“By covering your eye, you say you didn’t want to see me. And circles around your ear, why everyone knows that — it’s the sign I am crazy.”
I burst out laughing. “Oh no. No no no. My fist to my eye plus the right fist circling around my ear meant I wanted to make a movie of you. One hand was the lens, the other the old-fashioned reel camera. It’s a common sign for moviemaking.”
Graf laughed too. “What a mix-up!” He looked closely at my camera. “Very nice…. What’s that?”
“A ring.”
“And you keep such a nice ring hanging from your camera strap?”
“Always. For good luck. My mother gave it to me years ago.”
Graf shook his head. “I saw rings on fingers, rings on noses, but never rings on camera straps.”
“It helps me film better, which I’d like to begin with you now. Ready?”
“I am ready.”
“Okay, let’s begin. I’ll ask you to tell me what you said when we first met. We will have a normal conversation…. Try to forget the camera. Just look at me. Okay, I’m pressing the start button. Go!”
Without hesitation, Graf said, “I have the honor of informing you that I am the son of K.”
“This is Karoly Graf,” I said, “citizen of Prague, who has a fascinating story to tell. Please repeat what you just said.”
“I have the honor of informing you that I am the son of K.”
“How do you know that?”
Graf looked at me. “Am I supposed to prove to you? Last time you also didn’t believe me.”
Should I shut down the video, I quickly thought, and explain to him, like I had explained to the shamesh? No. I’ll record the natural flow of his remarks; I’ll let him speak unimpeded. Then I wondered if his giving me the wrong address card was a direct result of me not believing him. No, I went through this already. He gave me his card first and then, later, I asked for proof.
“Well, as I told you, I’m from the Show Me State.”
“And where is exact location of this Shawmee State?”
Perfect, I thought. He’s recreating our first conversation, which I would have loved to film but of course could not.
“It’s just an American expression. It means: I’d like to have proof. Show me. In other words, show me something to prove your claim to the world.”
“Do you have to prove to others you are your father’s son?” Graf’s voice trembled as it did last time.
That’s an interesting question he’s throwing at me. Fact is, when you get down to it, I am not my father’s son, at least not the son of the man who is generally acknowledged to be my father. But I gave Karoly Graf the same answer I had some time ago.
“No, I do not. But then again, I don’t go around saying I’m K’s son. Or Danny K’s son, even though people have told me I look like him.”
“You also look like the young K.”
“I’ve heard that too, but not from the same people who tell me I look like Danny K. But we’re getting sidetracked…. You see, if you make a radical claim you have to prove it.”
“Prove it! Prove it!” Graf exploded. Good, I thought. We need a little drama, lots of excitement. He began pacing back and forth. I stood back, filming him.
“By the way,” I said, “do you know a Yossi?”
He wheeled. Faced me.
“Yossi? Which Yossi?”
“The Yossi in the Altneushul. A friend of the shamesh.”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Because a friend of his quoted Yossi saying, ‘Where is exact location of Shawmee State?’”
“So?”
“So, what do you mean, so?” I told Graf.
“So what it has to do with me?”
“Because I used that expression only with you. So it was weird hearing someone say that Yossi said it. That’s why I thought maybe you told it to Yossi.”
Graf shook his head. “Some mistake is happening here. Something, as you say, weird.”
Then he went to his bookcase and took out a folder.
“Here. See. Look. It will make all residents of Shawmee State happy as they see the proof.”
He held a beige envelope, thin at the edges from too much handling. He took out a sheet of paper and showed it to me.
26. The Life-and-Death Favor
“So I told Dr. Klopstock,” K continued his narration, “‘I have a life-and-death favor to ask you.’”
“‘Anything,’ he said.
“‘You said that Johann Eck, that slightly retarded man, will die soon. He has no family. He’s all alone in the world.’
“‘He’s dying alone and will be buried alone,’ said Dr. Klopstock.
“‘We can arrange a good funeral for him. This is my request. We shall switch identities. When he dies, arrange to have the coffin sent to our family plot in Prague. And we will give the word out that K has passed away.’
“Klopstock seemed stunned. I told him, ‘The life I wanted with Dora can never be. Not in sickness nor in health. All my life I longed for a stable, traditional family life, wife and children. It won’t happen with her. And if it won’t happen with her, it won’t happen with anyone. I am incapable of living with any woman but her. Will you do it, Klopstock?’
“Doctor Klopstock pressed his eyes shut. ‘This is to be expected from a man with a fantastic imagination like yours…but the fact is I agreed before I even heard your request. But you must first return to inform your parents and sisters. I cannot consent to this extraordinary arrangement if you don’t do that.’
“At once I cried out, ‘Willingly! I wouldn’t have done it any other way.’
“‘And what about your appearance?’ Klopstock said. ‘Won’t people recognize you?’
“‘Don’t worry. I thought about that too. I won’t look like this. I will grow a Van Dyke beard. I will crop my hair short in the German style and will wear a blue beret. I will become my own distant kinsman,’ is what I told Klopstock.
“You see, my young American friend, I grew a beard not only to disguise myself from others but also to hide from the Angel of Death. True, I was feeling fine — but maybe he hadn’t been informed yet. If he came after me again, he wouldn’t recognize me with a beard. It was something the religious Jews do when they are deathly ill. They change or add to a Hebrew name in order to fool that angel, who is never fooled. When he seeks someone by a certain name and presumably can’t find him because that certain someone has changed his name, he finds him anyway. For that angel’s arrows, like Cupid’s, always find their mark.”
“But you were called Mr. Klein,” I interrupted, seeing before me his Ph. Klein name plate.
“But my Hebrew name,” K continued, “I didn’t change. Just my face.” K smiled, chuckled softly and whispered, “It seems to have worked,” and he broke into a laugh. And I laughed with him.
“When poor Johann Eck died they prepared the coffin. Meanwhile I returned to my family. They almost didn’t recognize me, but they were delirious about my recovery. But their mood changed when I told them about the staged death and the funeral that would follow. I had a row with my father. I told him to appreciate my return to health rather than criticize me for my drama. ‘Mad writer,’ he called me. ‘Looney Bohemian.’ I told him I could have pretended to have died and then at the funeral of the lonely man revealed myself. But that probably would have killed him. To make a long story short, they buried the poor fellow in a grave whose tombstone read K, 1883–1924, and my parents and sisters went through the shiva while I took a room somewhere.”
“And you didn’t share this with your beloved Max?” I said and felt myself sailing through the decades in the space of K’s sunny, book filled room.