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 the 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.”