The Goddess of Small Victories (39 page)

On that afternoon, it was still too early for nuances. Indignation was the order of the day. Anger kept our minds from being numbed by fear, but only momentarily, because whose name would be blacklisted next? Kurt had done nothing to be ashamed of. He lacked the soul of a traitor and had no valuable information to offer. Why would the Russians take an interest in his work? Yet given the demented logic of the times, no one was safe, not even Kurt. A simple summons to testify would have been fatal to my husband.

We sipped our cold tea, hoping for better days. I looked at the clock: it was time to go. I was afraid that Kurt would use the momentary silence to initiate a conversation of the kind he particularly specialized in: obscure and supremely irrelevant. He leapt at the opportunity.

“Oppenheimer’s trial is not the first of its kind. The great scientists have always been subjected to cabals by the powers-that-be. Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Leibniz …”

Albert hesitated a few seconds. He knew where this would lead if he picked up the cue. In the end, he couldn’t resist the chance to needle his friend a bit. Morgenstern made an effort to mask his impatience by draining his already empty cup. Lili crossed and uncrossed her legs in anticipation of the ordeal.

“I wondered how long you would hold out before bringing good old Gottfried into the picture, Gödel. What is he doing in this list of brave martyrs? Leibniz was never persecuted, so far as I know!”

“Newton had powerful political allies. He brazenly robbed Leibniz of the credit for inventing the differential calculus.”

“That has nothing to do with a plot! Newton was a horrible man. But I settled his hash, don’t worry!”

“And what do you say to
this
? Certain works of Leibniz have disappeared from the Princeton library! Oskar is my witness.”

Morgenstern, embarrassed, nodded his assent. The university had acquired an extensive collection of the German scientist’s papers, but some of the documents were missing. According to Kurt, Leibniz had kept all his writings, his drafts and notes, for posterity. He couldn’t have destroyed the documents himself. Oskar believed the gaps reflected an oversight on the part of the catalogers, not a plot of any sort. My husband, eager to support his pet mania, would hear nothing of it.

“Certain texts have been secretly destroyed by those who want to prevent mankind from progressing in intelligence.”

“Who in God’s name would do that? McCarthy? He barely knows how to spell his own name!”

“Leibniz anticipated modern scientific research. He pointed to the paradoxes of set theory two hundred years before the fact. He even stole a march on my friends Morgenstern and von Neumann by developing game theory!”
⁴³

Oskar had been the stoic target of many previous attacks; he took no offense at this one.

“Don’t try to sell me a conspiracy by the Rosicrucians or some other secret order. We have enough thugs in our own day and age. Politicians persecute in broad daylight now. And let’s be frank. The modern world doesn’t give a damn about your Leibniz!”

“The general indifference is further evidence of machinations! What I do is to encrypt my notes in Gabelsberger. You should too, Herr Einstein.”

“No point. Even I can’t read my own handwriting.”

I smiled at the elderly physicist’s attempts to lighten the tone. Kurt had such faith in their friendship that he couldn’t conceive of Herr Einstein’s total disinterest in the subject and continued to harp on about the extraordinary relevance of his idol’s research. Leibniz apparently worked, like Kurt himself, on a universal language of concepts. Although his attempt was successful, he never published his results because they were too far ahead of their time. To this, Einstein invariably responded, “Gödel, you became a mathematician so that people would study your work. Not so that you could study Leibniz, for God’s sake!”
⁴⁴
And we would be off on another round.

“Like Leibniz, I seek Truth. And for that reason, I, too, am targeted. They want to get rid of me.”

“Who is this ‘they’? Does Hilbert’s ghost come tickle your feet at night?”

“I’ve uncovered foreign agents trying to introduce themselves into my house. Several poisoning attempts have been made against me. If I weren’t a reasonable man, I’d even say that our refrigerator has been sabotaged!”

“Don’t mention that accursed refrigerator to me again, Gödel! I am begging you. I would rather face another McCarthy hearing.”

It was time to slip away before my husband dug himself a deeper pit. His friends showed great patience toward him, which he abused all too often. Mine was now unshakable. I had put away anger. Had therapy been successful? I like to say that it helped me understand the pointlessness of my open battle. I’d gone back to our old way of operating: I watched him teeter on his aerialist’s wire and readied the mattress to catch him.

Anger purges you. But who can live with it for any length of time? Repressed anger eats at you. Then it escapes in little
venomous farts that only stink up an already insalubrious atmosphere. What to do with all this anger? For want of a better alternative, some spew it at their children. I didn’t have that misfortune. I therefore kept it for others: incompetent officials, venal politicians, officious store clerks, nosy hairdressers, unattractive weather announcers, and the ass-faced Ed Sullivan. For all the pains in the rear I had no use for. I’d become a shrew to protect myself. I had never felt better. From that time on, whenever my barometer showed a storm brewing, I left on a trip. I practiced the art of flight until old age took away the option. Kurt encouraged me in this, despite the expense, although I always found him thinner and more taciturn on my return. If hope germinated in me at a distance, it rotted away after two hours back in Princeton: nothing would change him.

I was no longer tempted to return to Europe and live. My family had disappointed me. The previous spring, I had been summoned back to Vienna to see my sister on her deathbed. Lies. Believing it an emergency, I had taken an airplane for the first time in my life, spending money needlessly. We were comfortably off, but not as rich as they imagined us. I’d become their milk cow. I offered them love; they wanted money. In the end, what might have destroyed me in fact saved me: my real family, for what it was worth, was him.

“Let’s say our goodbyes, Kurt. We’re late. We’re attending the Metropolitan Opera tonight.
Die Fledermaus
, a limousine, champagne, the whole nine yards!”

“What has gotten into you, Gödel? You’re throwing away your salary now? Have you been selling secrets to the Russians?”

“Strauss is perfectly bearable for two hours, and I wanted to please my wife. She certainly deserves it.”

All heads nodded. I ordered my husband out the door by handing him his overcoat. I hoped to spare our friends a final wacky monologue. My hand was already on the knob when he turned on his heels and reentered the living room.

“You all take me for an eccentric. Believe me, when it comes to logic, I don’t need to take lessons from anyone! I may have little proof for what I’ve said, but I see the pattern. I see it!”

“Pierre, I’d like you to meet Anna Roth. She directs the archives at the Institute. She is almost a daughter to us.”

Anna wondered what lay behind this show of affection and her abrupt promotion to director. Calvin Adams had been very insistent that she attend the dinner. She had the sudden suspicion that he wanted to offer her as a bonus to his prestigious guest. Lectures and young flesh: the local specialties. She admonished herself. Even she was starting to get paranoid.

She greeted the mathematician in his own language. He answered in impeccable English with the slightest trace of a southern accent. Pierre Sicozzi had some of the features of a Roman bust: an aquiline nose, a curly beard and hair. He looked like the profile of Archimedes engraved on the obverse of the Fields Medal. Casually elegant, he wore a simple white shirt. The rolled sleeves revealed tanned forearms: this scientist didn’t shy away from the outdoors.

The young woman knew him by reputation. He held a chair at the Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies near Paris and had in fact just received the prestigious Fields Medal, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for mathematicians, awarded to scientists
under forty. She thought back to her discussion with Adele on the precocity of mathematical genius. She wondered if Sicozzi considered himself a high-level athlete in retirement. A question she wouldn’t ask him. As to his research topics, von Neumann algebras in particular, she knew nothing beyond the name, though it drew on the work of another illustrious Princeton figure. The man had a reputation for being accessible and an excellent teacher.

“I apologize, Mr. Sicozzi, I’m no scientist. We won’t be able to discuss mathematics.”

“All the better. You’ll keep me from being ripped to shreds and eaten by those young sharks.”

He nodded discreetly toward the three Institute fellows with stiff manners who were ogling him hungrily, excited to be included at the table.

“It’s not every day they get to see a Fields medalist.”

“In this town, you bump into one on every street corner.”

The entourage of Director Adams was all present and accounted for, each having brought his partner. At the far end of the table, the Richardson heir appeared to be bored stiff under the rapid-fire questioning of Virginia Adams. Anna greeted several Princeton residents, among them a highly sought after Nobelist who often visited her department. All of a sudden, Leonard materialized beside her. He introduced himself to Pierre Sicozzi as “the prodigal son and child prodigy of the house,” then plunked himself down next to his childhood friend. His mother glared at him, which he ignored. Calvin Adams was forced to take the seat intended for his son, next to Richardson, and the arrangement gave him no view of the Roth girl’s neckline, nor of the more ample cleavage of the guest across from her. He consoled himself as he tossed back his whiskey: one was too skinny, the other too old.

Anna wondered how to start the conversation. The alcohol she had drunk on an empty stomach was tormenting her insides, and Leo’s stony presence on her right was hardly calculated to make her feel comfortable.

“Thanksgiving is a special day. We are meant to give thanks to God for all the year’s blessings.”

“And what do you do to punish him for everything else?”

“The same. Indigestion, drunkenness, and family tension.”

“In France, we count on Christmas to provide that kind of explosive chemistry.”

Anna fought her nausea by drinking a sip of water.

He leaned toward her. “I’m a bit worried at the prospect of eating turkey.”

“The French have so little faith in foreign cooking.”

“We do make certain assumptions. Just as the Americans make assumptions about us. But you and I share a sense of pessimism. You dread the ambience, and I the turkey.”

“Don’t worry. The cook has her own ideas about Thanksgiving. Our hostess tries to make her respect the traditions, but Ernestine can’t help herself, she always adds an exotic touch. I remember once a very spicy stuffing. All the guests were teary-eyed.”

She preferred not to mention the Thanksgiving when Leo had added a highly unusual substance to the stuffing. The “Space Turkey,” as he later dubbed it, had led to a memorable end of the day, with the survivors rambling on endlessly while sprawled across the couches. Anna had learned a lot that afternoon about the big bang. This practical joke had earned Leonard a one-way ticket to boarding school.

The table was magnificently set: silverware in battle formation, sparkling crystal, elaborate floral arrangements, steaming platters of food. Anna recognized the white dinnerware with its
pattern of silver ferns that she had loved as a child, when she used to trace the plants’ circumvolutions with her finger to escape the endless adult discussions. Now she was on the other side of the bridge. She caressed the motifs on her plate. She thought of the Gödels back when, fresh off the boat, they had first encountered these mountains of food. Adele had gorged herself, Kurt had nibbled at the poultry.

Ernestine appeared holding an enormous golden fowl, which she deposited on a sideboard, and picked up a knife scaled to the proportions of the beast. The guests watched this battle of titans in silence. The monster would get the worst of it; Ernestine was a force of nature. She brandished her weapon over the dinner table: “A Thanksgiving turkey cooked
my way
!” Virginia sent distress signals to her husband, who reassured her with a contrite smile. Detecting the scent of truffles, Pierre Sicozzi beamed. Ernestine, delighted to have hit her mark, brought him the first serving. When she came to Anna with a scarily huge slice of turkey and an outsized mound of stuffing, the young woman almost fainted. But there was no doubt in her mind that she had every interest in leaving her plate clean. Ernestine served all the guests with similar generosity, except Virginia, to whom she gave a microscopic portion and a knowing smile. “Worse luck, to be dieting on Thanksgiving.” Virginia favored her guests with a convincing frown of dismay. Professor Sicozzi, smiling from ear to ear, seemed to be enjoying the show.

The guests passed the serving plates from hand to hand: mashed potatoes and sweet-potato puree, fluorescent green string beans, golden corn and rolls. Leonard scribbled notes on an ink-stained notepad, completely ignoring his plate and his tablemates. Pierre Sicozzi, for his part, displayed an appetite disproportionate to his spare physique.

“You must enjoy sports.”

“I walk a great deal in all weathers. I can’t think otherwise.”

Ernestine held out the wine bottle for him to inspect: Gevrey-Chambertin, 1969. A little light to pair with truffles, but he said nothing. The Frenchman rolled the wine around in his mouth attentively. The charmer had Tine securely in his pocket. She left with a dancing step, making the gaudy colors on her vast hips sway. Leonard guzzled the nectar as if it were soda. Pierre Sicozzi observed him with a small smile.

“You seem preoccupied, Leonard.”