ABeautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

Author:Sylvia Nasar
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2011-07-11T14:00:00+00:00

35

In the Eye of the Storm

Spring 1959

It was like a tornado. You want to hang on to what you have. You don’t want to see everything go. — ALICIA NASH

DESPITE ALICIA’S apparent elation on New Year’s Eve, her state of mind in the preceding months had been anything but carefree. Since returning from their European holiday, her starry-eyed view of her new life had given way to a darker, more somber perspective. She and Nash had moved out to West Medford, a small industrial city north of Cambridge, and Alicia felt cut off and isolated. Her goal of establishing a career seemed more distant than ever. Her feelings about her pregnancy were ambivalent, and her initial hopes that it would draw her and Nash closer were disappointed. Her husband had become, if anything, more cold and distant. As the weather turned colder and the days shorter, she felt more and more dispirited, anxious, and alone — so much so that she was thinking of consulting a psychiatrist.1

That had been before Thanksgiving. Since then, Nash’s behavior, rather than her own low mood, had become her chief source of distress. Several times, Nash had cornered her with odd questions when they were alone, either at home or driving in the car. “Why don’t you tell me about it?” he asked in an angry, agitated tone, apropos of nothing. “Tell me what you know,” he demanded.2 He behaved as if she knew some secret but wouldn’t share it with him. The first time he said it, Alicia thought Nash suspected her of having an affair. When he repeated it, she wondered whether he might not be having an affair himself. That would account for his growing secretiveness and air of abstraction. Might he not be trying to deflect attention from himself by accusing her?

By New Year’s Day, the day she turned twenty-six, Alicia was sure that “something was wrong.”3 Nash’s behavior had become more and more peculiar. He was irritable and hypersensitive one minute, eerily withdrawn the next. He complained that he “knew something was going on” and that he was being “bugged.” And he was staying up nights writing strange letters to the United Nations. One night, after he had painted black spots all over their bedroom wall, Alicia made him sleep on the living-room couch.4

Alarmed, Alicia searched for explanations rooted in their day-to-day life. Her first thought was that Nash was unduly worried about the impending tenure decision. She suspected that the prospect of a baby, with all the new responsibilities that implied, was another source of pressure. And she wondered whether marriage to someone “different” like her wasn’t proving too much of a strain for a southern WASP.5

• • •

Alicia vainly tried to reassure Nash. She told him, over and over, that his worries about tenure were unfounded, that he was the department’s fair-haired boy, that Martin, after all, was confident that the decision would be favorable. She reasoned with him, pointing out that the letter writing “could undermine his professional credibility” and might even jeopardize his tenure.

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