She waited, stiff and forbidding, by the gray marble gravestone. With no word of greeting, she inspected me from headstall to hooves.
“Mahler’s daughter, who died at the age of five, is buried with him.”
“Would you feel more comfortable sitting? There is a bench on the other side of the alley.”
She swept away my suggestion with an imperial gesture.
“You don’t understand maternal anxiety, Fräulein. When Kurt was eight, I believed I would lose him to rheumatic fever. Not a minute has passed since his birth that I have not been afraid for him.”
Since I could not claim this experience myself, the contest went to her. She made the most of it. I stifled my mounting anger.
“Kurt has always been very attached to me. Do you know that when he was five, my son howled and rolled on the ground when I left the room?”
I bit my tongue. As a distraction from the painful introduction, I examined the woman closely. In any case, she hadn’t called me there simply to give an account of her motherhood — it was a postulate of her system, as Kurt would have said.
I had met Rudolf, who was elegant and had piercing, light-colored eyes and a small, sweet bald spot. Marianne I had never seen before, even in a photograph. I searched the features of the goddess-mother for the traits I loved in my man. She was fiftyish. Her inquisitor’s eyes were hooded behind drooping lids. Her gaze was at once startled and vigilant, and of frightening and unmistakable intelligence. The waking double of her son’s sleepwalking gaze. Her mouth was still beautiful, though the corners sagged with bitterness. Unless she’d been born with this hermetic smile. She seemed wary rather than disagreeable, corseted by her middle-class education and the very high idea she held of her progeny’s fate. The nose was perhaps the one feature they shared.
“Princeton has again made my son a very interesting offer. He declined several earlier proposals. This one is exceptional, but, regrettably, he refuses to leave you. The atmosphere in Vienna is very disturbing to him. You should persuade him to emigrate, taking you with him if need be.”
“Why should I? My family is here. Our life is here.”
“You are terribly naïve. Italy will abandon Austria, it is only a matter of months. This city will become a madhouse and the Germans will be welcomed with open arms. You must leave. And quickly!”
“We are not Jews, nor are we Communists. We have nothing to fear.”
“Everyone should be afraid of the Germans. How can I let my son pay allegiance to the Nazis and give instruction to a band of barbarians? All his Jewish friends have left the country. Without them, he can do nothing worthwhile. No scientist or artist worthy of the name will accept the Nazis’ authority. As far as I’m concerned, Vienna is already dead.”
“Why would I do that? Before your letter, I didn’t even exist for you.”
“Kurt hates conflict. He is weak, he will never marry you without my consent. You’re not that young, and I might still live a long time.”
I did not rise to the bait.
“Then you are hiring me as a sort of nurse?”
“In a manner of speaking. Your wages will take the form of respectability and stability.”
“ ‘Respectability’ is a word that I long ago made up my mind to forget. And as for stability, Kurt is fragile, as you well know.”
“It is the reverse side of his gift. Fräulein, you don’t seem to realize the great opportunity before you. My son is an exceptional person. We noticed marks of genius in him from an early age.”
Here was the beginning of the catalog of praises I had been expecting all along. The church tower seconded my thought by emitting a few opportune peals.
“Do you know the difference between a person with talent and a genius? Work, Fräulein, a great deal of work. He needs peace and quiet to fulfill his destiny. Up till now you have been a hindrance to his success in academia. That must change.”
“It isn’t true!”
She contorted the dry flesh of her mouth into a disdainful grimace.
“I have a few recommendations for you. Hold your tongue until I am done, if that lies within your powers.”
I readjusted my gloves, strangling my fingers, which itched to leap out at her. Kurt was certainly worth a little added humiliation.
“Kurt is driven by an unbounded urge to ask questions. When he was a child, we called him Herr Warum. In daily life, you must take on the role ‘Mrs. How.’ His ‘whys’ concern realms too vast for you.”
“But not for you?”
She raised her head, higher, it seemed, than the laws of anatomy would allow.
“The point is that you must smooth all the trivial obstacles out of his path so that he can devote himself to his calling. His focus is a double-edged sword. If a subject interests him, he loses himself in it entirely. Never let him drive a car. Absorbed in his inner world, he is distracted and dangerous.”
I modeled my pose on hers: back straight and hands crossed over my privates, the shoulder bag acting as a shield.
“Reassure him, tolerate his oddities, but pay attention to the signs. Make sure he gets medical attention in time. And don’t forget to flatter him, even if you don’t have a clue as to how it’s done. Some men have such an insatiable ego that the compliments of a half-wit send them into raptures.”
“Nothing about his favorite recipe and remembering his muffler in the winter?”
Her nostrils tightened.
“I believed for a long time that you would destroy his career. You won’t advance it, but you have allowed him to survive. I have to recognize one quality in you: you are unsinkable.”
“It’s never too late to admit it.”
“You are not without blame in Kurt’s … weakness. He needs peace. From what I have heard, you are a boisterous person. Concentrate on feeding him, protecting him, and not giving him dubious diseases.”
She was a lifetime ahead of me in self-control. I shook my shoulder bag at her.
“Don’t insult me! I could say a lot of things about where your little prodigy falls short!”
“Kurt will always be a child. His intelligence will make him unhappy, lonely, and poor. It is my task as his mother to provide for his future.”
“By finding a replacement for yourself? You’re forgetting one thing, Marianne.” I brought my face close to hers. “I’m the one who warms his bed at night!”
I don’t know what shocked her more: that I called her by her first name, that I had the presumption to put myself on her level, or that I said those words. But in point of fact I do know. We lived in a time when it was our duty to coordinate our shoes with our handbag and never leave the house without gloves and a hat. I had the right to vote, but in her eyes I barely had the right to live.
“Your vulgarity hardly surprises me, coming from a divorcee and a juke-joint dancer. Outside his work, Kurt has always had rather appalling taste.”
“Not forgetting his taste for older women, Frau Gödel. You must have played some part in that!”
She studied me impassively. I saw the she-wolf under the loden coat, ready to rip me to pieces.
“There will be no children, will there? He never could stand for it. For you, it’s too late anyway.”
I teetered on my too-high heels.
“Will you come to the wedding?”
“You have a run in your stocking. Kurt is very sensitive to that sort of thing.”