them, and walking out, insulted, waiting for their apologetic cries: We’re sorry. Come back!

“I don’t know,” I said. “The house porter told me Graf had moved out a year ago…. Perhaps he mistakenly gave me an old card.”

“And you don’t know where he is?” the shamesh asked.

“I saw him for a few seconds again on a Metro the other day that was going the other way.”

“Which means,” the shamesh said with a professional detective mien on his face, “that he’s still in Prague.”

“I thought that perhaps you know him or of him, or if he’s registered with the Jewish community.”

“I don’t. He’s not. And who says he’s Jewish?” the shamesh said. From his pocket he took out a tiny notebook. “Give me his name again. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

“Karoly Graf.”

The shamesh wrote his name. “Could be a Jewish name…. And why do you want to see him so badly?”

“For my film.”

The shamesh drew back, hurt no doubt by another competitor for attention in the film.

“But he’s a faker,” Yossi said.

“Still, he’ll be an interesting character for my documentary. And how do you know he’s a faker?”