From a residual love of Kurt? Shame over my aging body? A lack of opportunity, probably.
“When did you go through menopause, Adele?”
It was my turn to feel discomfited. This was a low blow. Kurt hunched deeper into his chair.
“Might that not be the root of the problem? Your husband has his work, and you have … your husband. Couldn’t the marital dynamic be unbalanced by the fact that you have no child?”
I drew nervously on my cigarette. I had long ago shelved the idea of motherhood, even when my womb still shouted that it was possible. Kurt might eventually have given in, as he had with the house. I was so bored. He might at least have agreed to try and make me a child. Another item on his list of resolutions, where decision often counted as doing. But my biological clock had shut down the debate. No new soul had consented to appear in our house. We even thought of adopting a little girl after the war, but Kurt couldn’t bring himself to bestow the Gödel name on someone who didn’t share his blood. It had taken him ten years, after all, to share his name with me.
What would our son have been like? I’ve often asked myself, as a delicious exercise in mortification. I saw him as an only child. The kid of older parents. I never imagined us as having a “Miss Gödel.” The world is no place for girls. “Blessed art Thou, who has not made me a woman!” as my friend Lili Kahler-Loewy taught me, quoting the Torah.
I answered Hulbeck with all the calm I could muster. On this score, I was unwilling to display my emotions.
“We chose not to have a child.”
I would have wanted to call our son “Oskar,” in honor of our faithful friend Morgenstern, even though he irritated me. Marianne would have insisted on “Rudolf,” in tribute to her dead husband. In the end, he would have been called “Rudolf,” like Kurt’s brother and father. Einstein, von Neumann, and Oppenheimer would have attended his christening. His eyes would have been blue, like both of ours. Raised in America, he would have had strong, white teeth set in the square jaws of a conqueror. Would he have liked chewing gum? It’s hard to think while you’re chewing; Kurt wouldn’t have allowed gum. Would he have been a scientist? He would have wrecked his life trying to live up to his father. How can you be a god’s son without being a god yourself? Barred from Mount Olympus, these kids have a choice between madness and mediocrity, or at least what is termed mediocrity by geniuses, although the rest of us call it “normality.” That’s what Albert’s sons had chosen: the more brilliant had ended up a schizophrenic, the other an engineer. What a disappointment! “One cannot expect one’s children to inherit a mind,” he’d said. Dear Albert, so kind and so cruel at the same time, like any self-respecting god.
The Vienna-born child might have become a musician. What might the one born in Princeton have been? A sculptor, maybe. In which case Rudolf Gödel senior would have sold girdles so that Kurt Gödel could be a scientist and his grandson an artist. And what would the son of my son have done? He’d have closed the circle by selling his father’s art.
And what if our boy had had a talent for sports? If what gladdened him was running with the big crew-cut youths one saw on campus? I’d have congratulated fate on its sense of irony, for making Kurt accompany his son to baseball games when he avoided physical exercise like the plague.
But Kurt never gave me permission to have a child. It would have opened the door to the unforeseen, the uncontrollable. To disappointment. Our son chose well in staying away. I wouldn’t have had enough strength for all three of us.
The psychiatrist’s right eyebrow remained cocked upward, as though he had worn a monocle for too long. He pursed his thick lips.
“Who would like to say something about this hospital business?”
“He was rushed to the hospital for a perforated ulcer that he’d refused to have treated. He’ll go to any lengths to avoid seeing a doctor. He’d rather complain or drink magic potions. He almost died! He even dictated his last will and testament to Morgenstern!”
“I had other things to worry about. I had to prepare my talk for the International Mathematical Congress and the Gibbs Lecture.”37
“Adele, do you feel responsible for Kurt’s health problems?”
“Do you mean, do I feel guilty? I’ve spent my life rescuing his!”
I got to my feet, determined to walk out.
“Sit down!” boomed the drum.
“You see? She’s hysterical! She’s incapable of holding an adult conversation!”
“He keeps a journal about his issues with constipation and he has the gall to talk to me about hysteria!”
“I take good care of my health. In my own way, I follow a very strict diet.”
I sat down again, tossing my purse onto the couch. If Hulbeck only knew how strange Kurt’s normal diet was, he would have him committed immediately: a quarter pound of butter on a tiny square of toasted bread and beaten egg whites. No soup or fresh fruit. Almost never any meat. A chicken could last us all week if I didn’t slip some into his pureed food. Food that was white, neutral, reduced to the minimum for survival.
“He doesn’t want to admit that he’s afraid of being poisoned, even by me! When we’re invited somewhere, I have to bring his meal in a box. Think how embarrassing it is for me!”
“My wife exaggerates. I find her cooking too heavy, and she gets upset over nothing. This room is very smoky, could you open the window?”
“Why don’t you take your coat off, Kurt? Are you in a hurry to go?”
“I’m cold.”
I rolled my eyes. One more illogical argument, who cared?
“That will be enough for today. As a doctor, though, I’d like to recommend an outdoor vacation, Kurt. To get your health back. In a scientific way.”
“Why not go to Switzerland and visit the Paulis? You’d like Switzerland. It’s clean. And quiet. Or maybe Vienna? I’d even agree to visit your mother!”
Hulbeck coughed with unmistakable meaning.
“You know very well what I think of that, Adele.”
“I can’t stand Princeton anymore. Why not accept the offer from Harvard? The people there are very friendly.”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
The thunder of the drum prevented us from carrying the conversation any further. The session was over.
“We’re making progress. My assistant will schedule you for your next appointment.”
Kurt rose and paid the psychoanalyst, who walked us to the door of his office. I was pulling on my gloves in the lobby, a little shell-shocked, when Hulbeck stuck his shaggy dog’s head around the edge of the door.
“By the way, Adele. I keep that death mask for a particular reason. Anger has its good side too. I try never to forget it. I intend to keep shitting on Goethe until the day I die. Will we see you at Albert’s on Sunday?”
41
Anna, not wanting to arrive early, walked around the IAS on foot. She had followed Adele’s advice and bought herself a new outfit. Under her severe coat, she wore a red crepe dress with a neckline scooped too low for her small bust. She felt dolled up. She had put on makeup and, at the last moment, loosened her hair, all the while questioning the point of assembling such an arsenal when the war was already lost.