Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

I tried to calm down. I looked around. It was a little utility room. Brooms, deep sink. Another door within — the toilet. I washed my sweaty face and neck, still heard my heart pounding.

Ten or fifteen minutes later the girl opened the door.

“Are you feeling well?”

“I’m all right.”

“You want to still stay?”

“Well, it’s hard to look at a mop and sink for long.”

“I think you can come out. You know Dr. Hruska?”

“Yes. But I haven’t been here in a while. Are you new here?”

“Yes. Started two weeks ago. Why you scared?”

“Man chasing me.”

“Man he is gone.”

“What man?”

“Same man chasing you. He came. He said, ‘Is American here?’ I said, making believe, ‘What American?’ He said, ‘Man, running. No come here?’ I said, ‘No man coming here.’ Is what I said to protecting you.”

I was so overcome at this sweet girl’s spontaneous and creative help that I embraced her and said, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

“To protecting you, I said, ‘No one comes in here.’” She smiled at me, happy at the collusion.

“What kind of man was it?”

“Czech man. Spoke Czech.”

“Young? Old?”

“You know, he crashed in here, ‘Is American here?’ so fierce, anxious, and I afraid and astonished, and I, not telling him truth, first time such thing happen to me.”

“Lying.”

“Yes, lying, but also standing up, confused by sudden ask for help, big excitement in this boring job, so I no pay much attention to looks of man, but he has strong voice.”

“Did he leave right away?”

“He looked once to left, look once to right, here, right here by desk, and left.”

I looked around. No one was in the K Museum.

“Did he want to go upstairs?”

“Yes, but I tell him, ‘Upstairs close. No guards there today.’”

“Is there a back door or a back entrance? A side door? I would rather not go out the same door. Maybe he’s waiting for me.”

“Is good idea. Use back entrance. I show.”

I looked at her. A bland Czech girl with typically Bohemian features. Probably in her late twenties. Sort of pretty, blue eyes, upswept blond hair, pert nose.

“You from Prague?”

“No.” She smiled sadly, as if ashamed she wasn’t from the big city.

“Been here long?”

“Only few months. Need to make money. To help my mama and papa. Improve my English.”

“When do you finish work?”

“Six p.m. in evening.”

“Are you free?”

“No, I am not free. Me you must to pay.”

I didn’t show it, but I smiled inwardly at her misunderstanding the American idiom.

And then she broke into a laugh.

“Yes, I free. You want to take me someplace?”

“No. I just wanted to know if you are free or if you cost many kroner.”

Now it was her turn to be astonished. I saw a little downturn on her face. And then I burst out laughing.

“You protect me. I want to reward you. You go, come, with me to concert tonight.”

“Yes. I go, come, with you to concert.”

“Show me back entrance. I return and meet you there at 6:01 p.m. in the evening.”

“All right,” Mr. Klein said without preliminaries as I came in. His face glowed. He had just bathed, trimmed his Van Dyke. He wore a suit and a tie I hadn’t seen before, as though dressed for a special occasion. Later, I understood why.

“Two signs you saw already: the serpent and the leprous hand. Now for the third. Since you don’t believe me, I’m going to reveal myself to you.”

Was he some kind of angel or Elijah, I thought, to resort to revelation?

“I believe you, but—” Then I realized: he had just mentioned the two signs in my dream!

“Ah, there’s that ‘but’ that sticks in the throat,” he said with a cadence. “But you still want proof. Now watch.”

He took my hands. A warmth flowed through me. As if by clasping my hands he sent a wave of fatherly love into me. As if by that touch of hands he turned from a charming, friendly stranger into welcoming kin. Then he went to his high chest of drawers. He stood with his back to me, bent down, opened the bottom drawer. He quickly took something out of a little brown leather box.

What next? Would he metamorph himself? Surprise me again by changing his mask? What would I see now? He would point his old wooden cane up to the ceiling and I would see an enormous bug, five feet long and a few inches wide, with sticky, suction-cup legs, crawling on the ceiling — a creature similar to the chitinous one I had imagined last time I was here. That would prove his contention.

But would he be able to undo that metamorphosis and change himself back again? I was worried about this before and I was still anxious now. Changing back was always a problem. A double maneuver. One change was miraculous enough. But who said the return trip would be successful? Who knows how many animals now walk the earth that used to be human beings with a failed round-trip ticket?

Or would he show me more letters? He made a motion near his face. Did he look into a pocket mirror? Take a pill? But he didn’t drink. Even with the swift movement of his hand I noticed he held something tiny, perhaps the size of a nickel. I looked intently and saw a piece of parchment. His jaw muscles moved once or twice. Although he put that parchment in his mouth, it was I who was affected. I felt an electric jolt. When I was in high school I had a portable radio that gave me shocks each time I flipped open the cover. But this shock was stronger, an infusion of volts. Mr. Klein straightened up, turned and faced me.

He wasn’t showing me letters.

No.

Something else was happening.

I looked.

I stared.

I saw.

My hands fell to my side. A frisson ran up and down my back.

So quick was the event I couldn’t react. His face was changing. When I saw what was taking place, I closed my eyes for a minute or two like a Jew does when the kohanim bless the congregation.

Klein became younger, as if shedding skins, born anew. As he reached my age, it seemed as if I were looking into a mirror. Had we switched identities?

Skeptics will say that I turned away from Mr. Klein for a moment and looked in the mirror and saw myself. But to skeptics I say: There was no mirror in the room.

Had he put on a mask, similar to the almost realistic faces one sees in a wax museum?

He gazed at me.

I tried to speak. No sounds came from my mouth.

“A mask, huh?” he said.

It was only then he showed me the transformation. What I had seen was just the quick preview. A coming attraction. First, back to Mr. Klein. He did this in an instant, so quickly as if I’d been drugged for a minute. Then the years just dropped off him. So stunned was I by what I was witnessing, I couldn’t see, focus, on anything else. Not his collar, not his neck, not his sweater. I didn’t even know what he was doing with his hands, moving them to enhance the hocus pocus, or add/ detract from abracadabra. It was the reverse of that famous scene in the classic Frank Capra film, Lost Horizon , where as soon as the people leave the magical kingdom, Shangri-La, and step out of the enchanted Tibetan paradise, they suddenly age. Years leaped on to their faces. Wrinkles etched in skin. But here, now, with Mr. Klein, the years fled.

It began with his white Van Dyke beard. When photos are developed, the image slowly materializes. Here it was just the reverse. His beard began fading. Soon nothing was left. His hair darkened as though an invisible black rinse were washing through it. Black hair covered his head. He became a man of fifty or fifty-five.