Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

To the front of the synagogue walked the shamesh with the lions. After he removed their leashes they leaped up to the top of the Holy Ark. Now smaller and smaller they grew until they shrank to their former size, brown-painted porcelain lions with red bulbs in their mouths.

For the first time K spoke to me. Or maybe it was to the charged air around me.

“They have never threatened anyone before.”

“Thank you,” I said.

But that was the last thing K said to me. He walked past me and out of the synagogue.

I cried, “Wait!” but he did not turn.

And another Wait! cried out in me. A louder Wait. A Wait that shook the foundations of my being. A word I heard more clearly in echo than in its original sound. “Grandpa.” If K is Katya’s grandfather, and “Grandpa” wasn’t just a term of affection for an older man, much like “Uncle” is for an older family friend, then I was right. Eva was K’s wife. But why were they hiding this relationship from me?

Everything is hidden here. Starting with Jiri, yes, my beloved Jiri, who hid from me that he was K’s son, to Yossi and Eva, even K himself. Every day a new discovery. Surprises never cease in Prague.

I turned to Katya. “Why did those lions threaten me? I thought I was going to die.”

“This has never happened before.”

Then why did that tram ticket clerk warn me to be careful?

The shamesh approached Katya. He spoke in Czech but kept looking at me.

“He wants to apologize for the lions frightening you,” Katya explained. “It is most unusual, he says. They are usually very good creatures.”

He put out his hand. “Shalom. I am very sorry for incident.”

I answered, “Shalom.” But I did tell Katya, “Remember what the ticket agent said? He must know something.”

Katya was silent. A feeling of unease churned in me. I looked up to the Aron Kodesh, but the lions rested there peacefully, holding the Ten Commandments.

“And the shamesh told me they protect the Jewish people. My stomach is still in knots. And what’s more, Mr. Klein is angry with me.”

“Why?”

What should I say now? How could I answer and still be discreet?

“I wanted to include him, as an older man, with many memories of Prague, in my film on Prague.”

“Don’t worry. He won’t be angry long. Next time you come, bring him a box of dark chocolates. He loves chocolates.”

At the doorway I returned Katya’s beret.

“I heard you calling him Grandpa,” I said, trying to control my tremulous voice, “I didn’t know he’s your grandfather.”

She was still. Maybe it was a family trait to assume a stubborn silence to a question they didn’t want to answer. I felt on edge. A chill in the air.

“So I was right. Eva is related to Mr. Klein. Just as I suspected— she’s his wife…. Why didn’t you say that? Why all the secrecy?”

Katya bit her lips.

“Why don’t you answer me? So he’s your grandfather.” “No.

I just call him that.”

“Why?”

She blew air out of her lips; a kind of sigh. But then she smiled at me. That smile made me feel good. That sudden smile of hers put sunshine into me.

“Out of respect. It’s like calling him Uncle. He’s been living with my grandmother for so long you expect me to call him Mr. Klein?… And she’s not his wife.”

I didn’t realize we were already on the tram. I had been swept along with the aftereffect of fear and the swirl of astonishment.

“And, anyway,” Katya added, “I don’t have a grandfather. And I like him. That’s another reason I call him Grandpa…” Katya stopped and laughed. “Do you want a fourth reason?” She gave me a happy naughty smile. “If I liked you, I would call you Grandpa too.”

The lions taught me a lesson.

I would leave K alone. Forget about filming him. I had plenty of material for my film about Prague: the Eldridge Street Shul, a bit about Jiri, the statue of the Maharal in Prague, the shamesh, the Altneu Synagogue, the K Museum, Dr. Hruska, Danny K’s story about “Metamorphosis,” Karoly Graf, Yossi golem, the Schweik statue. I would get Eva to sing that Czech Hanuka song. If I could get her to recreate that Bach gigue with K playing a recording that would be a bonus. Before I filmed Eva singing I would add the house and her living room. Maybe K’s room too if he was out. There would be other material, more material. In a supermarket I had discovered a dishwasher liquid called “I Golemu.” On the label was a Czech Mr. Clean, the golem himself doing, according to legend, the domestic tasks he had originally been created for in the Maharal’s house four hundred years ago. I figured this could be an iconic image, perhaps repeating as a motif between segments.

But that lion lesson was not to last too long. Like an addict, I began yearning quickly. It was a powerful pull, that yearning. As mighty as lust. As strong as love. Stronger than death is love. Stronger than love is ambition. Stronger than ambition is destiny. A few days later, my desire, my ambition to film K returned. Not only did I forget all about the old man’s plea to leave him alone, not only did I forget my terror at the open-mouthed lions and my earlier resolve to drop the matter, I redoubled my efforts to capture K on film. He was just too tempting a subject; if I didn’t pursue it now, I would regret it forever.

But then a tweak in my heart and I stepped back. I saw the lions again. I stood in the middle of the seesaw. Now I will have to decide. I can’t say it came down to either me or him. I don’t want to reduce this emotional, ideational turmoil in me to a cops-and-robbers motif. But the truth is it was something like that. I reminded myself of what K said and did regarding giving charity to the beggar near the post office. He argued against it. Why give money to an apparently healthy man who can go out and work? Yet he dropped a coin into his hat anyway. So we are torn. Which way to go? I found myself in a like situation.

If I chose the ethical path, I would let the prize of the millennium slip through my fingers, never to be had again. I wanted to be fair to K, to be considerate, not to make him run away again, to be true to his wishes. After all, it’s his life, his secret. What he possessed, right or wrong, was his alone. One man — me! — did not have the right to deprive another human being of his essence, which for K was his privacy. For if I videoed him that’s what I would be doing. It would be a kind of theft. No, not a kind of. Outright, downright, inright, not right, plain and simple theft. A thievery of mind.* A deception. I would rob him of something precious he’d been guarding for decades. I’m not saying he didn’t tease the public, taking obvious delight in making occasional appearances at K symposia. But if I did what I so badly wanted to do, I would be a robber, a thief, a sneak, a pickpocket, a picksoul — picking at his soul.

And for this there can be no restitution. If you stole five dollars from someone, then regretted it, you could return the five dollars. But if you revealed someone’s secret, a secret he’d been carefully guarding, like telling someone he had been adopted if the parents didn’t want it known, why for that there can be no restitution. Nor for humiliating someone in public. And if I filmed K there would be the accusation of self-aggrandizement under the cloak of historical truthfulness. Coattails fame. Oppportunism. Exploitation. For that there was no rebuttal. Except perhaps to say that even the greatest biographers ride on the coattails of their more famous subjects.

What to do?

What should I do?

I decided to think it over, weigh the pros and cons, for a day or so. Stand on the middle of the seesaw and see which way it would bend.