Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

“Why don’t you just say no?”

“I don’t want to hurt their feelings. Maybe there’s still a chance they’ll buy a ticket to a concert.”

Maybe she also makes a little commission on sales, I figured.

“I’ve come here quite a number of times. How come I haven’t seen you before?”

“I work during the day.”

“Which is now. During the day.”

“On Wednesday I have a few hours off. And anyway, I was away for a while. I had to return home.”

“Am I interrupting your plans?”

“No. Not really. I was going to the museum. And what are you doing here with the old man?”

I noticed she didn’t call him by name.

“I love talking to him.”

She said something like, “Uh-huh, mm-hmmm.”

Again we were silent for a while. It was a nice crisp fall day. The sun was shining. The sky was blue. I was happy. My rainbow had returned.

“By the way, I bumped into Michele Luongo the other day. I thought he would be furious at me but he wasn’t at all. In fact, he wondered why I ran off.”

“He told me all about you. Why didn’t you tell me you’re famous?”

“First of all, I’m not famous. And second, famous people don’t go around telling people they’re famous. And anyway, you never gave me a chance. You kept disappearing.” I stopped for a moment, cleared my throat. “The four days are up.”

Katya smiled.

“I had an emergency. I was called back home to Brno.”

“That’s the capital of Georgia, isn’t it?”

“You’re funny,” she said affectionately.

“Is everything all right at home?”

“Now, yes. My father wasn’t well.”

Why did Brno sound familiar? Yes, K had told me that’s where Eva Langbrot had gone, to visit relatives.

“Curious, that’s where the landlady Eva went too.”

“Why curious? Why shouldn’t she go there?”

“How should I know? It’s just curious that both of you went to that same little town.”

“But that’s where my parents live. That’s where I grew up before I moved here to continue my university studies and seek work.”

“But what about Eva?”

“Eva also went to Brno to help tend to her son who wasn’t well.”

Maybe I was thick but I still didn’t understand.

“But wouldn’t you say it’s curious, or coincidental, that two women who live in the same house travel to the same town to help with two sick men, in one case the girl’s father, in the other the woman’s son?”

Katya leaned back and laughed. She clapped her hands, kept on laughing.

“Logic is not one of your strong points, is it? It’s not two men, silly. It’s one man. One and the same man.”

The little bits of info tumbled like scattered leaves settling in my brain until they sorted out.

Click. Every day I learn of new relationships.

“Oh, my God, am I thick!.. Your father, her son. Eva Langbrot your grandmother?” So Katya is Jewish. My prophetic heart. “Lucky you, having such a talented, wonderful woman as your grandma. When I got tired of waiting for the old man, Eva told me to stay another fifteen minutes, and then another fifteen minutes. It will be beneficial, she said. And how right she was. Had I left earlier, I wouldn’t have met you.”

“Oh yes, you would have. If it is destined that two people meet, neither fire nor flood can stop the meeting. Anyway, you would have seen me on the square or near the square.”

“But that’s not the same as in the house. In the garden. Here. Now. And on the square, as you yourself say, you wouldn’t be so friendly.”

“But with you I was friendly, right?”

“You were, and that made me very happy.”

“What are you doing now?”

I heard the hint in her question, but I was worried about K.

“Do you know where Mr. Klein might be? I want to go look for him. I’m worried he’s been away for so long. Eva doesn’t seem to be worried, but I am.”

“No need to worry. He’ll come back. And where in this huge city will you look for him?”

“Do you know where he went?”

“Do you want me to tell you?”

“Of course.”

Katya licked her lips, thinking, deciding. Her tongue wet her lips once, briskly. She didn’t move it slowly, provocatively, over her lips.

“When he needs spiritual refreshment, he goes to the synagogue not too far from here, a synagogue that few people know about.”

“I thought I knew all the famous synagogues in Prague.”

“This one you don’t know.”

“Maybe that’s the one he said he would take me to.”

“He did?”

“Where is it? I’d love to see it. One day we almost went there but after our walk he grew tired and said, Another time. Do you know it? Can I ask you to take me there? Do you have the time? I’m not imposing, am I?”

She ticked her head and pursed a smile, the girl in the blue beret. “My my, so many questions.” Katya seemed to repeat them in her mind as she lifted her fingers, one, two, three, four, five. “Five quick questions.”

“Well, do you?”

“Plus one makes six.” She gave out a merry laugh.

So did I.

“So you’ll do it? I mean…” and I dropped the question mark. “So you’ll do it.”

Again Katya laughed. “Seven is a perfect number.”

How lucky I was, spending so much time with her. My mirror monologue had materialized. I listened to every word individually and then to the trope of the phrases and the arc of her little speech, its melody, each note vibrating on a plane of its own. My eyes glowed. I looked at her with admiration. How beautiful, without a drop of paint on her pretty lips, no makeup on her face. Even though I paid attention, I didn’t pay attention to what she was saying, but her words washed over me like a beneficent wave, a benison, until I only heard fragments of words in a language I didn’t understand, a tongue like the strange tongue Jiri and Betty spoke in my presence. Nepa. Tara. Glos.

And I thought, even before I formulated the thought, even before I gave myself permission to fathom the thought, even before I could weigh in my mind’s balance scale if I could, if I should, let this thought fly — I thought I heard myself uttering the words in my mind: If you let me, Katya, you won’t have to lug those concert signs, a sweet, bright, lovely girl like you, and there still will be a smile on your luminous face.

Did I say what I wanted to say? Or were those words only subtitles in my mind? If I did say those words, she didn’t react. And if I did, why should she react? I had overwhelmed her at our first private meeting with an overbearing personal remark. If I did say those words and she heard them, she wisely let them pass and vanish into the air like skywriting smoke.

“So why did you do what you did?” I asked her.

“Do what?”

“Carry those signs?”

“I can’t stand sitting in an office.”

“Can you sit standing in an office?”

Katya thought a while, translated the words into Czech, reflected on the English and then, understanding, smiled.

“You went to college, I imagine…”

“Yes. And specialized in literature. But you can’t make a living from literature.”

And from carrying placards you can? I thought. “Then teach.”

“I will go back to it. But on a university level. In middle school the students get stupider from year to year…. And your field is film and that’s why you are here.”

Katya made a circular motion as if encompassing all of Prague and then pointed emphatically to the ground where she stood. “Here.”

“But why are we chatting so much? We wanted to go and find Mr. Klein.”

“Then let’s go,” said Katya. “The synagogue is not far from here. But it will be quicker by tram.”