“Don’t worry. He won’t be angry long. Next time you come, bring him a box of dark chocolates. He loves chocolates.”
At the doorway I returned Katya’s beret.
“I heard you calling him Grandpa,” I said, trying to control my tremulous voice, “I didn’t know he’s your grandfather.”
She was still. Maybe it was a family trait to assume a stubborn silence to a question they didn’t want to answer. I felt on edge. A chill in the air.
“So I was right. Eva is related to Mr. Klein. Just as I suspected— she’s his wife…. Why didn’t you say that? Why all the secrecy?”
Katya bit her lips.
“Why don’t you answer me? So he’s your grandfather.” “No.
I just call him that.”
“Why?”
She blew air out of her lips; a kind of sigh. But then she smiled at me. That smile made me feel good. That sudden smile of hers put sunshine into me.
“Out of respect. It’s like calling him Uncle. He’s been living with my grandmother for so long you expect me to call him Mr. Klein?… And she’s not his wife.”
I didn’t realize we were already on the tram. I had been swept along with the aftereffect of fear and the swirl of astonishment.
“And, anyway,” Katya added, “I don’t have a grandfather. And I like him. That’s another reason I call him Grandpa…” Katya stopped and laughed. “Do you want a fourth reason?” She gave me a happy naughty smile. “If I liked you, I would call you Grandpa too.”
34. Resolve and Dissolve
The lions taught me a lesson.
I would leave K alone. Forget about filming him. I had plenty of material for my film about Prague: the Eldridge Street Shul, a bit about Jiri, the statue of the Maharal in Prague, the shamesh, the Altneu Synagogue, the K Museum, Dr. Hruska, Danny K’s story about “Metamorphosis,” Karoly Graf, Yossi golem, the Schweik statue. I would get Eva to sing that Czech Hanuka song. If I could get her to recreate that Bach gigue with K playing a recording that would be a bonus. Before I filmed Eva singing I would add the house and her living room. Maybe K’s room too if he was out. There would be other material, more material. In a supermarket I had discovered a dishwasher liquid called “I Golemu.” On the label was a Czech Mr. Clean, the golem himself doing, according to legend, the domestic tasks he had originally been created for in the Maharal’s house four hundred years ago. I figured this could be an iconic image, perhaps repeating as a motif between segments.
But that lion lesson was not to last too long. Like an addict, I began yearning quickly. It was a powerful pull, that yearning. As mighty as lust. As strong as love. Stronger than death is love. Stronger than love is ambition. Stronger than ambition is destiny. A few days later, my desire, my ambition to film K returned. Not only did I forget all about the old man’s plea to leave him alone, not only did I forget my terror at the open-mouthed lions and my earlier resolve to drop the matter, I redoubled my efforts to capture K on film. He was just too tempting a subject; if I didn’t pursue it now, I would regret it forever.
But then a tweak in my heart and I stepped back. I saw the lions again. I stood in the middle of the seesaw. Now I will have to decide. I can’t say it came down to either me or him. I don’t want to reduce this emotional, ideational turmoil in me to a cops-and-robbers motif. But the truth is it was something like that. I reminded myself of what K said and did regarding giving charity to the beggar near the post office. He argued against it. Why give money to an apparently healthy man who can go out and work? Yet he dropped a coin into his hat anyway. So we are torn. Which way to go? I found myself in a like situation.
If I chose the ethical path, I would let the prize of the millennium slip through my fingers, never to be had again. I wanted to be fair to K, to be considerate, not to make him run away again, to be true to his wishes. After all, it’s his life, his secret. What he possessed, right or wrong, was his alone. One man — me! — did not have the right to deprive another human being of his essence, which for K was his privacy. For if I videoed him that’s what I would be doing. It would be a kind of theft. No, not a kind of. Outright, downright, inright, not right, plain and simple theft. A thievery of mind.* A deception. I would rob him of something precious he’d been guarding for decades. I’m not saying he didn’t tease the public, taking obvious delight in making occasional appearances at K symposia. But if I did what I so badly wanted to do, I would be a robber, a thief, a sneak, a pickpocket, a picksoul — picking at his soul.
And for this there can be no restitution. If you stole five dollars from someone, then regretted it, you could return the five dollars. But if you revealed someone’s secret, a secret he’d been carefully guarding, like telling someone he had been adopted if the parents didn’t want it known, why for that there can be no restitution. Nor for humiliating someone in public. And if I filmed K there would be the accusation of self-aggrandizement under the cloak of historical truthfulness. Coattails fame. Oppportunism. Exploitation. For that there was no rebuttal. Except perhaps to say that even the greatest biographers ride on the coattails of their more famous subjects.
What to do?
What should I do?
I decided to think it over, weigh the pros and cons, for a day or so. Stand on the middle of the seesaw and see which way it would bend.
But I knew very well I was fooling myself. I know, you know, we know, what my decision would be.
* Which is exactly the phrase in Hebrew, in rabbinic literature: genevat ha-da’at.
35. Exchanging the Secret
We stood in front of her house.
I looked at Katya. She looked at me. Neither of us spoke. But— always a good sign — we did not feel ill at ease in this silence. We were getting to be comfortable with each other and silence sans discomfort is one of the markers.
“I was worried before about Mr. Klein, but I see he has the stamina of a young man…. Do you know who he is?” I said quickly, hoping to trigger an answer from her before she had a chance to think.
“If he lives with my grandmother,” said the clever girl, “how shouldn’t I know who he is?”
“But who is he?”
“I’ll tell you.” She tapped her forefinger playfully on my chest.
I waited. It would be fascinating to have what I knew confirmed. Otherwise, I was living in a dreamworld. On an island. If only one person knows something it’s as if no one knows it.
“He’s a wonderful old man.”
“Very funny. I don’t mean that. I mean: Who is he? Really. What is the essence of his is-ness? What’s his real name?”
Now Katya stopped, mute. Now she understood the import of my question. Now she understood something she hadn’t understood before. Now she realized that I must know something that few others, maybe no one else, knew. Now she didn’t say a word.
After a pause, Katya asked lamely:
“Do you know his fake name?”
“No. Or rather, yes. Maybe it’s Mr. Klein.”
“Did he tell you anything about himself?”
I noticed how carefully she worded that question. As if framed by a trained diplomat. Or a clever lawyer. For she could have asked, but didn’t: Did he tell you who he was? But a question like that would have tipped her hand, given more answer in question than an answer itself.
My reply too rode on a tightrope, scrupulously balanced.
“Yes. He introduced himself to me.”
“How? Why?”