Free The Goddess of Small Victories by Yannick Grannec Page A

to get off the merry-go-round, sit with Kurt at the Café Demel, and eat an ice cream. And make him sit up and beg.

13
    Anna sat very tall, her knees together. She always felt oppressed when she was with the Institute’s director. He reminded her too much of her father: the same self-sufficiency, the same hereditary sense of the world as consisting of vertically stacked, watertight compartments. His office even had the same smell as her father’s: of leather-bound books, Ivy League mementos, and faint whiffs of expensive liquor behind mahogany panels. She focused on the dandruff speckling his navy blue jacket. The turtleneck under his shirt made her think of Adele.
    “You seem pleased with yourself, Miss Roth. Have you made any progress?”
    “If you mean will I drop off three crates of documents on your doorstep tomorrow, then no, I haven’t made any progress, sir.”
    Calvin Adams rose to stare down at her from his full height.
    “Do I detect an edge of aggression, Miss Roth?”
    She made herself shrink. She mustn’t antagonize him. She had already seen him fly into a rage.
    “I apologize, really. It’s just that I’ve been working so hard.”
    “Then get some help. I’m not a torturer, damn it! You don’t have to make those geriatric visits every three days. We haveenough to keep us busy right here. We have a delegation from Europe about to arrive. I’ll need your skills as a translator.”
    “That’s not my job.”
    “I’ve discussed it with your father. You need work that brings you into closer contact with people. You’ve spent too many years in the company of old papers.”
    The young woman had always expected her father to poke his patrician nose into her business one day or another. Princeton’s motto, engraved above the entrance to the library, reminded her of it constantly:
Dei sub numine viget
, “Under the protection of God she flourishes.” Under her father’s omnipotent eye, she had wilted.
    “I’m very grateful to have been offered the position, even knowing that I owe it to my father.”
    The director unbuttoned his blazer and shoved his chair back. Anna’s world was full of furniture on wheels.
    “We’re among ourselves here. George and I are old friends, and his concern is perfectly legitimate. I would do the same for my own son.”
    “We were talking about Mrs. Gödel.”
    The director’s mention of Leonard had left her drained. Especially here in this office where, twenty years earlier, Leo had offered her his collection of
Strange
comic books if she would pull down her panties. Both their fathers were in the next room, deep in discussion, but she’d had the time to give him a furtive glimpse of her privates behind the padded door. Not because of his comics, which were stupid, but for the pleasure of taking his dare.
    “If the business drags on, there’s no point in wasting more time on it. I have still another Einstein biographer to cope with and a dozen lectures to prepare.”
    “Mrs. Gödel has assured me that she didn’t destroy the documents.”
    “That’s an excellent start. You need to convince her at this point that we’re acting in good faith.”
    “It’s not so simple.”
    “All the same, you’ve managed to soften her up. Congratulations.”
    Anna had had no choice, she’d had to throw Adams a bone or he would have put her on a new assignment. He now came to the real purpose of their interview, fingering the gold buttons of his blazer in a familiar sign of embarrassment. To the extent, at least, that he was capable of showing sentiment.
    “I’m counting on you to join us for Thanksgiving dinner. Virginia will be delighted to see you again. We have two or three Nobel Prize prospects joining us, a Fields medalist, and an heir to the Richardson fortune.”
    “You’re very kind, but I never feel comfortable at this sort of gathering.”
    “It’s not an invitation, it’s a summons, Miss Roth! I haven’t got an interpreter who can come that night, and