“Scientists are men like the rest. Genius or not. I applied Adele’s theorem. It has never let me down. But the world has changed, as you have pointed out to me.”
Adele smiled impishly. Two rays of light came to tickle the wall. Where they crossed, a perfect, dazzling square seemed to open another window. “God is with us,” breathed Adele. The two women stared at the poetic and ephemeral undulation, until a cloud dissolved it.
“First, you must learn how to listen to men. Let them talk, even if they are sermonizing on a subject you know more about than they do. Especially then! And if the subject is foreign to you, soak up their words like manna from heaven. Inside each man, there is a prophet sleeping. If his liebe Mama ignored him at all as a child, you will appear a godsend to him. With your fresh face of a Virgin Mary, it shouldn’t be a problem for you.”
“Is there a word for female machismo?”
“So what? All that matters is the result.”
The young woman didn’t tell Adele that she reminded her of her mother. Rachel had always granted herself permission to play every angle. Anna, by contrast, had never resolved the ambivalence of her upbringing, which enjoined her to be a seductress and also an intellectual. One always detracted from the other. And mixing the two felt inappropriate, shameful. She preferred to wait for someone to seduce her.
“I follow the basic principles of metallurgy. First, heat up your work piece! I don’t need to explain how, you are not so naïve. Then make it cold all of a sudden. It works every time.”
“You applied this method to Kurt Gödel?”
“He was always very susceptible to my flattery.”
She cupped both hands under her chin and spoke in an admiring voice: “ ‘Kurtele, your talk was by far the best!’ I would watch his smile appear. Even if, between you and me, I had quietly grabbed a few winks during the lecture.”
“But according to Adele’s theorem, we have to willingly subordinate ourselves in order to seduce. I’m sorry, Adele, but it’s a reactionary idea.”
“Seduction is nothing. Constancy is what is difficult. And it was worth it. In spite of everything. In the end, it all depends on how the mother of the chosen male brought her son up. If he was the center of everything, he will insist on staying at the center. If he was neglected, he will need to be reassured.”
“And which upbringing did your husband have?”
“His was at the exact intersection of the two.”
Anna thought about the letters from Marianne that Adele had burned. Relations between the two Frau Gödels must have been exceptionally violent.
“Let us leave my mother-in-law to one side! I will be seeing her again soon enough. If you don’t believe my theory, try this experiment. Look a man straight in the eyes. But pay attention! There cannot be the slightest trace of sarcasm! Then purr at him, ‘You’re so strong …!’ ”
Anna stifled a fit of giggles. She couldn’t decide just how seriously to take the conversation. Nor where the trap lay.
“You’ll see. Not one of them can resist. The sentence freezes their brains. Of course, some are more resistant than others. Still, the information neutralizes their thought process for at least a moment. It strokes their prehistoric brain. It is a shortcut implanted in little boys by their mother.”
This time, Anna smiled happily. She could easily imagine the young Adele’s blandishments.
“It is all in the conviction of your voice and the ingenuousness of your gaze. My theorem also works on cats.”
“I’ll try it on mine. Before attacking the human species.”
“I thought I noticed cat hair on your clothes! My favorite are the Manx cats from the Isle of Man. They have no tail. My neighbors had three of them. One day I told them I was going to cut off the tail of my alley cat to make it look more like theirs. They implored me to reconsider. ‘Mrs. Gödel, cats need their tails in order to maintain their balance!’ And blah, blah, blah. They didn’t see the joke. A few days later, my hairdresser in Princeton tried to talk me out of committing such a horrible act. Hulbeck, our psychiatrist, had been telling everyone in sight. The madman’s wife, is she crazy? Yes! The genius’s mate, is she a genius? Certainly not! That’s how they thought of me in the neighborhood.”
Adele’s words were coming out in a rush. Anna remembered what the clog-shod nurse had told her. It was time to slow things down. She hoped their escapade hadn’t blown the last points of life in the elderly lady.
“Gladys did a good job.”
Anna tugged by reflex on a strand of her hair.
“ ‘I like your hair!’ is the female equivalent to the male ‘You’re so strong!’ Even a big girl with many diplomas falls for it. I may be a reactionary, my little tootsie, but my theorem is eternal all the same. You would do much better to think along practical lines. What are you going to wear for Thanksgiving? I see you in something red.”
40. 1952: A Couch for Three
The Dadaist loves life, because he can throw it away every day; for him death is a Dadaist affair. The Dadaist looks forward to the day, fully aware that a flowerpot may fall on his head.
— Richard Huelsenbeck, En avant Dada
“This is not a session. Just think of it as a conversation.”
I clutched my purse to my stomach. Kurt avoided looking at me. We were not in the habit of opening ourselves up to a stranger, and in this case it wasn’t even really a stranger. Initially, I’d thought the consultation a good idea. In this odd office, though, sitting across from this even more bizarre man, I felt strongly inclined to take to my heels.
Kurt was still shaky after a recent hospitalization. The crisis might have had a familiar ring to it except that, since his release, Kurt had balked at eating anything I prepared. We had reached a dead end. He didn’t trust me. We lived like two strangers mired in a deadly silence, heavy with resentment and misunderstanding.
Albert, sensing our marital difficulties, had tactfully recommended a psychoanalyst: Charles R. Hulbeck, one of his many protégés. Kurt had followed his old friend’s advice, as he often did. Hulbeck, whose real name was Richard Huelsenbeck, was a first-wave émigré from Germany who had received his visa on the recommendation of the ever-helpful Herr Einstein. Albert had described him as an odd duck: a crazy artist but a competent psychiatrist. Fantasy and science seemed incompatible to me: in general, people like to hold forth on what they don’t fully understand.
The walls of his study were all but invisible behind a collection of artworks. Abstract collages and large flat expanses of black paint vied for space with a grimacing assemblage of African figurines, Japanese theater masks, and carnival disguises. My eyes were drawn to a small watercolor in a more traditional style. I shuddered when I looked at it more closely: a delicate angel whose legs were engulfed in flames.
“Do you like William Blake, Adele?”
I shrugged uncertainly. What could this crackpot do for us? A simple conversation with him could keep a couple from going under?
“Kurt, I feel that you’re tense.”
My husband winced. He didn’t expect to be addressed so cavalierly.
“Would you enlighten me as to your method, Dr. Hulbeck? To what school do you belong? I’ve researched the different therapeutic courses.”
“I’m not a Freudian. And I’m only marginally Jungian. I would place myself outside of orthodox practice. If I had to name an influence, I would say that I am close to Binswanger, a neuropsychiatrist who distanced himself from classical Viennese psychoanalysis by creating Daseinsanalyse.”34
“What does that mean, ‘Daseinsanalyse’?”