“I dreamt of this,” I told her. “Twice I dreamt of kissing you before we kissed.”
“When?”
“Oh, a long time ago.”
“Really?”
“Even longer than that.”
Now I felt a serenity, a joy I had never known before. I tasted the sweetness of the magic persimmon tree in the heart of the Garden. I saw her. I spoke to her. I wanted her. I lost her. I found her. I found my spark. I had her. What more can a lonely man want who passes through this world once, and only once?
I opened my eyes. She opened hers. We opened our eyes and found ourselves in a new country, green and sweet and full of trees. I had thought the treasure I would find in Prague would be a different treasure.
I told her this and added, “But it turns out you’re the treasure. Remember, the first day I saw you on the square you carried a sign that said A Major Discovery. Did you know that you were that discovery? That sign sent me a message and that message turned out to be you.”
She smiled, was about to say something, but I continued:
“If you let me,” I whispered, for my voice — I could not speak with my normal voice — did not respond to my will, “you will never have to carry those signs again.”
She rested her head on my chest. I held her close.
“Only marionettes from now on,” I said. “I promise.”
Katya shook with laughter, making me shake as well. She looked up to me.
“You know,” Katya said, “ever since the last time I saw you, I can’t get a picture of you out of my mind. It’s as if a little photograph of you is imprinted on my eyelids.”
There were tears in her eyes. Then, with two of her fingers, she wiped the tears from mine.
36. Why the Old Man Fled
Katya took me by the hand. “Come, let’s go to his room.”
She knocked; he opened the door, saw both of us. We stood there, holding hands. He looked down at our hands. I saw the scene clearly, cinematically. He zooms down to our clasped hands which fill the entire screen. I wondered what thoughts were running through his mind at that moment. I couldn’t read his face. Was he astonished to see me or annoyed?
“First of all, thanks for rescuing me. And why did you run away from me? I came and you weren’t here.”
“Do you really want to know?”
K looked at me with his clear blue eyes. I licked my lips. A look of understanding passed between us.
“I didn’t want, I don’t want to be filmed.”
I was grateful to him that he didn’t humiliate me in Katya’s presence. Instead of berating me for attempting to get Dora’s letter he brought up something relatively harmless.
“I’m sorry for being the cause of your flight. It makes me feel terrible.”
“You were going to make a film of him? As K? Of K?”
“Yes. I wanted to. Still do,” I said with the enthusiasm now drained out of me. “I think it will be astounding. A world success. K lives!”
Katya nodded. “I think it’s a wonderful idea, Grandpa. He’s a famous filmmaker who has won several international prizes. I’m sure he’ll make an excellent film. Don’t you think it’s time?”
I couldn’t believe my luck, Katya’s sudden support.
“No, Katya. I want to live out my life the way I want — and not be managed by television people, publicity men, directors, historians, and especially professors who think they understand my work. I have lived this long, following my own path, and I want to continue that way. Once it’s known that I’m alive — and if it is believed — I will never again have a peaceful day. American television, radio, Israeli television, Russian, Czech, Slovak, France, England. I can go down an alphabetical list of the world atlas. Constant cameras. You will deprive me of tranquility. Who knows what the strain can do to me? It will be the end of me. I know it. Think about that.”
“But suppose we won’t say where you live?”
“It will never work. People will recognize me. I don’t want to be discovered again.”
I looked at Katya as I directed my question to K: “Don’t you have a sense of history?”—hoping for more support from her. But now she was silent.
“Don’t you have a sense of ambition?” K asked me.
“You didn’t use a pseudonym.”
“Yes.”
“Like you,” and for the first time I addressed him by his first name, “I too love myths. And I want to share them.”
“For personal gain, money, ego, fame.”
“Publication is ambition,” I reminded him.
He agreed. He nodded. He said, “Yes.”
“I would be willing to remove my name from the credits. Like you see in novels sometimes written by Anonymous.”
K looked down at the floor. He was saying no with his head.
“Please tell me, what’s wrong with letting the world know?”
“You don’t understand. I placed limits on my ego. You know that I forbade further publication. I willed that Brod burn my manuscripts.”
“You knew, and scholars for the past seventy years have also come to the same conclusion. You knew that Brod would never carry out that wish…. And from decade to decade you watched your fame grow.”
I looked at Katya as I said this, noting that I scored a point.
“Yes.”
“And even forbidding publication is ego of a different kind.”
He didn’t say Yes; he didn’t say No. Maybe he agreed. Then, looking at me, not with reprimand, but with a kind of neutral tone, he said:
“I see you like to play with words.”
“Like father, like son. My father too liked to play with words.” I took hold of his hands, noted again the long slim fingers. “It’s for you. Don’t you understand? Not for me. I want you to get the Nobel Prize. The whole world will give you a standing ovation. What’s more, it would help explain to yourself why you did what you did. And if you have regrets it would help undo your regrets.”
“No and no. I do not want it.”
I looked quickly at Katya. She made a face that said: What can I do?
“I have to run off now.” She looked at her watch. “My train leaves in an hour.”
“Wait,” I cried. “When again?”
“Next Wednesday, at noon, here. I have to go back home to my parents in Brno for a few days.”
She kissed K on the cheek. I wondered if she would kiss me too. And at once she did.
I turned to K and said, “Excuse me for a minute,” and I walked out with Katya.
In the corridor I held her in my arms, looked into her long green eyes, and said:
“I have to tell you this. Every time I leave you I take a little piece of you with me and I leave a little piece of myself with you.”
“That’s so sweet,” she said.
“You like that, huh?”
“Yes.”
Katya stopped and smiled. She was touched by that sort of romantic remark, one that was foreign to my nature but which this lovely girl inspired in me. I, who was so hesitant to articulate feelings, with her the floodgates of words were suddenly thrown open and two unabridged thesauri of sentiments ready to use rode like epaulettes on my shoulders.
Writing this takes longer than the thought, for hardly had I time to gratulate myself on my endearing and perhaps even original formulation than Katya said in a sparkly voice: