“But you came back.”
“Have they told you anything?”
“She suffered a small stroke last night. It wasn’t the first. She’s let herself go into decline since her husband’s death. It’s over, she no longer wants to live.”
“Have you known the Gödels a long time?”
“I became their nurse full-time in 1973. Their gardener was a friend of mine, and one thing led to another …”
Reality flooded in through Anna’s locked doors. Tears welled up and her vision blurred. It was easier for her to cry over an unknown old lady than to summon the courage to say her final goodbyes to her grandmother.
Elizabeth pulled a clean handkerchief from her bag and handed it to her. “Adele hates crying. Just think what she’d say if she saw you.”
The young woman blew her nose and tried to smile.
“The end is not far off, but it won’t be today,” said Elizabeth.
From her bluntness, Anna guessed she was telling the truth. It would be too cruel for the Gödels’ nurse to lie to her just to make her feel better.
“I have a lot of affection for Adele,” said Elizabeth. “I hope she’ll slip away quietly, in her sleep. Without suffering. She’s earned that much. Even if she wasn’t always so easy to deal with! She had her moments. You must have noticed?”
Anna shuddered at the nurse’s use of the past tense, but she couldn’t keep from nudging the conversation toward the object of her quest. She berated herself for her lack of compassion.
“Did you talk with Mr. Gödel?”
“He didn’t exactly talk much! A nice man, though. Except when he wandered off the deep end …”
Mrs. Glinka examined her out of the corner of her eye. Her scruples were a matter of principle, but she, too, needed to confide.
“It wasn’t exactly a state secret that Mr. Gödel was a special case. Adele had to watch him day and night. When I was hired to help out, she seemed at the end of her rope. She had put on a lot of weight. She was struggling with the aftereffects of her first stroke. She had serious problems with high blood pressure and arthritis. Her joints were swollen from bursitis, and she was a wreck. She couldn’t cook or garden. It depressed her to be so useless. She was stuck in a wheelchair, and he couldn’t look after her. He couldn’t even look after himself! She worried so much about him that she neglected her own treatment. But what can you do? As far as she was concerned, he took precedence over everything, including her own health.”
“Didn’t he die while his wife was in the hospital?”
“Just after she got out. The poor woman had no choice, we made her go in. Her life was in danger but she refused to leave him. He would stop eating when she wasn’t there! I shuttled back and forth between them, knowing all along that it was too late. He wasn’t answering the door anymore, even for me. I would leave his food on the stoop. Most of the time he wouldn’t touch it.”
“With her gone, he let himself die?”
“He would have died long before if she hadn’t taken such good care of him. She carried him for years.”
Anna folded the handkerchief. “I’ll give this back to you another time.”
She hoped that that other time wouldn’t also be the last, at Adele’s funeral.
“In spite of all he put her through, I’ve never seen a closer couple. I’m surprised she’s outlived him as long as she has. I gave her a couple of months, if that. With nobody to look after, she had no reason to go on. She was lost. In fact, she’d forgotten how to fill out a check!”
“I thought she took care of everything.”
“Mr. Gödel sometimes had crazy ideas. Toward the end, he was convinced that she was spending money wildly behind his back. As if Adele could have done anything like that when she was tending him night and day! As if he had any money to waste! What a tragedy! Thirty years of living in that house, more than forty years of living with her man, and then one day, poof … She’s alone and headed for the hospital.”
“Did you help her pack up Linden Lane?”
“It took us five days to sort through the basement. Piles and piles of paper! She was always stopping and looking at photographs or reading old notes. Just scribbled bits, for the most part. We put everything in boxes except for a few letters.”
Anna refrained from asking, “Where are the goddamn archives?” Elizabeth knew well enough that she was interested in the documents.
“She cried, poor woman. She muttered in German, and I didn’t understand much. She tore her hair out. I thought she was going to have a fit.”
“Who were the letters from?”
“From her in-laws. None of them liked her much. It was pretty obvious what kinds of things they were saying about her.”
“And what did she do with the letters?”
“She burned them! How else could she express her feelings?”
22. 1939: Adele’s Umbrella
We live in a world where 99 percent of the beautiful things are destroyed in embryo … Certain forces are at work to recover the good.
— Kurt Gödel
It was raining over Vienna. I paced the university lobby taking care not to slip on the muddy marble. I’d been driven from the inner courtyard by the braying and heavy stomping of a few bored youths. Those colonnaded precincts had previously heard only mannerly whispering. Bygone masters, modeled in stone, looked down on the brownshirts, who were spoiling for a fight with anyone who had the gall to meet their gaze.
Kurt finally appeared at the top of the grand staircase. I gave him a small wave but he made no response. Tonight was going to be hard sledding. His face was drawn and a vertical line marked his forehead. I was still not used to it. He’d brought it back from America, where he’d grown embittered. Kurt, too, was getting older. He struggled reluctantly into his damp coat.
“It’s been confirmed. My license has been suspended. I can’t teach any more courses. I didn’t obtain permission for my last stint at Princeton. That’s why they summoned me back.”
“It’s a lie, they were properly notified.”
“We are now under Berlin’s control. The university is being reorganized. They are going to suppress the position of Privatdozent. I’ve been told to make a formal application to the Ministry of Education as a ‘lecturer of the new order.’ ”
“Fuck the new order, a total cock-up is what it is!”
“Don’t be vulgar, Adele. Please.”
“You know what this means, don’t you?”
Looking into space, he buttoned up his coat absently, mismatching the buttonholes. I took over the job from him while he stood there motionless.
“I have to find a solution, otherwise I won’t be able to return to Princeton.”
“The threat is a lot more serious than not being able to travel! You won’t be able to avoid the draft anymore.”
“You’re always imagining the worst. I’m still an eminent member of this university. I have certain rights, it’s just that …”
“You seemed so sure of yourself this morning.”
“My thesis adviser was Hahn. The new administration is getting rid of anyone suspected of having relations with Jews or liberals.”
“That’s outrageous! Especially as you’re completely apolitical.”
“If I join up with the university again under their conditions, they’ll have me on a leash. I would have to beg them for permission to travel. My work would be screened and subject to their approval. It’s out of the question.”
“And without their approval, you can’t leave. It’s a trap!”
“It’s just a show of power.”
My outbursts must have attracted attention because a group of brownshirts approached us.
“Let’s go, it’s dangerous here.”