Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

“Probably not many.”

“No, not many. No one but K.”

“Interesting,” I said. But I wasn’t convinced. Klopstock could have been his father, or another patient. Or someone else entirely. And the fact that nurse Miriam Graf sought out the Jewish orphan home in Prague proved nothing either.

True, Graf was tall. But he didn’t look like K, or Jiri. And why was he the only one to announce his special relationship to K, whereas Jiri kept silent? Or could it be that Jiri had wanted to tell me but Betty stood in his way? Obviously, Jiri and Karoly Graf were different personalities. And then I recalled that I had once said, and to Mr. Klein no less, that had I discovered I was a son of K, I would have hired an open truck with an amplification system and shouted, “Listen, folks, I’m K’s son.” I wouldn’t keep it still. So if I would have done such a thing, why shouldn’t Karoly Graf? So, why should I criticize Graf for doing something that I would gladly, proudly, have done myself? Never mind the penchant we have for criticizing in others the very fault we ourselves possess.

Of course, criticism aside, the only problem here is veracity. Is Graf telling the truth? Or, if not wittingly lying, then taking facts and extending them like strudel dough to come up with his (now not so fantastic) claim.

“Tell me, Mr. Graf, do you go around telling everyone that you’re K’s son?”

“No. Not everyone. But if I find a K lover, like you, I certainly do not hold back from sharing the news.”

“I mean, are you known in Prague as the man who goes around saying he’s K’s son?”

“I don’t know what reputation I have in this city. I do not have, how do you call it, a relations public consultant. As for the phrase ‘goes around saying,’ I would heartily disagree with it…. Here, let me show you something.”

Graf rolled up the left sleeve of his sweater and then the sleeve of his shirt.

“See? Near where the arm bends, this dark brown birthmark. That’s another sign. And another one just to the left of the navel.”

But I laughed. I couldn’t help laughing. I felt like Yossi golem and the shamesh who laughed at me. But now I was doing the laughing.

“So what does that prove?”

“You know in fairy tales and folk stories, the birthmark proves a baby is prince or princess.”

“I still don’t understand. In the stories the baby has the same birthmark as the king or queen. How is your birthmark connected?”

“K had same birthmark.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

This conversation, although absurd, was being filmed, recorded. What a delicious bonus for my documentary!

“Do you have a photo of K bare-armed? I’ve never seen a photo of K without a suit jacket on.”

“So I was told.”

“Is it documented anywhere?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Where?”

“In oral tradition.”

I shut the camera. I thanked Graf heartily for letting me talk to him. And then I remembered his mother, the nurse Miriam. And I started filming again.

“Did K ever see your mother again? Acknowledge the baby? Take responsibility?”

Graf looked at me, astounded.

“But he died! What are you talking about? Your question would be valid for a man who lived on and did not acknowledge his paternity.”

I shook my head. “Of course, you’re right. I was so engrossed with your fascinating tale that I forgot the facts.”

“When can I see the film?”

“Actually, I’ve just begun. It will take a while, but when it is finished you will surely get a copy.”

“The funeral, you say? Yes, the funeral. At my own funeral, I maintained my stoop. My Van Dyke beard and mustache, of course, were fully grown. I made sure to show my bared, closely cropped head of hair that I covered with a dark blue beret, the one I’ve been wearing for decades, for almost seventy years.”

“The only man I know of,” I said, “who attended his own funeral.”

“Well, it also happened in Mark Twain,” K reminded me, “either in Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn.”

“Wait a minute! Did you say you’re wearing that beret for almost seventy years?”

“Yes.”

“Sixty-nine, almost seventy, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think I’ve solved the mystery of sixty-nine minus eighty.”

“Congratulations,” K said drily.

“Now I get it. The year of your death is also the year of your rebirth, so you also mark your birth year from 1924. Which means that you are now sixty-nine, almost seventy.”

K smiled.

“But I interrupted you. The funeral, you were saying. Was Max Brod there?”

“My parents called upon Max to deliver the eulogy. It was Max who began. He looked down at the open grave and said:

“‘My dear beloved friend…you…’

“And I felt a tweak at my heart. So guilty to that childhood friend who was so close to me I felt he was another me…I almost felt like rushing forward and saying, ‘Max, dear Max, it’s all a horrible mistake. I’m not dead. It’s me, here I am…’ But I bit my lip hard and waited to hear more.

“Once more Brod said, ‘You…’

“And then — silence. One moment. Another. A chill wind blew through the cemetery that early June day. Everyone sensed the silence. Heard only the mournful wind. Brod swallowed. The sound of that loud, difficult cluck hung in the air. We waited. The stillness of empty space became heavier, as though a cloud had come over us, growing darker and darker and bringing gloom as it descended, until the silence became unbearable. Then Max broke down and began sobbing. From the back of the circle of mourners I saw the tears running down his cheeks and, feeling so sorry for his grief, I felt sorry for myself and my lonely life, and I too began to weep…

“Brod broke down, he broke down, my beloved Maxie. He had hardly said a word and everyone was already sobbing. At first he wept openly and then he covered his eyes. His shoulders shook. Two men approached and held him. Max wiped his eyes. He tried. He bent forward, opened his mouth, but he could not continue.

“I looked at my parents, my sisters, my relatives. All were dabbing their eyes.

“‘Forgive me, Franzl,’ Max Brod whispered in a choked voice. ‘Please forg…’

“And with that word stuck in his throat, he backed away from the grave.

“It was at that moment that I stood on the precipice. As in a dream I tottered at the edge. I could go this way or that. The slightest wind. There, then, my resolve was tested. If I did not reveal myself then, I could maintain my charade forever. But what would happen if I revealed myself? How many heart attacks and traumas would I cause by my dramatic, egoistic gesture? For a moment I imagined that I’d rip off my false paste beard and mustache, which really were not false, take off my beret, and say theatrically, ‘No, I am not dead. I still live.’ My father, my iron father, who had the strength of his father, an innkeeper who once picked up two gentile attackers, one with his left hand, the other with his right, and cracked their skulls together, my iron father — who knew what might happen to him seeing his son’s second wild gesture? Again changing his mind. No, I could not do it. There was no backpedaling anymore.

“I kept silent. Perhaps at some later time I would contact Brod. Just then, beyond the edge of the mourners, I saw a little bonfire and, in an excited, overstimulated frame of mind, I thought of it as a memorial candle for me. In all likelihood it was the cemetery caretaker burning refuse.

“As I was thinking this, someone came up to me and asked me, as a relative, to say a few words. To my counter-suggestion to ask the father or a sister, he replied that it might be too much of a strain. If Brod broke down, how much the more a close relative. So he begged me, saying since I lived in another city and wasn’t that close to K, I could maintain my equilibrium and say the few words that K deserved to have said about him and that must be said on such an occasion.