The Goddess of Small Victories Read Online Free PDF

least. All pink.”
    “All atrocious!”
    “When you forget to be serious, Anna, you have a beautiful smile.”

6
    1929
    The Windows Open, Even in Winter
    Between the penis and mathematics … there’s nothing. A vacuum!
    —Louis-Ferdinand Céline,
Journey to the End of the Night
    Some nights after making love, Kurt would ask me to describe my pleasure. He wanted to quantify it, qualify it, check if its gradient was different from his own. As though “we women” had access to a different realm. I was hard-pressed to answer him, at least with the precision he wanted.
    “You’re going back to being a pimply adolescent, Kurtele.”
    “If that were true, I would talk about your breasts. Excuse me, your big breasts.”
    “You like my breasts?”
    He smoothed the wrinkles from his shirt. I hadn’t given him time to fold his clothes on his chair as was his exasperating habit.
    “I love you.”
    “You’re lying. All men are liars.”
    “It all depends on who is making the statement. Was it a lesson from your father or your mother? A syllogism or a sophism?”
    “You’re speaking Chinese, O learned doctor!”
    “If it was your father, you’ll never know whether he was lying or not. If it was your mother, its truth is contingent on her experience of men.”
    “Common sense tells us plainly enough that girls grow up being taught lies. No use trying your demonic logic on me. You have a shriveled heart. You’re nothing but a man!”
    “Argumentum ad hominem. Your logic is inappropriate and your ethics unjust. If I used such low arguments, I would be thought a terrible lout.”
    “Why don’t you put a little more coal on the fire.”
    Kurt cast a suspicious glance at the coal-burning stove. It was a chore he hated. He opened the window wide.
    “What are you doing? It’s cold enough to split rocks!”
    “I’m hot. The air in this room is stuffy.”
    “If I die of pneumonia, it’ll be your fault. Come here!”
    He put down his shirt and lay next to me. We hid under the covers. He caressed my cheek.
    “I like your birthmark.”
    I caught his hand. “You’re the only one who does.”
    Using two fingers, he traced a horizontal eight between my breasts.
    “I read an interesting story about port-wine stains.”
    I bit him gently.
    “According to Chinese legend, birthmarks are passed down from previous lives. Therefore I must have made a mark on you in an earlier life so I’d be able to find you again in this one.”
    “In other words, because I put up with you in a past life I’m doomed to put up with you in all subsequent ones?”
    “That’s the conclusion I’ve come to.”
    “And how will I recognize you?”
    “I’ll always keep the windows open, even in winter.”
    “Too many windows to inspect, it would be more sensible for me to leave a mark on you too.”
    I bit him, not holding back this time. He howled.
    “Pain is something we never forget, Kurtele.”
    “Adele, you’re crazy!”
    “Which one of us is crazier? Look how you disfigured me! I hope it was in my very last life! Because I don’t like the idea of having wandered around like this since the dawn of time.”
    My hands won me forgiveness for the bite I’d given. I felt his body relax.
    “Are you asleep?”
    “I’m thinking. I have to go to work.”
    “Already?”
    “I have a present for you.”
    Reaching under the bed for his document case, he produced two red, highly polished apples. With a knife, he had carved “220” on one and “284” on the other.
    “Is it the number of our past lives? One of us has got a head start on the other.”
    “I’ll eat ‘220,’ and you ‘284.’ ”
    “You always choose the lighter one.”
    “Hush, Adele. It’s an Arab custom. Both 220 and 284 are amicable numbers, magnificent numbers. Each is the sum of the factors of the other. The factors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71, and 142. Their sum is 220. And the factors of—”
    “Enough, it’s all too romantic, darling toad, I’ll