The Goddess of Small Victories by Yannick Grannec Read Free Book Online Page B

your presents. Would you like some?”
    Anna turned down the offer. Her altruism didn’t extend to sharing the old lady’s spoon.
    “What is he like, this director?”
    “He wears a turtleneck under his shirt.”
    “I remember him. He has been cradle robbing at the Institute for some time. They say the secretaries all button up their blouses before they walk into his office.”
    Her spoon hovering in midair, a chocolate stain on her chin, Adele observed her visitor. Anna hid her confusion by rummaging in her purse. Its contents were impressive: a zippered pouch for pens, another for medications, two active file folders, a book in case she had to wait (Borges’s
Aleph
), a sewing kit, a bottle of water, a plump personal organizer, and a set of keys on a long chain. She walked around with such a heavy bag that her back was constantly in pain. At night she would tell herself to lighten its weight, only to take the whole business with her again in the morning. Eventually she found a handkerchief, which she laid flat on the bed next to the box of pastries. Adele ignored it.
    “With a bag like that you could live through a siege. Is it hard not to be in control of everything, young lady?”
    “You’re a shrink in your spare time?”
    “Do you know the Jewish joke: What is a psychiatrist?”
    Anna stiffened. As a Catholic in Austria in the 1930s, Adele would have a simple resolution to this equation with no unknowns.
    “A psychiatrist is a Jew who studied to be a doctor to make his mother happy but who faints at the sight of blood.”
    “Do you have a problem with Jews? It isn’t the first time you’ve probed me about this.”
    “Don’t be so predictable! It was Albert Einstein who told me that joke.”
    “You didn’t answer my question.”
    “I forgive you for it. And I understand your distrust.”
    Anna dove back into her purse for an elastic band. She could hardly think without the tug of a ponytail. Adele watched her fondly.
    “You should let your hair loose more often.”
    “A shrink
and
a beautician?”
    “They are one and the same, or nearly. Your complexion is quite extraordinary. Not one blemish! You’re immaculate, like a Madonna. You have a long nose and eyes that are too soft. You could fix that with a nice, bright lipstick.”
    “Is the inspection over?”
    “Why have you so little coquettishness? You’re pretty enough.”
    “My family is not much for frivolity.”
    “I think you dreamed of becoming a pom-pom girl and your mother had practically a heart attack. People who think of themselves as deep are often unhappy.”
    “I never liked to doll myself up.”
    In this, Anna was not lying. She had decided early on that feminine competitiveness would not be her chosen sport. But it wasn’t for lack of coaching. Her mother had been physically standoffish but ready enough with her advice. Barely had her little slip of a girl learned to walk than she set out to awaken her daughter’s femininity with vast dollops of pink wallpaper, dolls, and flounced dresses. At that point, Rachel had not yet joined the feminist movement; seduction was a natural weapon. Sheliked to theorize about her sporadic mothering; she took pride in not blighting her daughter’s development by exemplifying too perfect a womanly image, avoiding making herself up on Sundays. But she didn’t go so far as to remove her makeup on other days of the week. She wore gray eyeliner for lectures and seminars, opalescent eyelids and beige lips for formal evenings. Her extraordinary violet eyes were deeply shadowed in black for her unspecified nighttime rendezvous. The little girl waited at her bedroom window for her mother to return. The next morning, her mother’s pillowcase would be smeared with soot, and her father’s sometimes not even creased. At the age when her friends were all crazy about mascara, Anna had buttoned her blouse to the top and lost herself in books.
    She had quickly noticed that coquettishness was unnecessary.