The Goddess of Small Victories

by Yannick Grannec

  I spent a long moment watching his spasmodic sleep. He was curled up around his pain, his fists clenched against his stomach. I pulled up the sheet, which had slipped down over his wasted body. I hadn’t seen him naked for years. I looked at this once familiar body, its thin legs, its useless penis. Of the body I had loved, caressed, cared for, nothing was left but the structure. I could see the shape of his skull. The man was gone and all I could see was his skeleton; already I was looking at the memory of him.

  There wasn’t a drop of courage left in me. I lived inside a fat, dried-out old woman. My entire being told me to give up the struggle. I was enormous, and he was transparent, as though I’d sucked up all his flesh. But it was in fact he who had worn me down, who had used me as an extra battery. These last years seemed to have gone on forever. I hadn’t had children. I would leave no work behind. I was nothing. I was only suffering. I couldn’t even show my weakness, or he would sink even further into depression. When I’d been admitted to the hospital, he had refused to eat. If I let go, he would let go. What was the point of going on like this? He never went out anymore. He gave appointments at his office but never showed up. He communicated with people only through a “safe” intermediary. No one was surprised any longer at the caprices of the reclusive genius. The only visits he tolerated were those of Oskar and his son. Young Morgenstern wanted to become a mathematician. Kurt liked to talk with him. How could he be a model for this kid? Who would want to end up like him? He hadn’t attended his own mother’s funeral in 1966. I’d had to go instead. Of all the ironies! “Why should I stand for a half hour in the rain in front of an open grave?” was his excuse.

  If I died before he did, would he come to my burial? Oskar should have brought him the cyanide. A poisoned apple for two, it was the perfect solution: 220 plus 284, we would have closed the circle. And I could know for certain that he would be on hand for my funeral.

  I went back into the living room, supporting myself along the walls. I collapsed into a chair; I would need to beg someone for help to get out of it again. The three men looked at me in silence. They’d have been perfectly happy to send me to the psychiatric clinic too. I would have to surrender. I was empty. Huge and empty.

  “Do what you have to do.”

  “You’re making the right choice, Adele. He needs psychopharmacological treatment.”

  “And we’re going to find a home health care worker for you, Adele. You can’t go on like this alone.”

  51

  “You’re showing up late today, dear girl. Have you found other diversions?”

  Anna balanced her handbag on the leatherette chair. She had made the trip reluctantly after working all day. There was a duty she needed to perform as quickly as possible, which was to tell Adele about Calvin Adams’s decree. She wanted to punch her fist into the wall every time she thought of him. She should have given him a piece of her mind straight to his face, and she should never have smoked that cigarette. Ever since, she’d had the hardest time not running out and buying a pack. She cursed the stiffness in her neck and shoulders. Her night with the Frenchman hadn’t managed to relax her. Though he also deserved a Fields Medal in that department. He had taken his leave very early to go back to work, his inspiration recharged, but not before suggesting a resumption of their proof of perfect compatibility. She had breakfasted alone, considering the framed von Neumann graffiti over the sideboard. And her fate as a sailor’s wife.

  Mrs. Gödel suggested that Anna brew herself a cup of chamomile, taking no other notice of Anna’s unwonted moodiness. Anna flipped on the electric kettle and found the box of herbal tea. She turned up the volume on the radio: “Watching the Wheels” soared into the room. All the radio stations had been broadcasting John Lennon songs nonstop since he was shot and killed the night before.

  Anna carefully carried the two steaming cups to Adele’s bedside table and installed herself in the blue chair. The old woman offered her a plaid blanket, and Anna wrapped herself in it.

  “My grandmother would have been eighty-eight years old today.”

  “I’ll pray for her.”

  “She died a long time ago.”

  “Prayers never go to waste.”

  Anna burned her tongue sipping the tea. For others as well, December 9 would be a day of mourning. The radio endlessly rehashed the events at the Dakota.

  “Have you noticed, Adele? We celebrate the birthdays of average men and women, but the date of death of celebrities.”

  “I remember Kennedy’s assassination in ’63 very clearly. Everything in this country stopped. The world came to an end.”

  “Are you sorry that your husband was never famous, like his friend Einstein?”

  “Kurt never could have withstood the pressure. But he was not entirely overlooked, despite his moaning and groaning! When he received his honorary degree from Harvard, a newspaper ran the headline ‘Discoverer of the Most Significant Mathematical Truth of This Century.’ I bought twenty copies of the paper!”

  “I read an article in Time where he was mentioned as one of the hundred most important figures of the century.”

  “That list also included Adolf Hitler. I prefer to forget all about that one.”

  “Hitler changed History too. To reflect himself.”

  “I don’t believe in the devil. Collective cowardice, yes. It is the most widely shared human trait, along with mediocrity. And I include myself, don’t worry!”

  “You’re far from mediocre, Adele. And I find you enormously courageous. I can’t flatter you about your hair because I’ve never seen it.”

  The old woman smiled at her bright pupil. Anna had been glad to see that the turban had reappeared, newly cleaned. She pulled the blanket up under her chin; she still felt cold. She’d taken a chill when she emerged from the swimming pool earlier that morning. Adele confessed to her once that she had never learned to swim. She wasn’t about to console her with the stock “there’s always time” that is so often tendered to the old. There wasn’t time. She still didn’t know how to break the news to her. She thought of Leo; she would make amends by telling Adele about their discussion in the kitchen.

  “Did you ever meet the mathematician Alan Turing?”

  “I remember a conversation about his death. Kurt asked if the man was married. It seemed highly unlikely to him that a married man would commit suicide. Don’t look for any logic there. Everyone was very embarrassed. Turing was widely known to be homosexual, but my husband never paid any attention to gossip. I, on the contrary, love gossip! And you are not giving me much to go on, young lady. Who will you be spending Christmas with?”

  “I’m scheduled to visit my mother in Berkeley.”

  Mrs. Gödel didn’t hide her disappointment. Had she imagined that Anna would celebrate Christmas with her? Anna considered the notion and its ramifications. It would be a good excuse to give her ogre-mother: a commitment at work.

  “Are you by any chance feeling ill?”

  “Don’t take your psychologizing too far, Adele. There are things the body can’t do.”

  “Poppycock! I lived my whole life with a doctor in psychosomatic illness. And even I never reached the end of the year without feeling a little under the weather. Good God! Who really likes Christmas?”

  Anna removed the rubber band in her hair, scratched her scalp vigorously, then pulled her hair back into a bun so tight that it almost hurt.

  “I’m not going to visit you as often from now on. My boss told me yesterday that the project was over.”

  Adele sipped her tea unhurriedly; Anna couldn’t read the expression on her face. The news seemed neither to affect nor to surprise her.

  “He has lost interest in the Nachlass already?”

  “He’s considering firing me.”

  “And right he is! The job is bad for you. Think of it as an opportunity to embark on a new cycle.”

  The sudden reminder of a countdown in progress made Anna’s insides heave. There wasn’t just the countdown to t
he holidays; that other one was also pending, but the young woman would have rather cut off her own tongue than articulate it to her friend. She made the decision that she had been backing toward for several days.

  “What if I spent Christmas with you?”

  “You would willingly subject yourself to a party with so many living corpses?”

  “You’d actually be saving my bacon.”

  Anna rubbed her face to erase the flood of emotions fighting for expression there. She was tired of having to always find excuses.

  “Stop that immediately! You are giving yourself wrinkles before your time. Why do you torture yourself in this way?”

  “I don’t have your courage, Adele. I spend my whole life running away from things. I’m pathetic.”

  Adele stroked her hand. The gesture, intimate and gentle, brought Anna to the verge of tears.

  “You’re not going to cry, all the same! What is making you so unhappy?”

  “I’m too ashamed to say it. Especially in front of you.”

  “Suffering is not a competition. There can be a certain relief in mourning. The memory of the departed can be more comforting than that person’s presence ever was.”

  Anna reclaimed her hand gently. The old woman was recounting her own experience. For a brief moment, the young woman might have confided in her, but people’s worlds are watertight; their otherness is inevitable and definitive. How could she explain to Adele that she had refused exactly the fate that Adele had accepted? For Mrs. Gödel—who, after all, had only been following the paradigms of her epoch—choosing a man like Kurt or Leo necessarily meant sacrificing herself, even if at times it brought collateral benefits like sex. Monsters take everything and give back nothing. Adele had in the process lost her natural joy, along with any hope of resolving her incompleteness by becoming a mother. Anna understood the aspiration without believing it to be necessary. Her mother, Rachel, had chosen not to dissolve herself either in her marital or her maternal relations. Anna admired her freedom but not the intransigence that went with it. In the end, these two women paid for their choice by being similarly alone. This proposition, too, was undecidable.

  “You should go on another trip, Anna. Take advantage of your freedom. You still have so many possibilities ahead of you.”

  A sudden pain in her side pinned the old lady to her pillow. Anna reached for the alarm button, but Adele pushed her hand away, fighting to regain her breath.

  The young woman prepared an eau de cologne compress and comforted her friend as best she could. The features of Adele’s face had grown more haggard since their escapade to the movies. How could Anna not have noticed? It was her fault that Adele had burned up her last reserves of energy. She had even sacrificed her last real pleasure: gossiping. The Great Grinch was counting his favors. She thought of the exhausting road home. She wondered if Jean was on duty: she would bum a cigarette from her on the way out. She was ashamed of already thinking about leaving. She felt dirty, soiled by her constant cowardice. Mrs. Gödel was going to die soon, and she, Anna, owed her at least this one bit of courage: honesty.

  “I’m so glad I met you, Adele. Until now, I’ve had the impression that I wasn’t useful to anyone.”

  The old woman straightened up laboriously. For a moment Anna thought she had used up her supply of indulgence, but Adele surprised her with the gentleness of her voice, bereft of sarcasm.

  “I would be sorry to leave this world having made you feel this way, Anna. I am only a tiny inflection in your life path. You still have plenty of time to find a mission for yourself.”

  52

  1973-1978

  So Old a Love

  Such is man’s imprudence, such is his folly, that the fear of death sometimes drives him toward death.

  —Seneca

  Princeton, November 15, 1973

  Dearest Jane,

  I’m sorry I’m so bad at writing letters. This time I have a good excuse for my long silence. I’ve been very busy these last weeks. I finally agreed to work as a nursing assistant for the couple that Peter has been gardening for. They’re so old I felt sorry for them. They really needed a full-time aide, especially the poor lady. She is stuck in a wheelchair. So he’s the one who does the shopping and the housework. You can imagine what the house looked like when I arrived. I saw right away that I would have to be not only the nurse but the housekeeper, cook, and “granny-sitter.” The Gödels have been together almost fifty years. Their love is so old it would really be wonderful if their situation wasn’t so pathetic. They never had children and live a very solitary life. Mrs. Gödel finds this difficult. She is delighted to have someone to talk to. She’s as much of a chatterbox as I am!

  How can I describe this strange couple to you? Mr. Gödel is apparently a genius. I can’t say if this is true. He’s an odd man, sometimes very nice, but he often says nothing at all. He spends his days and nights shut up in his study. He eats very little, and only after sniffing and poking it a hundred times. His wife says he is afraid of being poisoned. He is so thin it’s scary. A walking skeleton. Adele Gödel, on the other hand, is very fat. She suffers from many of the infirmities of old age, but she doesn’t take her pills. Not that she hasn’t got all her marbles. She spends all her time worrying about the health of her addled husband.

  I can’t figure out what Mr. Gödel suffers from exactly. His doctor gave me some instructions about his prostate troubles, because he refused to have an operation and prefers to go around with a catheter, although it puts his kidneys at serious risk of infection. The poor man secretly ingests unbelievable quantities of substances he doesn’t need. You’ve worked at a hospital too, so you can judge for yourself. I made a list of everything he takes: milk of magnesia for his ulcer; Metamucil for constipation; various antibiotics, including Achromycin, Terramycin, and Cefalexin, Mandelamine, Macrodantin, Lanoxin, and Quinidine—although he has nothing wrong with his heart. And finally, to round off the menu, he takes laxatives like Imbricol and Pericolase. I’m used to impairments resulting from senility, but this really leaves me speechless. Last fall, he agreed to be operated on. But at the hospital he made a giant scene, ripped out his catheter, and insisted on going home as though nothing had happened. We’ve had difficult patients, Jane, but this one takes the cake!

  Enough for now about my old people. You’ve had your share of experiences with the elderly over the years. As far as my own health goes, I’m doing fine. I still reject your theory that old age is contagious. Write me soon, as I’m longing to hear about your adventures. Whatever made you move to the far side of the country? I’d be really angry with you if I didn’t like you so much. You’ve certainly earned the right to some sunshine.

  Big hug,

  Beth

  Princeton, April 2, 1975

  Dearest Jane,

  You always give me good advice, but I just couldn’t bring myself to quit. I can’t leave Adele to deal with her situation alone. I’m just not coldhearted enough. That man is going to drive me crazy! How did she put up with him for all those years, day after day? He’s not exactly mean, but he wears you out! At every meal I have to fight to get him to take even a tiny bit of food. Just to make him eat two little pieces of carrot, I have to cajole, beg, and threaten. He basically lives on an egg and two spoonfuls of tea a day! Every single morning he asks me if I remembered to buy oranges, and then he refuses to eat one. If I weren’t so fond of Adele (I can hear you saying “so sorry for Adele”), I’d have fled long ago. As it is, no one wants to deal with his manias anymore. Except his old friend Morgenstern, whom I’ve mentioned before, and a young “logician” of Asian background (I don’t exactly understand what he does!). They don’t visit him often, but they talk to him on the telephone all the time. Mr. Morgenstern has cancer, but he’s careful not to let his friend know, so as not to worry him. How does this crazy old coot manage to have such good friends? According to Adele, Mr. Gödel was a top expert in his field. The man I’m looking after is a pitiful old geezer on the
brink of total senility. He has just been awarded the National Medal of Science, a very big honor. In the state he’s in, I doubt he’ll be able to attend the ceremony.

  I haven’t talked about anything but my two charges. I live day by day with them. Their suffering has become my burden.

  I really thank you for your invitation, Jane. I can’t accept it at the moment. I just can’t walk away from the Gödels. Am I becoming overly involved with them? Of course! But you would have grown fond of them too, in my place. Adele is fairly gruff, even sharp sometimes, but she’s very brave. You’ve always liked love stories, and this is a real one. The fairy tales never mention how Prince Charming ends up: babbling and incontinent. I’ll never have the good fortune, or the wonderful ill fortune, to grow old with the love of my youth. Some days I’m glad, and other days sorry.

  This is a sad letter, I hope you don’t mind too much. You are such a good listener, Jane.

  Your fond friend,

  Beth

  Princeton, June 15, 1976

  Dearest Jane,

  In your last letter you asked for details about my “two old people.” Poor Adele has been hospitalized. She had another stroke. She is in critical condition, delirious and needing to be fed intravenously. I’m exhausted. I spend my time shuttling between the house and the hospital, driving Mr. Gödel to his wife’s bedside. He is painful to look at, like an abandoned child. I do his shopping. I cook little dishes for him, but he says he prefers to make his own meals. I don’t believe him. He is completely irrational. Some days, he’ll talk to me about Adele for hours on end. Other days, he suspects me of belonging to a plot to get him fired from his job. He forgets that he has already retired. Adele’s stroke is perhaps related to the stress she has been under these past few weeks. Her husband escaped from the hospital where he was due for an emergency operation to replace his catheter. He walked home on foot. While I stood there, he accused his wife of wanting to kill him and of having siphoned off all his money while he was gone. The poor woman cried in discouragement. Several people tried to talk him into taking a sedative, including the doctor and his friend Morgenstern, but they all failed. He held out stubbornly for several days in a state of semidelirium. He even called his brother in Europe to ask him to be his legal guardian. The next day, he announced that he hated his brother. What this woman has had to put up with is beyond all telling. By being extraordinarily patient, she actually managed to calm him down. Everything seemed back in order (if there can be any order in a house full of crazies), when she suddenly began to feel unwell. We took her to the hospital immediately. Ever since, her husband has been filled with concern for her. Mr. Morgenstern is also not a pretty sight. He has grown thin and uses his last remaining energy worrying about his capricious walking corpse of a friend. Mr. Gödel should be locked up somewhere. Adele refuses to do it. She still finds ways to feel guilty about not being able to look after him.