For Vanessa: Reflections on Rubinstein

[A memorial concert was held for Vanessa Knights last Saturday, May 3, a bit more than thirteen months after her death at the age of 38. I gave the following speech, which includes excerpts from a book first published in 1985 and translated in 1989.]

If you'll allow me, I'm going to tell you about a book I like very much, which I shared with Vanessa, who told me that she liked it too. It’s by the famous Renate Rubinstein – someone you’ve probably never heard of: Rubinstein was a Dutch political columnist in the 60s, 70s and 80s, well known in Amsterdam and a feisty opponent in any argument (and it is clear that she loved arguments). When she was in her thirties, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis; after seven years of refusing to talk about it in public, she wrote this short book, Take It and Leave It: Aspects of Being Ill.

Rubinstein was evidently a tough, strong, even an aggressive person; there’s a lot of pride, frustration, and anger in this book – she doesn’t like being sick, doesn’t like being weakened or unable to do everything she plans to do, doesn’t like being patronized or helped or avoided or supported, or practically anything else it seems. But there’s also a lot of intelligence here, and when she finally reaches a kind of truce with her illness you believe her, because the insights are so hard-won.

This chapter is about her cat (this was, of course, a page Vanessa especially liked):

"In my movements, I have become a stranger to myself. I just cannot accept it as normal that they have slowed down so. The only one who really finds it perfectly normal and not worth bothering about is my cat. She used to run up the stairs ahead of me, with her tail in the air in the Siamese way. Now she climbs three stairs and sits down, awaiting my arrival. Then a further two, another wait, and so on until we have covered the sixteen stairs to the top.

I have the impression that she does not find this at all strange. She does not want to be alone; she wants to be with me. Like a human being she cares more about attention than about food, and she prefers my attention to that of the nice uncles and aunts who visit the house. This slowness of mine, which I find so disconcerting, makes no difference to her. To cats, human beings are probably just lumbering creatures who can't run. Only in the Cat Academy of Sciences should they be able to measure the difference in speed between one human being and another. The ordinary cat does not notice the difference and adapts without a sound." [p. 97]

This chapter, late in the book, is about ‘The Advantages of Being Ill’:

"It has come as a bit of a relief that limits are imposed by the superior force of my labor-intensive disease. The day is no longer an endless time span, but a modest capital that needs to be managed carefully: about four or five hours of activity in the morning, an afternoon in bed, then dinner and a short evening at half strength. Everything you do costs calculable energy: preparing food, eating food, writing letters, visiting your friends, going to a film, the garage, the hairdresser, the dentist, the dressmaker. I have my work cut out to keep things moving. Time is no longer the monster that must be killed; it has become a scarce commodity, a piece of good fortune to do something nice with. And there is much promise of pleasure: books, newspapers, television, records.... In short, my time, that is my life, has become precious....

Besides, there is something mysterious that happens despite yourself. After a period of grieving over what you can no longer do, you begin to emphasize what you can do. All the literature for the handicapped recommends this attitude and when you first read it, you think: what nonsense, how terribly sad all this is. But if you are lucky, the change comes about of its own accord and then it is of course not at all sad. I can still stand on my feet, I think, I can get up from my chair. I can get off my [electric wheelchair] and look at a painting in the museum standing up. And that fills me with an unjustified but gratifying pride....

Perhaps, I think, anything is better than nothing. Perhaps a moment arrives when only breathing is enough joy to want to continue living. Living." [pp. 120-2]

The last chapter of the book is called ‘Death’:

"Life is unjust, nature is unjust, all that is important is unjustly parcelled out (love, health, beauty, money). How fair death is in comparison. For one thing is certain: everybody dies. It is not as if you were the only one who will have to go, while all the others stay. Or, what would be even worse, a lottery, and some have a ticket with 'mortal' on it. With our acute awareness of the injustice of it all, we could have believed it. But it's not so, everybody lives for a while and then disappears forever.

True, some people live to be eighty and others don't reach thirty. But even those who reach eighty find that their lives have passed too quickly. Those thirty, eighty, hundred years, how little it all is in retrospect.... Once you realize that, you don't demand so much of the short time you are here, look around and disappear. You have taken it while it lasted; in the end you will leave it. It was all pure gain." [pp. 123-4]

All pure gain…

Of course, Vanessa wasn’t so cantankerous about her illness, about being too weak to do some things, about not feeling well, or about the prospect of living a shorter life than she should have. But she understood at a young age that it was ‘all pure gain’ – well before I first met her, now six years ago – she knew her prognosis ten years before her death, at the age of 28, even before she met and married David. It was clear that in her energetic approach to her work, her devotion to her marriage, her enjoyment of travel and research and dancing and food, her strong connections to her family, friends, colleagues, students, and even to her beloved cats, that she had already understood this most important thing. It might seem hard for us, because of course we can’t help but resent how short her life was – but then think how terrifically successful her life was, too. It really was, all, pure gain.

Thank you.

Comments

[fred maus]

Paul, this could not be more beautiful and moving.

[Mr Joe Johnson]

Hello -

Forgive me for sending this message at what may appear to be a very late stage. I have only just learned of the sad loss of Vanessa.

I knew Vanessa throughout our secondary school years at Newlands School comprehensive in Middlesbrough. Vanessa was normally "quiet" though would stand fiercely for her opinions and her beliefs. Just the wrong "Look" from her was enough.

Upon rediscovering my old school friend via friends reunited, I emailed Vanessa. Her response as usual was warm. I was so elated at Vanessa's achievements since our leaving the old school.

And then I learn from a friend that Vanessa has so sadly passed on. Quite simply, I'm devastated at this sad news.

I would like to pass on my sincere thoughts and sympathies to those who have lost Vanessa - To David, to her family, to her friends . . . . and of course to anyone else who was touched from the brilliant experience in having known Vanessa.

With kind and sincere regards,
Joe Johnson

[Shalini Chanda]

I have only just learned about this sad sad news and I am devastated. I can't believe it has been more than three years since her death.

I remember Vanessa as one of the most inspirational, kind and loving people I have ever met. I was a student of hers from 1996-1999 and Vanessa and Chris Perriam awakened my love for Spanish film, culture and feminism.

You always remember your mentors and sources of inspiration from your youth and Vanessa was a truly brilliant woman in so many ways. It is because of Vanessa (and Chris - a wonderful partnership) that I went on to study Spanish in my Masters at Cambridge.

I lost touch with Vanessa soon after graduating in 1999 but I have never forgotten her - the spring in every step and the passion in everything she taught even when I could tell she was suffering. What she taught me was immeasurable.

To David, her family and her friends - my sincere condolences at the loss of a truly brilliant woman.