Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

But then came Dora, lovely Dora Diamant, my gemstone, my jewel, the diamond of my life, with the thick dusky blond hair and thick kissable lips, whose selfless love slowly caused a reversal of my almost hopeless consumption, whose love brought me back to life, for — how wrong was Milena — I had never lost my capacity for living, not then, not today, not even during those years I was in hiding. Dora rose above herself. She cast aside ordinariness, the instinctual fear women have of the unconventional. She left her ultra-Orthodox home to be with me. And in understanding me, in loving me, she cured me. But then she heeded the call of her fanatic father and, afraid to face my approaching death, betrayed me.

Years later, before my tombstone, which I would visit once a year on my yorzeit to pay my respects to the poor man, Johann Eck, buried in my grave, a miracle happened to me, to whom so many miracles happened. But I must say that as I stood there I felt completely detached. I mean there was no one in that grave that I knew or could mourn over. Let’s face it, it wasn’t me. But that visit, on my yorzeit, was another way of assuring myself I am really alive. And I especially appreciated it after 1945, when the Germans were defeated, yimakh sh’mam…may all trace of them be wiped away from human memory. Which of course will never happen because Jews also have the Hebrew motto, “Zekhor!” Remember! Do not forget! Like the Torah says, “Do not forget what Amalek did to you!” Typical Jewish schizophrenia. On the one hand, blot out; on the other, “Remember!”

I looked at my gravesite with a mixture of solemnity and amusement, and then turned away, assured I was alive, delighted with the trick I had been playing on the world.

And now I also think of my sisters and other relatives and friends whose ashes are scattered in the winds above the Auschwitz crematoria, Jews who had no tombstones of their own.

NOTE:K does not mention here kissing the curtain of the Holy Ark of the Altneushul, which he has claimed sent an electrical jolt of cure through him. Perhaps Dora’s curing K is just a metaphor. But, then again, who can penetrate the mystical powers of love? (K.L.)

I had a tremendous world in my head, a cosmos of ideas, that tumbled over one another like circus clowns, and I tried to pay attention to all of them, to catch them before they vanished. I had so little time. And when I made time to write, I couldn’t write quickly enough. No matter how quickly I wrote I still couldn’t jot down everything surging in my mind. The ideas came like a tidal wave, a gigantic crest of water. But how could I write down a tidal wave? I only had a thimble in my hand. And I could catch no more than a thimbleful of that enormous tidal wave of water. All the rest was lost. As if there were dozens of stages around me, and on each stage someone was singing a beautiful song, a memorable song, and I could not focus on those dozen stages, those dozen songs. I could only focus on one. Because for me writing was a form of prayer and I wanted to keep this form of secular prayer alive. I had a dreamlike inner life full of dozens of songs that was always out of reach because of the dull, vapid prose of my insurance company responsibilities. It was as if a wicked man stood at a gate and with his constant chatter of unsmiling words tried to keep me from entering the gate of song.

There was a time when that legal work at the insurance company plus the extra job at my father’s factory that he thrust upon me drove me to distraction. I pressed my face to the window there and gave serious thought to jumping out.

But ever since my own life was renewed I have greater connection to life, its sanctity, and no matter how depressed I am I will not press my face to the windowpane and give serious thought to ending my life. But, on the other hand, who knows, that limited time I had before 1924 may have unconsciously compressed my creative energies and powers, in a kind of elastic tension. The words of The Ethics of the Fathers, the Pirkei Avot, where Rabbi Tarfon says, “It is not granted you to complete the task — but yet you may not give it up,” became a motto for me.

That phrase, by the way, “elastic tension,” a particularly apt one, is Brod’s, not mine.

My father went to shul four days a year, the two days of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and the first day of Pesach, and I went with him. My attention was riveted to the Holy Ark, and when it was opened, revealing dolls without heads, it always terrified me, as did the crowds of people. My father told me I might be called upon to read from the Torah and this terrified me too. It made me literally tremble with fear. Later on, I discovered an unknown shul at the other side of town whose Ark terrified me not so much by what was in it as by what was on it. I will write about it some *

NOTE:K apparently forgot about this synagogue, for it is never again mentioned in his journals. It is likely that this “unknown” shul is the one with the lions atop the Aron Kodesh, depicted in K’s Son . (K.L.)

*Thought not completed.

On his deathbed Virgil wanted his mss of The Aeneid destroyed. That did not influence me at all in my decision, for I just read about it recently. It just shows that I wasn’t alone.

How I came across a Chinese women in Prague I’ll never know. Maybe she was connected with the Chinese Embassy. She never told me. Quite a beautiful woman, small, petite, translucent porcelain skin, but I forgot the color of her eyes. They surely could not have been blue like mine. I have never met anyone from China, although in a circus, once, I saw Chinese acrobats and tumblers.

I left my apartment building one morning and she crossed my path slowly and smiled at me. She held a shopping bag in one hand and looked down at a piece of paper she had in the other. I assumed she was looking for a certain address. Perhaps she was delivering something.

With a polite preface, I asked if she needed help, hoping that she understood German. She nodded quickly. House, she said. Visit? I asked. No. She pointed to herself. House. I gathered she had recently moved in and was still having difficulty finding her building, many of which looked alike in Prague. Near here, she said, and made a little circle with her index finger. We spoke in abortive phrases. She had just moved here, and she giggled softly, helplessly, and still needed assistance with finding her own address. I know house, I said. She made a little motion with her hand that said, Come with me. I gestured to her bag, then pointed to myself and made a lifting motion. I took the bag from her. It was rather heavy. Not bricks but probably five kilo of flour. I show you way. She walked alongside me. Two turns and three streets later we stood before her building. Ahh, yes, building, she said, recognizing it. You want to come up? I make tea. Chinese tea. Thank you. I followed her up to the third floor. The flour got heavier with each landing. From her jacket pocket she took out the key and opened the door.

I stepped into the small apartment. A fragrance of jasmine hung in the air. A pleasant warmth surged in me. You like Chinese music? Of course, I said, thinking: I love music I have never heard before; it’s just music I’ve heard that I don’t like. She put on a record. The Chinese sounds, a high-pitched woman vocalist, and the perfumed air made my head spin. She began moving her head and hands ever so subtly, a happy, innocent expression on her face. Then her gestures became more elaborate, ballet-like. She may have beckoned me to dance with her, I don’t know. It just seemed her fingers called to me and, my head still whirling slowly, I danced with her, and she looked up at me and said, Soon I make Chinese tea. I held her slim waist and moved as best I could to the Oriental sounds. Then she suddenly slipped away and said, Wait, I put on Chinese costume. I looked about the room. A small sofa. Some Chinese prints on the wall. A little table for the phonograph and radio.