Jewish Mothers Never Die

by Natalie David-Weill

  “I never had to invent any illness for Marcel,” Jeanne volunteered, evidently feeling that the specter of Sophie Portnoy had been raised to caricature her own anxiety about Marcel.

  They had all been “sick”: the asthmatic Marcel Proust, the neurotic Woody Allen, the depressive Romain Gary, the neurasthenic Freud, and the obsessive, insomniac, anxiety-ridden Albert Cohen. Nathan had nothing wrong with him. Unlike these mothers, Rebecca hated it when Nathan was sick. It wasn’t that she didn’t want him to suffer; she just didn’t want to hear him complain. The faintest moan was an affront to her sense of being a good mother; any pain that he felt would have been proof of her ineptitude.

  Why did all these geniuses suffer from illness? Were their mothers to blame? Was the cause psychological? A natural narcissist, Mina was convinced that everything was her fault, even Romain’s depression.

  “Mothers are certainly an important factor in their children’s health but it would be wrong to assume we’re responsible for everything,” Rebecca argued.

  “Nevertheless, it was Romain who worried about my diabetes, and the risk that I could die from a lack of insulin. There was a role reversal; he took care of me as if I were his child.”

  “But that’s not why he became depressed.”

  “The few times when I saw him ill, he did his best to hide it so I wouldn’t worry. It was a tactic he used his whole life. His first wife, Lesley Blanch, told me that one day when he had a terrible tooth ache, she asked him what he was going to do about it, and he said, ‘I don’t care what happens to me. I hate myself so much that I’ll put up with pain and suffering.’ It’s shocking, isn’t it? Why would he detest himself like that? He was so hard on himself when I taught him self-confidence.”

  “I don’t think anyone is ever in good health,” Amalia Freud said.

  “I’ve never been sick in my life,” Rebecca boasted.

  “And what good did it do you? Here you are, dead at thirty-eight, whereas I was sick right up to my ninety-fifth year,” Amalia retorted.

  They continued the conversation in the living room, where Minnie Marx brought a tray of wine and food, declaring that neither she nor her sons had ever been afflicted with illness.

  “As the mother of five boys, I never would have had the time to lavish special attention on any one of them, as Jeanne did with Marcel, answering his every beck and call. Once they realized that, they didn’t even try.”

  “Are you saying that these others were sick on purpose, to have their mother’s attention?”

  “It’s the opposite that’s true!” Jeanne insisted, exasperated. “Children do everything they can to escape their parents. As soon as they’re born, they’re lost to us forever, and every phase they go through in life just confirms it.”

  “You really think so? You all made it impossible for them to exist other than as an extension of yourselves. Any attempt to escape your authority terrified you, so you preferred it when they were sick and needed you the most. Marcel understood that,” Rebecca said.

  Her words provoked an outburst.

  “How dare you say that?” Amalia cried, indignant.

  The younger woman was clearly exaggerating, her opinions were indefensible, and she didn’t deserve their affection. Provoking them some more, Rebecca went so far as to remind them of Portnoy, this adolescent in all-out rebellion against his mother, who thought that the only thing he could claim as his own was his penis.

  “And,” she concluded, “I understand him completely.”

  Realizing that she had gone too far in her criticism of these women who could never admit they were wrong, Rebecca left the room. She found herself in a place with contemporary furnishings: white walls, low tables, minimal decoration. It was light years from the stuffy, almost sinister 19th-century-style rooms she had been in up until then. She called out to Pauline Einstein to join her. She seemed as her only friend and ally since she knew how overbearing the other women could be.

  When Pauline appeared, Rebecca made some comments about the room’s style, unable to shake the feeling that she sounded like an annoying academic. She talked to forget her worries, empty her head and to resist her terror at being alone for all eternity. She let loose all her complaints, and Pauline patiently listened.

  “Come, let’s find the others,” Pauline said. Finally.

  For the first time since Rebecca’s arrival, the living room was completely silent. Rebecca scanned the room: Jeanne was reading, Louise was sewing, Minnie was dozing, her hands crossed over her belly, Amalia was fixing her makeup, and Mina was trying on different hats. Pauline Einstein coughed as she entered, signaling her presence.

  “Pauline?” Mina ventured, timidly.

  Amalia threw herself into the arms of their long-lost companion.

  “We’ve missed you terribly!”

  A brouhaha ensued, with cries of joy and surprise all around and everyone talking at once. The happy confusion allowed Pauline to observe her old friends, who had changed only slightly: Minnie looked younger, while Jeanne appeared to have aged, but Louise was exactly as Pauline remembered her.

  Rebecca asked if someone would finally explain to her the reason for their falling out. No one paid her any attention. Worse, they continued talking as if she wasn’t even there. Were they still smarting from her comments, which they judged inappropriate and hurtful? Or had Pauline’s return altered Rebecca’s status among them? Would she be sent away from this private mother’s club?

  “I’m sorry, Pauline,” Minnie whined like a penitent dog.

  “I was too sensitive,” Pauline conceded gently.

  “For far too long.”

  “Time passes quickly here,” Pauline replied.

  “Not as quickly as it seems,” Rebecca noted worriedly, thinking about the eternity she was going to have to spend in this competition for the best son.

  “Surely, it’s not so different here,” Jeanne tried to reassure her. “When you were alive, didn’t you always have the same thoughts, say the same things, see the same people, usually the ones you liked the best? You never ventured outside of yourself. Even if you changed slightly over time, your life was infinitely monotonous.”

  “With one exception,” Minnie said pointedly, looking straight at Rebecca. “Here, we do not have to keep the same company forever,”

  Minnie and Pauline, the two Germans, hugged and kissed again. Minnie was openly crying:

  “I should never have insinuated that Albert, the great Einstein, owed his success to his wife. Especially knowing how you hated Mileva. I had no proof to back up what I was saying.”

  “So, that’s what caused the rift between you!” Rebecca exclaimed.

  Minnie gestured to Rebecca to hold her tongue; this was no time to risk offending Pauline again. She had suffered enough the first time.

  “I thought it over for a long time,” Pauline replied. “It’s Albert’s fault that Mileva’s influence has been over-estimated. In his letters, he makes it seem as if he included her in his scientific research, saying for example, ‘our theory of molecular forces.’ His use of the possessive pronoun is misleading. ‘How happy and proud we will be when we have finished our work on the theory of relativity.’”

  “Was she a mathematician?” Rebecca asked.

  “She was an excellent one, one of the few women of her generation to be admitted to the Polytechnic University of Zurich. But whereas Albert passed his exams brilliantly, she failed them and then abandoned her studies. She was ambitious, however, and there was never any question of her getting her due. So she tried to measure up to Albert Einstein, to become his equal.”

  “Did she succeed?”

  “In a way. But she never published another academic article after their divorce.”

  “There was a scandal about their daughter, Lieserl. Did you ever find out what happened?” Jeanne asked.

  “Lieserl, the poor child, was born in Serbia in 1902 and disappeared in 1903,” Minnie whispered in Rebecca’s ear.

&nb
sp; “I never saw her, and Albert never spoke of her. Mileva wasn’t married to Albert when she became pregnant, and she returned to her parents’ house to have the child in secret; an illegitimate child could have ruined Albert’s career. No one ever knew what happened; was Lieserl left at an orphanage? Did she die of scarlet fever? There were rumors that she was born mentally handicapped. Oh! My daughter-in-law! She was pure poison, that gimpy Serbian. God only knows what she did with the child!”

  Now that they were reunited, it seemed a shame to mourn a baby born in 1903 that none of them had ever known. To lighten the mood, Rebecca offered to regale them with stories of Nathan’s love life.

  “Why took you so long to tell us?” Jeanne exclaimed.

  How could Rebecca admit to these domineering mothers that it was difficult for her to comment, expose, explain, dissect and analyze everything, as they did? Even though she did her best to please them, Rebecca often felt as if they belonged to some kind of sect. She accepted the fact because she enjoyed their company, and—who knows?—maybe she too would one day take the same pleasure as they did from endlessly pouring over the details of Nathan’s life.

  11

  Love Lives

  I am only a son. I could never know how to be a father or a husband.

  Albert Cohen

  A mother’s love is a promise made to us at birth that life can never keep.

  Romain Gary

  Love is kept in existence only by painful anxiety.

  Marcel Proust

  How can you tell, without a doubt, that someone is in love? The answer is that he glows; somehow, he’s different. He might seem to be aware of what’s happening around him, but he is consumed by an inner fire. He appears alternately calm and agitated, and his emotional state does not correspond to any reality. No matter how banal and ordinary his life is, suddenly it takes on the utmost importance. When he speaks, it’s a struggle to express himself aloud because he is simultaneously engaged in an interior conversation with his beloved, who is the constant center of his attention: what is she feeling, thinking, doing at this moment? Like a schizophrenic, a lover lives in two different worlds.

  When Nathan fell in love, Rebecca immediately realized that her son was in the grip of the most intense passion, even though he never said a word to her. She didn’t dare question him but tried nonetheless to find out what she could about the girl. She was a bit ashamed of this indiscretion, but she never regretted it. What would she have done if there had been any reason to be worried about the affair? She didn’t know since she died not long after learning about Eva.

  “Who is she?” Minnie Marx wanted to know.

  “Is she Jewish?” Pauline Einstein wondered.

  “Is she beautiful?” asked Amalia Freud.

  “Elegant?” Jeanne Proust demanded.

  Each of them had a different relationship with her daughter-in-law, and for each of them there was one quality in her that mattered the most. This fascinated Rebecca, and it was her turn to question them at length. How often did they see their sons’ wives? Did they avoid them? Did they love them? Were they jealous of them? She didn’t know how she would have behaved. Would have she been Eva’s best friend, her confidante? Would she have told her everything about Nathan or given him the freedom to decide what his beloved should know about him? Would she have been a weight and advise her daughter-in-law on anything and everything? Or would she have let her manage her own family, leaving her to decide what was best? She would never know. Is there such a thing as the perfect daughter-in-law? How had these overbearing mothers reacted to theirs? She turned to Pauline Einstein first.

  “Did Mileva know how you felt about her?”

  “Of course. I never made any mystery about it. When I wrote to her parents, I discovered that they were unhappy with the match too.”

  “And yet they married anyway?”

  “Yes, but the marriage was doomed from the start. After the wedding reception, when they got home to their apartment in Berne, Albert had lost his keys. Could there be a more obvious sign that he was resisting their life together? A Freudian slip, as Sigmund would say.”

  “Perhaps he was just distracted.”

  “Of course,” Pauline acquiesced with irritation.

  Was Rebecca’s direct and critical approach going to antagonize Pauline? Should she stop questioning these women since they were obviously too sensitive to handle it? Should she keep her thoughts to herself? If she didn’t insist with Pauline, though, she’d never know more about Albert Einstein, the lover.

  “Did things go better with Albert’s second wife?”

  “Elsa! She was adorable!” Pauline remembered fondly. “She was already part of the family when she married Albert: her father was Hermann’s cousin, but she was also my sister’s daughter and my favorite niece.”

  “You mean, Albert and Elsa were cousins?” Rebecca cried, almost choking with surprise.

  “I loved her almost as much as I loved my own daughter,” Pauline continued dreamily, ignoring her. “She was an angel.”

  “Was it a good marriage?”

  “It might have been, but Albert was difficult and the bourgeois nest that Elsa built around him hung on his shoulders like an oversized coat. He was always absent, lost in his calculations. I felt sorry for her.”

  Jeanne Proust changed the subject abruptly, even at the risk of offending Pauline.

  “Rebecca, weren’t you going to tell us about Nathan?”

  “That’s right! What was the name of his sweetheart again?” Pauline piped in. It was her way of signaling to Jeanne that she didn’t take her interruption the wrong way.

  What a difference there was between Pauline Einstein and Jeanne Proust! If she didn’t know them, Rebecca would have misunderstood them completely. Pauline’s outwardly severe appearance would surely have intimidated her but, in reality, Einstein’s mother was maternal and protective. It was as if her difficult life had rubbed off on her appearance. Whereas the cultivated Jeanne Proust, whom Rebecca would have taken an instant liking to, was mercilessly judgmental. It was her courtesy that led you to believe—mistakenly at times—that she was interested in you and liked you. Both women were fascinated by Nathan’s story, though, almost as if he were one of their sons. Rebecca concluded that she had finally been accepted into their group.

  “Eva is Nathan’s age. She’s studying finance and loves mergers and acquisitions. She’s intelligent, independent, happy, energetic and apparently she adores my Nathan. I never expected I could be so happy for him.”

  “You don’t even know if she’s Jewish, do you?” Pauline.

  “I couldn’t care less.”

  Pauline Einstein loved Elsa because she was part of her own family, but hated Mileva, who was a foreigner. From that point of view, she was just like Mrs. Millstein, in Woody Allen’s Oedipus Wrecks, who can’t stand her son’s girlfriend because she isn’t Jewish: how could a shikse possibly know how to take care of Mrs. Millstein’s darling?

  She makes their lives hell until the girl’s driven out and a nice Jewish one takes her place. Then, she’s as charming as she can be with her future daughter-in-law. And showing her photographs of Sheldon from infancy to adolescence, they both go into ecstasies. The poor man has no business being in the same room, even though they are talking about him! His mother swoons, gazing adoringly at his gorgeous, five-year-old face, but the grown Sheldon—though he is a brilliant lawyer—she criticizes and humiliates constantly.

  “Isn’t that the very definition of love?” Pauline asked. “Isn’t it true that we fall in love with the idea of someone we don’t even know? Marcel thought so, didn’t he, Jeanne?”

  Jeanne Proust grumbled an inaudible response, not having the appetite for discussing her son’s love life. It was the first time she ever avoided a discussion about Marcel. She preferred to hear more about Eva, whom she disapproved of already.

  “You don’t even know her last name. She’s probably a social climber, ambitious and egotistical.
Wouldn’t Nathan be better off with a more sensual, full-figured woman?”

  “Why are you so pessimistic? If he loves her, it’s because she’s his type. I prefer to think they share a genuine affinity and that they complement, each other and respect each other.”

  Rebecca’s optimism on this subject at least was unshakeable. Although she had despaired over his idleness by comparison with the other mothers’ famous sons, she had learned from the interminable discussions to have faith in his abilities. Now she was convinced that he would be happy and that his wife would love him . . .

  “So, you believe in fairytales?” Pauline Einstein asked her, incredulous.

  “What makes you so sure of yourself?” Jeanne asked almost at the same time.

  A memory flashed before Rebecca. One evening, she found Nathan in his room, seated at his desk, legs stretched out, arms thrown back over his head. He was laughing, smiling, joking: Just happy. His deep voice had thrilled her more than the gentlest words whispered after lovemaking. She was speechless with admiration, looking at him.

  “Nevertheless,” Pauline insisted. “You can’t be happy he’s dating a goy!”

  “He wouldn’t be the only one,” Louise Cohen answered. “Albert had a weak spot for them too. It’s not for nothing that his hero, Solal, tries to seduce every Adrienne, Aude and Ariane he meets, each as magnificent as the next: Elegant, cultivated and refined. Jewish women, on the other hand, are always described as ugly and fat.”

  Louise Cohen was making a habit of bringing up Philip Roth any chance she had; she recognized in him Albert’s own preoccupations with women and Judaism.

  “Portnoy slept compulsively with wasps, as a way of conquering America, a little like a man living abroad will prefer to have a mistress who speaks the local language rather than study it in a book.”

  “It’s a crime not to respect one’s origins,” Pauline Einstein said angrily. “Our people’s survival is at stake.”