The Goddess of Small Victories Read Free

soon plunge back into them. I was starving, eager to party, and I chose the first man to come along, a smooth talker. Kurt, on the other hand, never made a promise he couldn’t keep. He was sickeningly scrupulous. My girlhood dreams had gone by the board. I would have liked to be in the movies, along with every other girl at the time. I was a little wild, and I was pretty enough, my right profile, anyway. The tyranny of the permanent had just replaced the tyranny of long hair. I had bright eyes, a mouth always drawn in red, lovely teeth, and small hands. And lots of powder over the port-wine stain that disfigured my left cheek. Actually, this damned birthmark has served me well. I’ve blamed it for all my lost illusions.
    Kurt and I had nothing in common, or very little. I was seven years older than he and had never been to university, while hewas preparing his doctorate. My father was a neighborhood photographer, his a prosperous manufacturer. He was a Lutheran, I a Catholic—though not a very devout Catholic at the time. For me, religion was a family relic that collected dust on the mantelpiece. The most you’d hear from the chorus girls in their dressing room was the prayer: “Blessed Mary, who became the mother of a child without doing it, please let me do it without becoming a mother!” We were all afraid of getting stuck with a little lodger, and I was no exception. Many of us wound up in the back rooms of Mother Dora’s place, where she kept her knitting needles. At the age of twenty, I accepted the luck of the draw as it came. Good card, bad card, I was still going to play. I didn’t think I had to store up any happiness or lightheartedness for later. I needed to burn everything, pillage everything. I’d always have time for another hand. I’d particularly have time for regret.
    The walk ended as it had started, with both of us hiding our thoughts behind an uncomfortable silence. Even though I’ve never had any talent for mathematics, I know this basic premise: a tiny deviation in the angle at the start can mean an enormous difference at the end. In what dimension, in what version of our romance, did he not accompany me home that night?

3
    “What does she mean,
‘Mag sein’
? Is she going to turn over the papers or not? What is she angling for here?”
    “Time, I suppose. And a listening ear.”
    “Take all the time you want, but make sure the
Nachlass
is in a safe place. And don’t go making her mad! The old bat could dump the whole pile in the trash.”
    “I don’t think so. She seems perfectly lucid. On this subject, anyway.”
    “It’s so stupid. She can’t even make sense of it.”
    “They lived together for fifty years. He may have explained some aspects of his work to her.”
    “We’re not talking about the recollections of a sales rep, for Pete’s sake! This is a field that most people can’t begin to understand even in its simplest form.”
    Anna drew back. She hated having her personal space invaded. Calvin Adams had the habit of showering his interlocutor with spittle whenever the tension mounted.
    As soon as she’d returned to the Institute, the young woman had given the director a summary of her conversation with Gödel’s widow. She made sure not to underplay the old lady’saggression. Anna wanted her own skill to be recognized, and she had managed to pry the door open where her predecessor, a pedigreed specialist, had gotten it slammed in his face. But her boss was too annoyed at the ongoing standoff to pick up the nuance.
    “What if Gödel himself destroyed the archive in a fit of paranoia?” asked Anna.
    “Not likely.”
    “The family hasn’t made any claims?”
    “Gödel has no heirs except for his brother, Rudolf, who lives in Europe. He left everything to his wife.”
    “Then he thought his wife fit to look after his moral rights.”
    “Those papers belong in the Institute for their historical interest—whether they are his notebooks, his bills, or his medical