Kaddish for a Child Not Born opens with an emphatic “No!” The narrator is responding to an as-yet unknown question while on a walk with a philosopher. He thinks about how “life itself demands explanations from us,” and we end up “explaining ourselves to death.” He would rather not talk, but he finds the urge irresistible. The narrator and philosopher are staying at a resort near the Central Mountains in Hungary. The narrator explains, “if I didn't work I would have to exist, and if I existed, I don't know what I would be forced to do then.” But he does not want to socialize with his fellow intellectuals at the resort. His meeting in the woods with Dr. Oblath, a professor of philosophy, is by chance.

In thinking about the question, the narrator claims “with this 'no' I destroyed everything, demolished everything, above all...