Yannick Grannec - The Goddess of Small Victories

“I always make a mountain out of this kind of place. As though it still harbored the spirit of the dead. But it’s only a pile of old boards.”

“You’re disappointed.”

“I’m too much of a dreamer. My teachers at school criticized me for it often enough!”

“You’ve done pretty well for a dreamer.”

“Where do you live, Anna?”

“You’d like to visit my house too?”

He looked at her steadily and answered without equivocation. She hadn’t been propositioned directly for a long time. She hadn’t readied herself for the sudden transition from bullshit to blitzkrieg.

“My hotel is right nearby, if you’d prefer. I’m at the Peacock Inn. It’s quite charming. They’ve preserved a graffiti by von Neumann in their dining room.”

“The job of a research librarian has its limits. My director wouldn’t approve.”

“We don’t have to invite him to take part. These are pretexts, not reasons. Are you with someone? I don’t see you wearing a ring.”

“I’m in recovery.”

“ Vous avez mis votre corps en jachère? ”

“Sorry, my French is a little rusty.”

“Your body must lie fallow? Anna, love is like riding a bicycle. Once you learn it, you never lose the ability. As I said to Leo, I nourish my inspiration with all my senses.”

His remark chilled her: a man who quotes himself, how horrible! It reminded her of her father.

“You ease your doubts with sex?”

“ Par la sensualité , with sensuality. Don’t be so crude.”

“French has far too many words for the one concept. German is much franker.”

“Have you ever tried to talk about love in German?”

“The French are so arrogant! You claim to like poetry but you’ve never read Rilke.”

He resumed walking, his hands in his pockets. He maintained a disconcerting silence until they reached the next light.

“Please excuse me, Anna. That was inelegant of me. Join me for a drink all the same?”

“You wouldn’t have a cigarette, would you?

“You’re a pretty girl, Anna.”

“If you whisper that I have lovely hair, I’m out of here.”

He offered her a Gitane with a disarming smile, devoid of his usual irony. It must be the version he reserved for big occasions. Taking her first puff, which was less delicious than she remembered, she decided to accept his invitation. He was charming, brilliant, and — most important — a temporary visitor. What more could she hope for? She couldn’t spend her whole life waiting.

“What is it that you like about me? I imagine that there are many sexy coeds who camp out on your doorstep.”

“I’m only attracted by women who are intelligent enough not to want me. Especially when they wear a red dress.”

O holy mathematics, may I for the rest of my days be consoled by perpetual intercourse with you, consoled for the wickedness of man and the injustice of the Almighty!

— Lautréamont, Maldoror

I was so tired, so muddleheaded. I was in pain. I had the nauseating impression of reliving the same nightmare thirty-four years later. Rudolf, Oskar, me, and a walking corpse. In 1936, we were all together in the lobby of the sanatorium. But the gleaming elegance was gone, and time had substituted our small, dusty living room, which I no longer had the strength to vacuum. The participants had changed too: Rudolf had become an elderly stranger; Oskar, feeling his years, was struggling with cancer, all the while maintaining his usual dignity. I was no longer the same Adele from Grinzing. I was an old lady. In 1965, I’d been sent home from Naples following a “mild cerebrovascular accident.” Ever since, I had seen my body and mind crumble away. All my joints were swollen. I walked with difficulty. My last reserves of vital energy were running out. Unlike the young woman of 1936, anxious and in love, I no longer hoped for better days to come. I no longer felt indispensable. I was without power.

“You should have him hospitalized immediately, Adele.”

“He will refuse.”

“We must force him to go along with it. Even if we have to commit him involuntarily.”

“How can you think of doing that to your own brother? I’ve given him my word that he’ll never be locked up again.”

“The situation has changed. You’re no longer in a position to help him. You can hardly stand up!”

“You never liked me, Oskar.”

“This isn’t the moment to argue, Adele. Kurt will die if we don’t intervene. Do you understand? He’s going to die!”

“He’s already gone down this road before. And he’s come through.”

“At this stage, anorexia leads to death. And if he doesn’t die of hunger, his heart will give out. Not to mention all the crazy things he’s ingesting! I found digitalin on his bedside table! How could you let him poison himself like that?”

I hadn’t the strength to answer. They were carrying on as though it was all a new development, as though Oskar hadn’t seen his friend sinking day after day, as though Rudolf might not have suspected his younger brother’s state from reading his successive letters. I held fast to the curtains to keep my trembling legs from buckling under me. I was so overcome I could hardly breathe. Morgenstern, noticing how weak I was, came to my defense.

“Your brother has always done exactly what he wanted, Rudolf. No one can tell him what to do. I dragged him to the hospital a month ago. None of the doctors could convince him to eat. He even refused the operation on his prostate despite the pain he is in. Adele has done everything humanly possible.”

“He doesn’t trust doctors. He’s afraid of being drugged with narcotics or something of the kind.”

“He’s no longer capable of making the decision. Adele, I’m begging you, in the name of the affection we all feel toward him. Do it!”

“He’s going to hate me for it. He’ll accuse me of being like all the others. Of trying to kill him.”

“I haven’t told you because I didn’t want to cause you further worry, but last night on the telephone Kurt asked me to help him commit suicide. If I was truly his friend, I was to bring him cyanide and write down his last will.”

“My God! I don’t understand. Last week he went back to the office to work. He didn’t seem particularly depressed.”

“At this stage it’s no longer a question of simple depression. This is a psychotic episode. He needs to be fed intravenously and to receive appropriate care.”

I didn’t want to listen to any more. I let them plot with the doctor, summoned urgently that morning, and hobbled to Kurt’s bedroom. The room was dark and littered with books, papers, and medications. The windows were permanently shut; he now minded the stuffiness of his room less than his waking nightmares. His sleepless nights were peopled with marauders and white-coated demons bent on annihilating his mind. Finally he was asleep, overcome by the sedative injection that had been forcibly administered after hours of negotiation. I could hear them through the thin walls. They were talking about me.

“She has waited much too long.”

He had lost a great deal of weight in the last months. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to it, but he continued to work. Illness had never impaired his mental faculties in the same way it affected him physically. Morgenstern, learning of Kurt’s state, had contacted Rudolf to come to Princeton posthaste. He himself had not been able to convince Kurt to eat. What right had he to blame me for negligence? They weren’t managing to do any better despite all their knowledge and condescension.

That morning, I hadn’t found him in his bedroom. He hadn’t answered when I called. He wasn’t at the IAS. A neighbor looked everywhere for him in the neighborhood. He had disappeared. Oskar found him in the laundry room, crouching behind the water heater. He was haggard and wild-eyed. Terrified. He didn’t recognize me anymore and was convinced that his house had been invaded during the night by people wanting to inject his veins with poison.