Curt Leviant - Kafka's Son

And how I wish I could show my parents and my sisters the quaint Café K. And my face on coffee mugs. Brod too would have smiled.

I once dreamt that a young angel asked me if I have any problems with old age. A talkative little angel was he. He hadn’t yet learned reticence. Seeing me hesitate to answer quickly, he jumped in with:

It’s probably digestion. Or insomnia. All old people have that. You probably can’t fall asleep for hours. True, I said, that had been a problem of mine during my twenties. Then surely it must be the prostate, said the angel. You have to get up three or four times a night to pee, excuse me, I mean urinate, and then you have to wait for what seems like minutes for the flow to begin.

I shook my head.

Maybe it’s cravings you have, the young angel continued. For sweets. Old men like chocolate.

I nodded. I’m famous for my chocomania. I love especially the European liquor-filled chocolates which I skillfully penetrate ever so slightly with an incisor and then slowly suck out the liquor and then crunch the chocolate and the sugar lace that still has the essence of the brandy, the cherry kirsch or the cognac.

But you can’t enjoy those, alas, said the young angel, because you have diabetes.

Dead wrong.

Do you have any problems with old age?

Yes. Sometimes when I put on my trousers I put my left leg into the right trouser leg.

Then you pull it out?

Pull what out?

Your leg.

Which is where?

In the wrong trouser leg, the angel said, exasperated.

No, I said.

No?

No, I said.

You stay that way?

No.

But it has to be one or the other. Either in or out.

No. I just turn around.

Although it was just a dream, I should have laughed but I didn’t. I kept a straight face. Not a hair moved on my white mustache; no wind of movement disturbed the hairs of my Van Dyke. If “Metamorphosis” was funny, a fortiori that slipping the left leg into the right trouser leg and turning around was hilarious. That was the punch line to the absurdity. But I didn’t even smile.

Then I added: And sometimes I turn the pants around.

But angels do not weep. And they cannot laugh.

No one knows about this picture. You will not find it in the countless albums on Prague, K in Prague, K here, K there. But in one of my albums is a precious photograph taken many, many years ago where Einstein and I stand next to each other. I with serious mien, in jacket, high collar, shirt and tie, unsmiling, as in all my photos, as in all photos of Europeans at the time. And Albert, in sweater, mustache as usual, a wise Mona Lisa smile hovering in his eyes,

I can hear someone saying, I didn’t know there was a picture of you and Einstein. I didn’t know you met him.

I could say, There’s a lot you don’t know. But the words hang there, unsaid, unread, a white shade drawn over them. All one has to do is pull up the shade or part the curtains if the shade isn’t there. Does this make sense? No? Good. I didn’t want it to.

Before I left, I told Einstein: I admire you for your knowledge of the universe. Then he said something I’ll never forget: And I admire you even more for your use of imagination. For imagination, Einstein said, is more important than knowledge. With it you can travel even farther than the most distant star. I can calculate the speed of the light from the stars, said Albert, but you, K, you calculate the stars themselves. I can observe the laws of gravity, but your imagination bends gravity and creates a rainbow out of light.

Did you ever hear of Danny K? my young American friend asked.

Of course. I got to know his films after the war. I loved every one of them. Did you know he had a serious side?

No.

Danny K also starred in a film, Me and the Colonel , based on my friend Franz Werfel’s Jacobowsky and the Colonel . When I saw that Danny K could be both funny and serious, I immediately thought he would be perfect if they ever made a film of “Metamorphosis.” Not the dreary sadness of The Trial , although that has its comic moments too, but a true comedy — why are you sitting there with an open mouth all of a sudden, my boy?

My young friend jumped up. You won’t believe this, he said. This is incredible! Danny and you, the two K’s, were my two heroes. I just met him at a dinner in New York a couple of months ago. I asked him if he read K and Danny said yes. When I asked him his favorite K work, he said, “The Metamorphosis.” Moreover, Danny said he once proposed a film of the story to his studio, starring him, in a comedy.

How brilliant, I replied. With Danny K. A comedy. Just as it should be.

But the studio turned him down, my American friend continued. And then, just as I was making preparations for my Prague trip, poor Danny K died.

I am so sorry to hear this. What a wonderful actor and wonderful man.

I would have wanted to see him in that film. But it didn’t happen.

Lots of things we want in this world do not happen, I said.

I was supposed to make a documentary of him, but that didn’t happen either.

We sat in silence for a while.

Then the young American asked me, Have you written anything over the years?

Aha! Oho! So that’s it! I said with a rather sarcastic edge to my voice. So it’s manuscripts you want. The discovery of the century. The literary find of the millennium. A new work by K.

But my young friend shook his head and said softly, No, it’s just curiosity. I have no intention of seeking gain from your manuscripts or from what you’ve written that hasn’t been published.

He said this so gently and so sincerely I immediately regretted my sarcasm. He does not look like the sort that would seek illicit gain from knowing who I was.

To brighten the mood in the room I told my American friend, Did you know that Thomas Mann called me a “religious humorist”?

Yes, he replied. In his “Homage,” his introduction to the English translation of The Castle .

I said I don’t agree with Mann’s adjective, although the search for God is indeed in my works. But with his noun, “humorist,” I heartily concur.

The young American nodded. He said, I remember that hilarious scene at the beginning of The Castle with Frieda at the bar. And later, when K throws out his two assistants, they pop in through the window. Just like something out of the Marx Brothers. I can just see Harpo and Chico doing that. Of course, they came later.

I know, I said. But you have to remember: I am the Marx Brothers. All three…rather, to be accurate, all five of them.

We both smiled. Then I added: Thomas Mann, by the way, is one of the few who noted that I am basically a humorist, which most people are blind to. Yes, I know, except you. He also quotes Brod that when I read from The Trial , Brod and Werfel and all the others laughed till they cried, as I did too.

NOTE:With the foregoing entry we come to the end of this volume of K’s Journals. The following pages are not from K’s writings. They are by K’s young American friend, the documentary filmmaker, and were forgotten in K’s room. K very likely slipped them into his journal book inadvertently and they surfaced just recently. They shed light on K and are used here with the permission of both K and the author. (K.L.)

(Please remember, the first person “I” here is not K, but the American documentary filmmaker speaking.)

I couldn’t wait to get back to see Eva. The other day she had wanted to tell me something but was called to the Jewish Old Age Home and she said she’d tell me next time. Now we began chatting in our usually amiable manner. Mr. Klein was out walking, she said. Again she said she wanted to tell me something.