Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

“I agreed.

“If anyone noticed how much the distant cousin, Philippe Klein, looked like K, he said nothing. But of course who would believe, who could possibly believe that the real K now stood at the gravesite of his own funeral? And, in any case, I had a dark black Van Dyke and mustache and wore a navy blue beret that K had never worn. I had on glasses and affected a slight stoop to make myself somewhat shorter.

“I stood where Max had stood. I looked at him. He wasn’t standing now where he had stood before. I nodded, bowed slightly in the Mitteleuropa manner, but saw no recognition in his moist eyes. And I reviled myself for betraying my brother and for being such a reprobate.

“Then I gazed down at the open grave and thought of the miracle that had been granted me: life. For normal human beings it is either life or death — but for me, uniquely, now it was both, and at the same time.”

K looked pensively at his bookshelves and, for a moment, up at his two model aeroplanes; he held his chin, remembering.

“I really didn’t think of what to say. The words tumbled out spontaneously. Before I began to speak I made an effort to change my voice. I lowered it. Under the circumstances, no one would have noticed, but it would have been too eerie for people to hear K’s second cousin delivering a eulogy about K in K’s voice. Also, K spoke rather quickly because he thought quickly. He, I, hardly formulated one thought, one phrase, when another came leaping along like a cheetah. So I deliberately spoke…slowly…in…my…newly…deeper…voice,…as if…carefully…gathering my thoughts.

“‘How awesome is this day for us. The book of life is closed and yet, strangely, open. In the last days of his life K no doubt thought of the words Jews recite on Yom Kippur, Who shall live and who shall die; who shall come to a timely end and who to an untimely end; who shall be at peace and who shall be tormented? Dear K, you passed through this world and beyond. You wanted justice in this world. You wanted happiness. He was a quiet man, was K.’ I looked over the heads of the mourners as I continued speaking slowly. ‘A good man, a lonely man who had wonderful friends. He loved his family, adored his friends.’ Thinking of my friends, I was overcome for a moment and I stopped. ‘“It was worth coming into this senseless world,” K told me, “for the precious friends I have. Blessed with friends am I,” he said.’ And I looked at Max as I said this, and tears spurted from his eyes once more. ‘K loved books and writing. You loved Judaism and began to study Hebrew and Yiddish to strengthen your bond with your people. You loved laughter and elicited laughter even in your most absurd stories. In your work you fulfilled the prophet Joel’s prophecy that old men will prophesy and young men will see visions. And you, a young man, had visions of a world where people are oppressed and where the individual is lost.’

“I looked down at the grave. I found myself in a puzzling, enigmatic situation. I was delivering a eulogy for myself but also had to pay my respects to the poor, lonely, abandoned Johann Eck who actually had died in the sanatorium and was now being buried.

“Jews believe in the continuity of life. So do I. K’s life will continue. Now let us weep for this unheralded man so few knew; let us weep for this unknown man…. May the soul of the man who rests here be bound up forever in the bond of life.’

“But Brod interrupted.

“‘K will be heralded. K will be known.’

“And then, before the rabbi had a chance to say it, I began the Kaddish for the poor man who was taking my place in the earth where I should have lain but for the miracle:

“‘Yisgadal ve-yiskadash sh’mey rabbo…’

“When I finished, I looked up. People were weeping again. At the end of the service people I did not know, that is, Philippe Klein did not know, came up to me and took my hand in theirs, pressed it warmly, lovingly, put their arms on my shoulders and said, ‘You captured his spirit.’ But how could I capture his spirit if it was of myself that I was speaking? Can a man capture his own spirit? And in any case, in retrospect, it was an uninspiring bundle of banal sentences I put together. Not moving. Not touching. Not spellbinding. Not extraordinary. I hope to do better next time I am called upon to deliver a eulogy for myself. But because it was a funeral, people were moved. The emotion of the moment cloaked rational thinking. Even Maxie shook my hand and thanked me. At that moment I felt again I had betrayed my best friend and I looked down at the ground. People thought it was in sorrow — but it was actually in shame.”

Then K brightened. He looked around his warm, comfortable room as if searching for something. He turned to me and said, “And Franz was there too.”

Was he mixing himself up with himself? Having divested himself of one life and assumed — maybe even arrogated, but that might be too strong a word — another, was he now referring to his former self? Or was he referring to himself now — as a new person — in the third voice?

“Franz?” I said. “But you’re Franz.”

I saw no flicker of anything on his smooth face. An absolutely neutral reaction to my challenge. My God, I thought, and an epiphanous feeling swept over me, a sad spirit, a sad breeze. Maybe he was Phillipe Klein and all his long life he had lived a charade, a pretense, something akin to Karoly Graf pretending to be K’s son, conning his family and few friends that he was K. Klein, having delivered a eulogy in 1924 and convincing himself then that he was K, Klein just kept on with the lifelong pretense.

K waited. He waited until I had puzzled out my suspicion. Then he smiled.

“But there’s another Franz. My good friend, Franz Werfel.” Now he laughed. “Of course, he didn’t recognize me. If Max Brod, whom I would see twice daily, didn’t recognize me, how could Werfel? And anyway, if you’re going to the funeral of K, even if a newcomer from a distant town, some kind of second cousin, somewhat resembles the deceased, what can one say? You look like the lately departed?” Again K rolled a full phrase of laughs. “No one in his right mind would say anything like that. One’s human nature acts as a mask of self-deception. I was, my dear boy, absolutely in the clear.

“One more thing I should tell you. I go to my gravesite every year on my yorzeit. I light a yorzeit candle on the anniversary of my, that is, his, Johann Eck’s, burial, and I say Kaddish for the poor man. He was not a Jew, but I still say Kaddish for him anyway, for the man who was buried instead of me and who has no grave marker of his own. And because of that the light of my own life was temporarily relit for me…. Do you want to see the letter?” K said with almost no pause.

“What letter?”

“The letter. The one that came too late. The letter Dora wrote to me.”

“You have it?”

“Yes.”

“Where? Here?”

“No. It’s in a safe place. Would you like to see it?”

“Oh yes. Absolutely.”

K rose. He got his coat. “Then come. Come with me.”

“Wait,” I said. “Sit down for a minute.”

K laughed again. “Are you like the peasants in a Chekhov story who before they set out on a journey sit down for a moment to avert the evil eye, lest a demon who spoils trips goes into action?”

I laughed too. K seemed in a good mood. He had told me much, in splendidly K-esque precision — not all, but much, of his story.

I was sure he would share many other details with me. Now, when he was so upbeat, was the time for me to ask him a question.

“You know my profession, right? You know what I came to do here. So I want to ask you a favor.”

K’s normally relaxed face tightened. He could feel what was coming. “Yes?”