Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

I finally understood K’s hint.

In dying, Dora had brought life into the world. She lived as Dora, died like the biblical Rachel, giving birth at forty-four.

I returned to the table, drank some water, and continued as if there had been no interruption.

“Tell me, please, did you ever show anyone who you are like you showed me?”

“Never. To no one…. But you I wanted to show, to prove, who I am.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer.

I didn’t press. Silence was a magnificent answer too.

But he didn’t speak of his children. He never said, “My son,” or, “My sons.”

While K sat there, occasionally sipping water, images of him, permanent images of K, in color, were being created. And on two cameras too. This is why I had been drawn to Prague, yes, drawn in the mystical, kabbalistic sense of the word, as though some emanation of spirit had sucked me Pragueward. To meet K in person and make this film. To astound the world.

I decided the title would be K’s Son . A title is a magnet. It attracts attention and intrigues critics and viewers. K’s Son would be for me what Lolita was for Nabokov, Catch-22 for Joseph Heller. My groundbreaking creation.

But as I spoke to K, it dawned on me that all the pieces did not fit. There was an enigma in his life. Something hidden he was not telling me. What had he done all these years? How did this creative man spend his time? He must have written. I was sure of that. Seventy years without a manuscript? Impossible. There had to be a treasure of his manuscripts waiting to be revealed — in the attic, in the Aron Kodesh, somewhere — with instructions to his family to have them published after his death.

So I asked K bluntly, without preambles or excuses or hesitant politesse, not building up to it slowly like a prosecuting attorney carefully presenting his argument and then, like a serpent, springing the trap question that confounds the accused. No. It was done without subtlety. I didn’t say, Have you written? I took it as a given.

“May I see,” I asked, “some of the manuscripts you’ve written over the years?”

He didn’t say:

I don’t have any.

He didn’t say:

There are no manuscripts.

He didn’t say:

What are you talking about?

He didn’t say:

I told you I stopped writing.

There are lots of things he didn’t say. Pages and pages of blank pages he didn’t say.

Instead, surprising me, as I had surprised him, K said:

“No.”

I had never seen him looking so tough, hard, obdurate, determined. That No chiseled in stone. A cold “No” sculpted in ice. An acid “No” etched on metal. An iron refusal in his eyes. An iron glint that sent out tiny ferrous rays. Rays that hexed me. That paralyzed. Little ferrous rays that wound around my wrists until I heard a metallic click.

I was unable to say, Why?

Unable to utter: I knew it all along.

“And you asked me this once before.” Great plains, vast spaces, stretched between each adamantine word.

My heart trembled; no doubt his too. We stared unwavering into each other’s eyes until we no longer could stand the intensity of the other’s gaze. Then both of us sighed.

I remembered we were filming all this.

It pained me having to fool the old man. Even Michele Luongo and Johnny didn’t know the truth; only a faint glimmer of it. The scenario I had concocted was like a perfect spy story. No one knew all the details — some people knew nothing; some, part of the puzzle. Only I knew every detail.

For more than ninety minutes K recounted for me most of the memorable events of his miraculous life. I even got him to explain, he enjoyed that, how he could be both 110 and 69.

One remark he made stands out in my mind. One of his most quotable lines. I asked him how he created his stories, like “Metamorphosis” or “The Penal Colony,” and he replied at once:

“I didn’t create my stories. Like Mozart’s music, they were always there, waiting to be plucked out of the cosmos, waiting to be discovered.”

Then K grew tired. He stood.

“Time to go back home. Thank you. This was a treat.”

“For me too.”

I didn’t look back as we left the restaurant, but I felt Johnny’s and Michele’s eyes on me. I had arranged with Michele to call him after I brought my guest home.

A taxi took us back.

At the door to K’s house I thanked him for talking to me. But I added:

“Remember, the other day you said you were prepared to give me something. You suggested that previously you were not willing, but, in your words, ‘Now I am.’ And yet before, in the restaurant, when I asked you to show me what you’ve written, you gave me a stony No…. Why?”

“What you think I’ve written and what I want to show you may be two different things. It’s a bit complicated. But in essence I do not like to be asked. To be pressured. I don’t like pressure. When you ask, it’s No. When I offer of my own accord, it’s Yes.”

When we parted, K bent forward and — for the first time— kissed me on the cheek.

I couldn’t wait to get back to my room. I could have heard it walking. I could have heard it on the Metro. But it was like the chocolate icing you save for last. I was itching to play it but I wanted privacy. In my room, alone, I felt a spurt of saliva in my mouth, like a child before the first bite of birthday cake. My hands trembled as I rewound the tape to the beginning. I pressed the play button.

For a moment or two, silence. Oh no, I said in a panic. All lost. I waited. Then the sounds began. Clear were the first few sentences, the banal exchanges about the newspaper and if K goes out to eat. Clear too was his response to my question if he attends events. “Oh, yes. For concerts and plays, yes.” But as soon as I asked him about Brod the clarity vanished. Instead of conversation, I got broken phrases, bent at the terminal ends, middles missing. I got garbled words. Sentences in what sounded to me like basic Icelandic with raggle-taggle Tagalog. Still, the rhythm was vaguely familiar. Where had I heard this language before? Where? Where? For indeed I had heard it. I thought I had it. It’s…then it slipped away, like a dream remembered in inconclusive jigsaw-puzzle fragments. Oh, the frustration of half-remembered dreams. I replayed the strange sounds. Then it came back to me: the stip-stop, glip-glap lingo Jiri and Betty had spoken in the hospital, with insucked words, backward syllables, fractured syntax, accelerated, syncopated, truncated exchanges. And the scythed words that came from Jiri’s pen once the cap was gone.

Hearing the audio I already (fore)saw the video. The two were linked. That too would fail. For the same lifeblood ran through both. Though physically separated, they were still linked like Siamese twins. I had no hope for the videos. Despite two cameramen. The foeboding — then I correct the ominous, message-laden typo and write “foreboding”—tied knots in my stomach. And I would lose Katya too, pumped my darkly prophetic soul.

I dialed Michele’s cell phone. Every time I make contact I fear the worst. I was constantly fearing the worst. I feared it even before I put on the audio tape and my fears were right. Michele didn’t answer. But knowing I would call, he had prepared a message for me. I had to be grateful for that.

“Sorry, I got called to Vienna. Trouble with a production. I’m leaving the videos with the restaurant owner…. Please say you heard this message so I can erase it. Thanks.”

“Michele. I heard. Call when you get back.”