Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

“No. It’s the Jewish Children’s Home, the famous old orphanage.”

My heart stopped. I held my hand to my throat.

K fixed his gaze on my face. “What’s the matter with you? You’re white. Are you all right?” He clasped my shoulders. “Come, let’s sit down here on the bench.”

What made him bring me here? I wondered.

“I’m all right.” I sighed, looked at the building. “But now it’s time for me to say to you: It’s time. I have a secret to share with you.”

He looked into my eyes, waiting.

“Remember I told you I was born here?”

“Yes.”

“And that my parents, both young Holocaust survivors, met and married after the war in Italy and then were assigned to work for the Joint Distribution Committee here for several years?”

“Yes, I remember. And then, after a few years, you were born and then all three of you emigrated to America.”

“True. But what I didn’t tell you, and what I wanted to tell Jiri but never did, is this: I was adopted. My parents couldn’t have children and so they adopted a Jewish baby.”

“How fortuitous, then, that we passed here. It is very likely they found you here. Didn’t you ever want to know who your real parents were?”

“Not really. As far as I was concerned, my parents were my real parents. I wasn’t part of that generation that moved heaven and earth and spent years trying to find out who their birth parents were.”

“I can understand that. And perhaps it’s no coincidence that you revealed your secret here. Still, maybe now is an opportune time to go in and make inquiries.”

“Absolutely not. Come, let’s turn away. My usual equilibrium regarding my birth is being tested. Is being upset. Come, please.”

K took my arm — for a moment I felt as if I were the old man and he the younger — and we walked back to the shopping street. Was it here that I was adopted? But no feeling of sentimentality overtook me. The place didn’t tug at my heart. On the contrary, it made me nervous. I didn’t sense that something was pulling me there. Prague pulled me, yes, but not the Jewish Children’s Home. And even if I went in I would likely face martinet bureaucrats who specialize in procrastination and probably in the new privacy laws: I’m sorry, we cannot give you any information without the express permission of the adoptee. But that’s me, I say. That may very well be, but how do we know that? You know you’re you. I know you’re you. But do the authorities know you’re you?

Back on the shopping street I felt better again. I took a deep breath. K, that dear man, noticed and gave my arm an affectionate, sympathetic squeeze.

But when we reached his house, K withdrew the offer to see the synagogue.

“Not now,” he said, taking a deep, slow breath. “I think we have had enough excitement for one day, and I have walked enough. We will visit it another time.”

When I got back to my hotel a voicemail message waited for me.

“Hello. Hello? Okay, you not there. So I will leave message. This is the shamesh. It is funny speaking one way into the air and nobody answers me. Me talking to a machine and the machine tells you what I said. Nu, we will see if it tells you exactly, word for word, what I said, or just gives you summary. Come to the shul in the morning. I have something for you.”

Typical Prague fashion; no details. What could he have for me? An admission that there was an attic? Special permission to see the golem? Or was it something else to enhance my film? Wait! Don’t tell me he found Katya. But how could the shamesh have found Katya if I didn’t tell him I lost her?

In the morning, I greeted Yossi golem, who said laconically, as though that dry, cheerless tone were studied, well-rehearsed, “I hear you’re really becoming pal of the old man and Eva.” But in his voice I think I heard a trace of plaint, a hint of sarcasm, as though somehow I was taking up too much of their time.

But instead of justifying myself or arguing with him, I reversed the table on him and said:

“I can’t thank you enough for introducing me to Eva and Mr. Klein. It’s been one of the most fortunate encounters I’ve had in Prague, along with meeting you and the shamesh.”

Yossi, the big man with the ruddy cheeks, smiled with both sides of his face. Then the shamesh approached. I wondered what they would have to laugh about now. If I were impudent or bold enough I would have articulated my thought.

“Ah, there you are. So you got my message. It is strange, no?” and he looked down at a note in his hands, maybe a jotting of what he had told me, “talking and no one talking back. It’s like talking to the wall. And someone else hears it later than when you actually said it. Amazing. Come…guess what I have for you.”

He gestured to the Holy Ark. I excused myself from Yossi and followed the shamesh.

“Um…” I said, resisting the temptation to say: a passage to the attic that you finally found. “I can’t guess.”

“What did you want? Remember?”

“What did I want?” I said aloud, starting to reckon my wants. “I wanted to film you and I did. No, the film isn’t ready, not finished yet. I wanted the attic, but that is laughably unavailable, along with the golem.” I wanted Katya but I wasn’t going to share that with him. “So what else did I want? I don’t know. Please remind me.”

“To find someone you asked me. You forgot already? So important that someone is to you? You asked me to find him, even if I didn’t know he was a Jew.”

“Graf!” I exclaimed. “Karoly Graf! You found him?”

“What you think?”

I made believe I was thinking. Like Rodin’s The Thinker , I put my hand to my face and thought.

“Yes, I think you did find him.”

“You asked. I looked. I f…”

“So you found him. Bravo!”

“Well, no,” the shamesh backtracked. “I didn’t found him.”

Then why was he teasing me?

“Then who did? You just gave me the impression you found him.”

“I didn’t found him.” The shamesh paused. For drama. For effect. “Actually, he found me.”

“How? Where?”

“I am the shamesh,” he asserted slowly. “Here.” He gave me a slip of paper with Graf’s name and address. “Go. He waits for you. Tomorrow. Two p.m.” And the shamesh told me precisely which Metro and which connecting bus to take for the twenty, twenty-five minute ride.

“You’re a miracle man. A modern Maharal. How did you do it, shamesh?”

But he just smiled.

“Thank you, shamesh. Thank you so much. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

I looked down at the name and address.

“Did he give you a phone number?”

“No. No phone. Just address.”

I hoped it wouldn’t be another wild goose chase.

K sensed me at the other side of the door. I didn’t even get a chance to knock. He began to speak as — even before — he/I opened the door.

“Two crucial events occurred within days of each other. In the year I died of tuberculosis, Dora Diamant and I wanted to get married. She wrote to her father for permission but her Hasidic papa didn’t want his daughter to marry a Jew who wasn’t Orthodox, even though Dora herself had long ago moved away from that tradition. And never mind I was much older; I could have been her father. She was only eighteen or so at the time. But the papa didn’t want to say no without consulting his rebbe, for Hasidic Jews like him don’t make a move within any arena of consequence — family, marriage, business, job, education — without consulting their rebbe, their spiritual leader, their all-around guide. So Dora’s papa went to the Gerer Rebbe, who said one word, No! With rebbes there is no arguing, no negotiating, no compromise. No maybe. No let’s see. With them it’s either Yes or No. So No it was. Which meant I couldn’t marry, couldn’t have a family within the framework of a traditional Jewish family structure.