Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

“No, no,” I shouted. “Stay.” I saw heads turning in the restaurant.

“But I felt I had become a tree,” K said. “Immobile. Rooted. I took all the air of the cemetery into my lungs. Although I could have backed away I did not. Because I realized now it was fated that we meet. Hearing someone approaching, the woman rose.

“Dora,” I said, this time trying not to attract the attention of the few other patrons.

And K repeated:

“‘Dora,’ I said.

“The woman looked at me. She rose from her kneeling position.

“‘Are you not Dora?’”

K closed his eyes, continued his narration, reading his script.

“‘Do I know you?’ she said.

“‘I will answer in Jewish fashion with another question. How can I not know you? How can I forget you, Dora Diamant, daughter of Mendl Diamant, follower of the Gerer rebbe?’

“‘Who?’ Her voice in tremor; fear quavered in her voice. The woman looked around for other people. But there were no other people. ‘Who…are…?’ Her voice in trembling was altered, higher pitched; a thin, frightened bird was her voice. ‘Who…are…you?’ she asked. But she knew. I sensed it. Deep down she knew.

“Was it her words that made me think of a wind blowing through the cemetery, or was there really a wind? There should have been a wind. It would have been fitting had there been a wind.

“‘Don’t you know me, Dora?’ The word ‘darling’ was bubbling on my lips but I was afraid to say it. How I wanted to say it. How at that moment I was overwhelmed with the miracle of her life and of our meeting and the love I had for her flowing in my veins like another magical elixir. ‘Have I changed that much from the days in the sanatorium, Dora Diamant?’

“The woman’s eyes fluttered. Her head sank to her chest. Slowly her legs buckled. ‘Water, water,’ I cried. But no one was about. Neither person nor water. Just the chill wind blowing between the tombstones. But I caught her in time. I caught her before she fell. I caught her and held her in my arms like a baby.

“I said, ‘Dora, Dora,’ several times. ‘Dora, Dora,’ I sang to her. She opened her eyes.

“‘Is it…? Can it…? No, it cannot. Go away, ghost. Return, dybbuk, to your rest.’ And her eyes, I saw the whites of her eyes. I tried to stand her up. She seemed to look right through me.

“‘It is me,’ I said. ‘Don’t be afraid. I’m alive.’

“‘You died,’ she said in a hoarse whisper. ‘A ghost. He-elp! I’m seeing a ghost.’

“‘No.’ What could I do? I pinched my cheek. ‘See? Flesh and blood. I’m alive.’

“Now we both sat on the ground, on my grave, near the tombstone.

“‘How can it be?’ she said. ‘It was in the newspapers, Brod sent them to me.’

“‘I will explain,’ I told her. ‘But not here. Let’s go back to your hotel.’ She was so overcome she didn’t even ask me how I knew this. ‘I’ll tell you everything. When I finish you will know that K is alive.’”

K opened his eyes.

Knowing he was quite adept at this, I said, “And you obviously proved it to her.”

“Of course. In her room. She recognized me.”

“How did you do it? Same way you did with me?”

“No, no. With Dora it was different. I won’t go into details. But you know from fairy tales and folktales that princesses or lost children are recognized by some special sign; for instance, birthmarks.”

Again I felt I was trembling. Birthmark. Karoly Graf.

“What kind of birthmark? Where?”

“I would rather not discuss that.”

“How clever,” I said. “How fascinating. How lovely. A birthmark. A storybook ending with a writer using a storybook motif.”

K took a deep breath. “A storybook, yes. An ending, yes.”

“So destiny played itself out. The sought-for spark.”

“Yes. Dora and I did get together.” Now K’s eyes lit up. For a moment he looked years younger. Then he said somewhat shyly, “We were married that day.”

In my joy, in my naiveté, I exclaimed:

“On such short notice you got a rabbi to come?”

K laughed. “You silly boy. Did Abraham have a rabbi when he took Sarah? Did a Herr Rabbiner officiate when Isaac brought Rebecca into his tent? Jacob waited seven years for his Rachel. I waited nearly sixty-seven for mine…”

In my happiness for him, for them, I jumped up, ran around the table, and hugged K.

“Hooray! And the audience leaps to its feet and cheers the lovers, happy for the happy ending.”

“Happy ending? Not quite,” K said. “But it was worth dying to spend those five days with her.” Now a rueful smile was more in his eyes than on his lips. “But not quite a happy ending. Her Hebrew name was Ra-ch-el.”

Saying her name, K’s voice caught. A sob slid in between the letters of her name. It was the first time I saw K sad. He looked down at the restaurant’s old oaken floor, as if slowly reading letters on a tombstone. Still, I didn’t follow.

“And you never saw her again?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Did Dora remain with you?”

K’s voice was a whisper, as if afraid it would break if he spoke louder. I leaned forward to hear every word.

“Her trip to Prague that year, in June 1950, was only for a few days. She had to return to London, where she was caring for an elderly aunt, repaying her kindness in sending an affidavit in 1938 for residence in England, thereby saving her life…. But the following year she returned. Meanwhile, Dora’s aunt had passed away.”

K broke off. He shook his head, driving away the thoughts he was reading inside his head. He closed his eyes. “I cannot tell you anymore.”

“I’m so glad she came back to Prague.” I pressed K’s hand. I felt the warmth, the sadness, wafting like a small cloud from him. “Did she ever marry?”

“Never,” he said. And then he dropped his voice again and whispered, “Her Hebrew name was Rachel.”

I stopped. I cupped my ears. But he told me that already. At first I didn’t understand. My happiness for K and for the destined Dora-K (re)union made me too thick to penetrate the hint.

I looked at the old man. He sat in his chair, hunched, his face fallen. His plate, empty of food, looked so pathetic. K resembled a balloon with the air draining slowly out of it. Was I witnessing the ebbing of K? His second death?

He gazed at me, breathing evenly. To my unspoken question, Are you all right? he nodded.

Only when he added an Aramaic phrase, “Die le-khakima be-re-meeza” with its inadvertent English pun, and translated it as “A hint to the wise suffices” did I finally understand.

Dora was pregnant.

“And the child?”

“It lived,” he said. “A precious child. The child that almost never was. The child who, like Dora and me, defied history.”

I stood. “Excuse me,” I said. “I have to step outside for a minute.” And I said it loudly enough for Michele Luongo to hear me. As I passed the cashier, I said to Johnny behind the black velvet curtain, “I’m coming back in a minute.”

I stepped out of the restaurant into the street and breathed out a heavy sigh. A host of opposing emotions gyrated in me: rain and shine, up and down, left and right, glad and sad churned until the edges were fuzzed and they all jumbled together like wash in a dryer. The fresh air cleared the haze in me. I looked at the flower boxes hanging on the windows of the restaurant. The reds and whites and yellows of the blooms cheered me. From the roof swallows flew and darted, chirped their calls, singing their songs. In my sigh I sucked in the breath of life and joy that follows weeping. K and Dora had come together; they had defied destiny. They had outwitted the Germans’ decree. There was joy and there was grief and, like in Samson’s riddle — out of the strong came forth the sweet — there was life.