No intercom.
NOTE:
Beginnings #8, 10, and 9—in that order — have been deleted from this text. Deleted but not purged. Readers curious about the above-referenced beginnings may send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the publisher and request the three deleted beginnings to
Kafka’s Son.
AT DINNER
About a month before my planned six-week trip to Prague for my film project, a delicious surprise awaited me. One of those memorable moments in life that you never even dreamt would occur. That morning, while shaving, I looked in the mirror and fantasized: If I were to fly to Venice for a brief getaway from my work in Prague (very nice, I reprimanded myself, you haven’t even started filming and you’re already planning a vacation), and be invited to one of those masked balls that people give in Venice, who should I go as — K or Danny K? Just then a call came from a documentary film buddy inviting me three days hence to a dinner party. His wife couldn’t make it, he said, and he thought I might enjoy the evening with some other filmmakers, about eight or ten people in all. I can still see my face, full of soap, as I hesitated. Colleagues would ask me the usual question in the arts world, What are you working on? and I didn’t want to discuss a project that hadn’t even begun. But my friend said a producer would come and a distributor too. These get-togethers, he added, always yield some contacts. You never know. Holding the phone with one hand, wiping the soap off with the other, I said yes. Thank God I didn’t refuse, for I would have kicked myself after finding out who was there and whom I had missed by stupidly staying at home.
Guess who sat opposite me at that dinner? He was brought as a surprise guest by a successful producer I won’t name. He came late, after all of us were already seated. He wore a wide, dark brown Australian slouch hat and — it was quite chilly that night — a long suede coat. A white-capped maid helped him out of the coat and took his hat.
One would have expected cries of “Danny, Danny,” when he entered. Instead, a stunned silence hummed in the room. He was pale to his ears, the pallor enhanced by his dark blue cashmere turtleneck sweater that covered the loose skin on his neck. I began applauding and all the other guests joined me. Danny gave a little smile; he raised his hand a bit and waved. The hostess led him and his friend to the two empty seats opposite me.
Why the stunned silence? I’ll tell in a moment. I looked at my hero, unable to believe my eyes. Danny K and me, the erstwhile pretend Danny K, in the same room. Finally. As if fated. He was only in his early seventies but looked like an old man. Old and, unfortunately, seemingly out of it. He still had a full head of hair, but at the roots white was edging into the familiar reddish blond color. But what was worse, and I felt so bad for him, shocked, even embarrassed, was that he was heavily made up. Which everyone noticed, of course, and it took their breath away. Had he just come from a performance and hadn’t had time to remove the makeup? Hardly likely, for I would have known of a Danny K appearance in New York. Was the cake makeup a cover for a skin eruption, an ailing face? Who knows? Except for his lips, the flesh-colored stuff” was all over his face, chin, cheeks, around his nose, and especially heavy at the corners of his eyes. But still the pallor showed through. It reminded me of the last scene of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, where the ailing, aging Aschenbach is persuaded by a barber to restore to his face “what was naturally his.”
A picture on the wall behind Danny’s head caught my eye. It looked familiar. Wait a minute. Where had I seen that lithograph? In a gallery recently? At MOMA or the Gug? Perhaps a New York Times ad for a Miro show at the Pierre Matisse Gallery? The same blaze of primary colors and velvety pastels, happy swirls, hint of a man smiling. Then it came to me; it slid on a sliding door into my mind. Jiri in the hospital, the cheap, commercial-print version of the Miro image above his bed. And here was the much larger — perhaps 14” x 36”—original lithograph, signed and numbered by Miro, an enormously valuable work of art.
At once memories of Jiri flooded me. I missed him. I wanted to ask him about Terezin. I wanted to ask him about his job as director of Prague’s Jewish Museum. I wanted to ask him about his family, his father, his mother. There were so many questions I wanted to ask him. I had known him so briefly yet befriended him so quickly. I was the middle link between him and his friend in Prague, whom I would find in the Altneushul. A tenuous link was I. Jiri was gone and his friend in Prague was still a shadow in my mind. Busy with plans for Prague, I hadn’t realized how much I missed Jiri until that Miro floated into view behind Danny K’s head.
Was this picture another secret message being sent to me, like the arcane language that Jiri and Betty spoke whose messages I could not penetrate, except for “nepa tara glos” and “nepa tara pilus”? If you remove the “K” that has accompanied me all my life, what link, what possible connection could there be between the “K” of Krupka-Weisz and the “K” of Danny K?
Never mind. No time now. There was Danny to look at — and so I fixed my gaze on him. Except for a few whispered exchanges with his friend, Danny hardly spoke. He sat quietly and ate slowly from the platter the producer had brought him from the buffet table. I noticed Danny’s fork trembling as he brought it to his mouth. Seeing others watching him, he switched to his left hand. When he turned he moved his head slowly. Had he had a stroke?
My heart fell. I felt I was seeing my childhood idol, one of my two spiritual K fathers, shattered, defeated, broken. As if a rock cast at a windshield caused a spiderweb of shattered glass — and I’m seeing my beloved Danny through those glass spiderwebs. Could it be that he already had dementia and was reliving his early days in show business when greasepaint was applied to his mobile face? But why would anyone bring him to a party if he was unwell?
Conversations swirled near him, to his left and to his right, leaving him powerfully alone. I longed to rescue him, to become a hero of one of his films, like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, where he wins all battles, rights all wrongs. Were people afraid to talk to him, afraid of disturbing or annoying him? Or were they avoiding him like people avoid the deformed and the incurably ill? But Danny did not seem to mind. No sign of petulance, disdain, or impatience was on his face. While others went to the buffet, he didn’t move. He looked down at his plate or up at empty space as he chewed. Once in a while, his left index finger absently traced a little line on his left cheek.
The hostess had placed one extra linen napkin next to every goblet. Danny took one stiff” napkin, opened it, made some folds, and shaped a little boat. He did the same with a neighbor’s napkin. Then he reached for another and another and did the same. Soon he had a small armada. Others watched Danny as they ate, but they did not use this odd game of his to open a conversation.
An idea suddenly flowered. I took my napkin and made a large boat. Then, from a glass vase filled with red roses on the buffet, I took one rose. I broke off most of the stem, placed the flower in my linen boat and sent it sailing with my gift, my homage, to Danny. He looked up, saw my ship approaching his fleet, and made room for my rose-bearing craft by moving two boats. He smiled delightedly as with thumb and forefinger he pulled in my rose boat to shore. For a moment I fancied he’d pick up the rose, place it between his teeth, and break into a little dance.
Instead, he picked it up, sniffed it, and said softly, “Thank you,” in his nuanced, high-pitched, and rather nasal voice. Then he gave out his famous charming little giggle that I remembered from his films and stage shows. Just then the producer sitting next to him was called into the living room. I too rose and pounced. I moved around the table and slid into the vacated seat.