Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

“Isn’t it a miracle?” Katya said, looking dreamingly into my eyes. I had never seen that look, almost intimate, before.

“What is?”

“Everything. Him. Us. Especially him. We’re all miracles and mysteries. Like how does one cast away a fatal tuberculosis? How does one survive the Germans? How does one live in the attic of the Altneushul when there is no attic? How does one attain a Biblical old age?”

“How,” I continued, “does one turn back raging lions with a wave of a hand?”

“How does one survive with only the golem or ravens feeding you? How does a girl like me earn a living by walking around with a heavy sign on my chest and back advertising concerts and still come home with a smile?”

“Because that lovely smile is an expression of your inner spark…”

She gave me her warm smile. Her eyes drew me and I could sense my eyes warming too.

Katya was right. We are miracles and mysteries.

“A gorgeous Georgian smile,” I said.

With my own eyes warming I could not see anything around me except Katya’s beautiful face and that lovely dimple just out of view.

“Remember that Papageno doll you sold me?”

“Yes. I saw it on Mr. Klein’s desk. You gave it to him.”

“Uh-huh. Do you have a female version?”

“You mean a Papagena doll?” Katya asked.

“Yes.”

“I think they had one. Why?”

I looked at Katya and smiled. I put my heart into my smile. I said nothing. I didn’t have to. Katya understood me.

I didn’t feel myself moving closer to her, but before I knew it the eighteen inches between us melted away and my arms were around her and I brought my face close to hers and then I held her face and brought her face to mine and I kissed, oh, for the very first time I kissed those beautiful lips, and her long green eyes became my entire horizon and I felt now her arms around me and we pressed to each other, oblivious of the sidewalk and the house in front of us, and the low flame of my love for her that I had kept tamped down within me burst into full blaze, for she kindled it with her kisses and now it was no longer one-sided anymore, and with the flame two-sided it was now mirror reflected in mirror, with light added to light, and she held my face and kissed my lips, my cheeks, she did not stop kissing my face, singing a little song whose melody I did not know but which was composed of little sighs, little moans, happy moans, strung together like a song, the universal song of lovers in a scale that had no earthly notes.

“I dreamt of this,” I told her. “Twice I dreamt of kissing you before we kissed.”

“When?”

“Oh, a long time ago.”

“Really?”

“Even longer than that.”

Now I felt a serenity, a joy I had never known before. I tasted the sweetness of the magic persimmon tree in the heart of the Garden. I saw her. I spoke to her. I wanted her. I lost her. I found her. I found my spark. I had her. What more can a lonely man want who passes through this world once, and only once?

I opened my eyes. She opened hers. We opened our eyes and found ourselves in a new country, green and sweet and full of trees. I had thought the treasure I would find in Prague would be a different treasure.

I told her this and added, “But it turns out you’re the treasure. Remember, the first day I saw you on the square you carried a sign that said A Major Discovery. Did you know that you were that discovery? That sign sent me a message and that message turned out to be you.”

She smiled, was about to say something, but I continued:

“If you let me,” I whispered, for my voice — I could not speak with my normal voice — did not respond to my will, “you will never have to carry those signs again.”

She rested her head on my chest. I held her close.

“Only marionettes from now on,” I said. “I promise.”

Katya shook with laughter, making me shake as well. She looked up to me.

“You know,” Katya said, “ever since the last time I saw you, I can’t get a picture of you out of my mind. It’s as if a little photograph of you is imprinted on my eyelids.”

There were tears in her eyes. Then, with two of her fingers, she wiped the tears from mine.

Katya took me by the hand. “Come, let’s go to his room.”

She knocked; he opened the door, saw both of us. We stood there, holding hands. He looked down at our hands. I saw the scene clearly, cinematically. He zooms down to our clasped hands which fill the entire screen. I wondered what thoughts were running through his mind at that moment. I couldn’t read his face. Was he astonished to see me or annoyed?

“First of all, thanks for rescuing me. And why did you run away from me? I came and you weren’t here.”

“Do you really want to know?”

K looked at me with his clear blue eyes. I licked my lips. A look of understanding passed between us.

“I didn’t want, I don’t want to be filmed.”

I was grateful to him that he didn’t humiliate me in Katya’s presence. Instead of berating me for attempting to get Dora’s letter he brought up something relatively harmless.

“I’m sorry for being the cause of your flight. It makes me feel terrible.”

“You were going to make a film of him? As K? Of K?”

“Yes. I wanted to. Still do,” I said with the enthusiasm now drained out of me. “I think it will be astounding. A world success. K lives!”

Katya nodded. “I think it’s a wonderful idea, Grandpa. He’s a famous filmmaker who has won several international prizes. I’m sure he’ll make an excellent film. Don’t you think it’s time?”

I couldn’t believe my luck, Katya’s sudden support.

“No, Katya. I want to live out my life the way I want — and not be managed by television people, publicity men, directors, historians, and especially professors who think they understand my work. I have lived this long, following my own path, and I want to continue that way. Once it’s known that I’m alive — and if it is believed — I will never again have a peaceful day. American television, radio, Israeli television, Russian, Czech, Slovak, France, England. I can go down an alphabetical list of the world atlas. Constant cameras. You will deprive me of tranquility. Who knows what the strain can do to me? It will be the end of me. I know it. Think about that.”

“But suppose we won’t say where you live?”

“It will never work. People will recognize me. I don’t want to be discovered again.”

I looked at Katya as I directed my question to K: “Don’t you have a sense of history?”—hoping for more support from her. But now she was silent.

“Don’t you have a sense of ambition?” K asked me.

“You didn’t use a pseudonym.”

“Yes.”

“Like you,” and for the first time I addressed him by his first name, “I too love myths. And I want to share them.”

“For personal gain, money, ego, fame.”

“Publication is ambition,” I reminded him.

He agreed. He nodded. He said, “Yes.”

“I would be willing to remove my name from the credits. Like you see in novels sometimes written by Anonymous.”

K looked down at the floor. He was saying no with his head.

“Please tell me, what’s wrong with letting the world know?”

“You don’t understand. I placed limits on my ego. You know that I forbade further publication. I willed that Brod burn my manuscripts.”

“You knew, and scholars for the past seventy years have also come to the same conclusion. You knew that Brod would never carry out that wish…. And from decade to decade you watched your fame grow.”

I looked at Katya as I said this, noting that I scored a point.