“Yes, I can see that. You even have that Jewish bend in your nose like mine.”
Which led me to say, “I even learned some of your double talk, quick patter routines, was able to mouth, to lip-sync your Russian composers’ song.”
“How nice.” For a moment he looked distant; he seemed to remove himself and sail far away. Then he looked back at me and said: “Do you want to hear a sad joke?”
I didn’t want to hear a sad joke.
“Danny K is here,” he said softly, “and there is no laughter.”
“No no no. Not so, Danny. May I call you Danny? I’m dying to call you Danny. All my life I’ve been calling you Danny…”
He was smiling now and nodding. “Yes, of course.” But through the smile, behind the smile, behind the pallor, Danny K looked like a little boy humiliated in class, fallen, hurt, alone.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “Danny K is here and there’s joy.”
“Really?”
“Really. Really really. Wherever Danny is there is joy…joy is what laughter brings. Can I get you something? A glass of water, some juice, tea?”
“No, thanks, I’m fine. I was thinking back to my early days in Hollywood. Those Jewish moguls, the big shots, wanted me to get a nose job…imagine! They thought I looked too Jewish. Not enough Kaminsky became K, they wanted a mohel to circumcise my nose.”
And again he gave his famous high-pitched giggle.
I laughed with him.
“You see? Laughter and joy.”
“But I put my foot down,” he continued. “Refused flat out. Did you know that my hair was naturally dark? It was the Hollywood studio that made me reddish blond. To make me look more goyish. That was the compromise on their part, those anti-Semitic, self-hating heads of Hollywood studios, developed and run and owned by Jews. And that’s how we solved the Danny K Jewish problem.”
“Danny, we’re talking showbiz and we weren’t supposed to.”
“Such is the nature of the beast. It’s in our blood, pores, genes.”
I looked into Danny’s eyes, those beautiful blue eyes, a bit duller than years back, the laugh lines filled with cake makeup.
“Danny, I want to ask you another question.”
“ Sure.”
And before I had a chance to censor my gall the words were already out.
“Danny, would you be amenable to me making a documentary about you? A very personal one. I don’t think such a film has ever been made. You see, though I majored in literature, after seeing your films I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker.”
I felt I was on a precipice. Which way would it go? He could say no outright or say he was too busy now with other projects. He could say he’d think about it. He could say a hundred things that meant no.
Danny K looked at me, his eyes blank. For a moment I looked over at the fleet of ships Danny had created. My ship still had the red rose on it.
Danny nodded, once, twice, then many times slowly before saying a word.
“After all,” he said with an upbeat tone, “if you looked like me and imitated me, if I’m your hero, what more can a documentary subject want?”
What’s next? I wondered. Did he say yes? Should I give him my phone number, ask for his?
We both were standing now.
“And for my Prague film I’d like you to retell that ‘Metamorphosis’ film project story. It would make a marvelous addition to the film.”
“Excellent. I want you to call me. Will you call me?”
I just gazed at him. I’m sure my jaw had dropped open. Will I call him? Will the day dawn tomorrow and wane at dusk?
“Of course. Even without a phone number I’d shout to you from my rooftop.”
Danny smiled. “Then, here, let me give you my number.” And he patted his pockets, looking for a pen.
I took Jiri’s pen from my shirt pocket.
Danny K took it. “What an elegant pen, or, as they say in the carriage trade“—and here he gave his trademark giggle—”writing instrument.”
Then he did something unusual, something I had never seen before. He brought the pen to his nose and sniffed it.
“Mmm. Smells good. I had a pen just like this when I was a little boy. And I still remember the smell.” He took a little piece of paper out of his wallet, wrote his name and phone number on it, and handed it and the pen back to me.
“Here’s my number.”
I looked at it. “Is that a zero or a six?”
“A zero. Sorry. My hand shakes.”
“That’s okay. Sometimes mine does too.”
“I’m leaving for India for ten days the day after tomorrow on a UNICEF tour. So call me in two weeks. We’ll get together when I come back.”
Where are the words — are they in the heart or the brain — that can describe that surge of soul, that cerulean sensation of happiness?
“Thanks, Danny.”
He mimed the next thought in response to my gratitude. He placed his palm tenderly on his heart and then pointed to me. And then, with a suddenness that surprised me, he embraced me and pressed his face to mine. I smelled his aromatic makeup. Some of it must have rubbed off on my face.
“I have a confession to make,” I said.
“Yes?” And he scanned my face like a newspaper, line by line.
“After I would do one of my imitations of you, girls would come up to me and say I looked so much like Danny K I could pass for Danny K’s son. Sometimes I couldn’t resist saying I am his son.”
“Well,” Danny said. “One never knows…did your mama ever go up to the Borscht Belt?”
And we both laughed.
But Danny never went to India. Within days it was reported that he had fallen seriously ill, some sort of rare blood disease, perhaps contracted from a previous visit to either Africa or India. Two weeks later, just a fortnight before I was about to leave for Prague, Danny K, the man I thought would live forever, Danny, my early lookalike, Danny, my hero, Danny, one of my two spiritual K fathers, Danny K was dead.
PART TWO
-1 On the Plane
On the evening of my flight, at the airport waiting lounge, I had Jiri’s pen in my inside jacket pocket, same place exactly as on the day I took it from Jiri’s hospital night table. It was a fine pen, and I mean pen, not one of those cheap, ubiquitous ballpoint or gel flow pens, but an old-fashioned fountain pen that uses real ink, with a fine golden nib, that beautiful, almost hourglass-shaped and curved golden tip that I remembered seeing in upscale stationery stores. With just the right sort of thickness, it gave an elegant cursive flow to my letters and actually made my calligraphy look more handsome than it was when I wrote with a ballpoint pen. Yes, the pen pleased me; I liked it. Using it, of course, I thought of Jiri — and Betty too (re the latter a wave of anxiety always ran through me like a little pain), but at the same time, I also felt the pen had belonged to me for ages. That’s what happens when you possess something for a while. Even though you aren’t the original owner, the mere fact of possession gives you the feeling not only of ownership but absolute ownership. The item wasn’t just yours; it had never belonged to anyone else.
Waiting to board, I jotted down on a pad a list of things to do in Prague. As I wrote, the list kept growing. Each item grew and I was writing comments and kept expanding on phrases until I was scribbling miniscule letters in the margins and in between lines, even writing in tiny script at the edges around the corners of the pages so that the words snaked around and about and created an upside-down border to the pages.