Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

I ran to the restaurant. Again the nervousness, again the fears, again the foreboding. The audio and videotapes are related. They’re made of the same tainted molecules.

The beefy owner, Pavel, stood inside. Seeing me, he smiled. Ah, that’s a good sign. He’s expecting me. I breathed out a ton of air, felt better.

“Hello, Pavel. My cameraman said he left the videos here.”

Pavel’s smile disappeared. He thought I’d come to order a meal. He pulled his lower lip down, grimaced, and shook his head.

“With me?”

“Yes, with you. That’s what he told me.”

“I did not see that man again after he left.”

“Is it possible he left the videos when you were out?”

“Is possible.”

“Please. Please look. Those are valuable videos. They can’t be made again. And I haven’t even seen them yet.” I heard my voice. My pounding heart was raising my pitch. I sounded like a tape speeded up.

Pavel looked near the register; he searched a couple of shelves. He went to check in his little office. He shouted in Czech to a waiter and a cook.

“They say no one came in. I am sorry. There is nothing here.”

“Nothing? How can that be? He told me it was here.”

“Please, mister. Nobody left nothing here. I look. You see I look. Nothing.”

“I can’t understand it. Those were his exact words: I’m leaving the videotapes with the restaurant owner.”

“Maybe another restaurant. Not me. Look, I don’t know you. I don’t know him. How I know, how you know he tells the truth? Please leave me alone. I got work.”

“But…”

“Mister, I did what you asked. Partition? Put partition. With hole? With hole. Black curtain by register? Black curtain by register. Too much time. Too much work.”

“Excuse me, Pavel, but you will recall I offered you a generous sum of money.”

“But now time is up. I have no more time. No video here.”

“Can I call you in a couple of days in case it turns up?”

“Call.”

“I’ll also write down my phone number at my hotel. Here. Please.”

“If I find it, I will call. But I swear I don’t have videos.”

I backed out of the front door, crushed.

I held the phone. I took a deep breath. I didn’t know if I would be able to talk. I didn’t know where my heart was. It wasn’t where it was supposed to be, for it was thumping everywhere. Between my ears, a heartache in my head. In my feet. In the pit of my stomach.

“Michele. Listen. I just left the restaurant. The…videos…are not, repeat, not …there. Pavel looked, searched, found nothing. Claims no one came in to give him or anyone on his staff the videos. He was rather testy and impatient. What did you do with them? Who did you give them to? Did you see where he put them? Call me. Urgent.”

I wished I had Johnny’s number. I didn’t even get his last name. Again I screwed up. With all my careful planning, getting Pavel to set up two partitions, getting K to the restaurant and speaking for one and a half hours, even arranging a second video man as a backup in case something went wrong with one camera — but I didn’t have enough foresight to get another telephone number as a backup.

One day passed. Two. Three. I kept calling Michele. No answer. I stopped leaving messages. He’ll call me when he returns from Vienna, I consoled myself. I don’t know how I got through each day. If I ate or not. If I slept. Maybe I wasn’t even breathing. I called Pavel a day later. No videos here, he said crisply. Never was. Never will be. I felt removed from the world. Looking at it through the other side of a telescope. I didn’t call or visit K. I was so depressed I couldn’t even conjure up the image of Katya to cheer me.

Finally, when I thought my soul had drained out of me, the phone rang.

“Hello, it’s me. Oh, God! Sorry, just a moment, trouble in Vienna again. Wait.”

“Do you—?”

I couldn’t even squeeze in my desperate question. Soon as he said, “Hello, it’s me,” I should have said, “Where are the videos?” But he was already off the line. The phone dead as my heart.

When I dialed back, I only got his answering machine. I felt like throwing my cell phone, smashing it against the wall. But I held back. Why ruin my only chance at connecting with the world? Was this a scam? ran through my head. Was Michele in league with that aggrieved actor, Stacek? Would he tell me he gave the two videos to Stacek and now I would have to deal with that unpredictable, vengeful fool, the rogue of Prague?

Who knows? Prague was still a city of mystery. Who knows what kind of intrigues took place here? True, Michele was an Italian, but still, maybe something of Prague had — under the influence of Stacek — rubbed off on him. Despite his kind words, Michele might still be smarting from me disrupting his film.

When one is pressed against the wall, drained of hope, one thinks desperate, hopeless thoughts.

I looked at my watch; I looked at the calendar. Oh, my God. It’s Wednesday. I promised — rather, Katya promised to see me.

The loss of the two videos, my entire hope, my dream, the core of my film on Prague, devastated me. I didn’t want to see anyone. But I had to pull myself up. I didn’t want to link the loss of the tape, the video, with the loss of Katya. It had been my fear — yes, my gloomy prediction. But it was my choice not to let it come true. The audio and the video were now beyond my control. But it was up to me, my will, to either hold on to or lose Katya.

I boarded the Metro and was in K’s house twenty minutes later.

Katya answered the doorbell and welcomed me with an affectionate hug. I bent down to kiss her lips.

“Is anyone home?”

She said Eva had gone out shopping with K.

From the way she looked at me I sensed the good feelings we had last time were holding. I’m always afraid that when I leave a girl I like I’m going to disappear from her heart, and the next time we meet we’ll have to begin from square one. But now, here, there was no need for trepidation. Nevertheless, sadness subsumed me. A melancholy, grey as fog, palpable and damp, misted through me. I had to pull my soul up from somewhere near my ankles and suppress my sadness. The videos. Again the videos. The videos I expected and had not yet gotten created a cavernous emptiness in me, a gloom, a grief.

Then the sunshine of Katya’s voice broke through the fog.

“Do you want to go somewhere?” she asked.

“Not really. I just want to spend some time with you alone.”

She gave me the kind of warm smile, sly and sweet, one lover gives to another. Holding my hand, she took — led — me down to her little room. As soon as she closed the door she pressed up against me and threw her arms around me.

“Look,” I said, and took out of my pocket a bag of dark, high — cocoa-mass, chocolate pistules I had bought at Capek Chokolat, Prague’s celebrated chocolatier.

Katya gave a little cry. “We must be telep…is that the correct word?”

“Pathic?”

“Yes, telepathic. Look! Look what I have for you.” And from under her pillow she took a bar of chocolate she had bought me at the same shop.

But suddenly, a host of negative associations assailed my febrile brain. Chocolate made me think of K, and K led me to the video. Once more, a wave of emptiness overwhelmed me.

How could I rid myself of those blue-tinted low spirits? Could I will them away?

“Bless me,” I told her.

“With what?”

“Success. Luck.”

“You have success.”

“I want more.”

“I bless you with success. More and more.”

“Unsadden me, Katya. Gladden me.”