But now I was back to dissertations and final exams. If preparing for my final exam was squeezing the natural joy out of physics for me, researching my dissertation with Weber was killing any hope of pleasure. Where had my natural exuberance for physics gone? I had once gravitated toward its patterns as the key to unlocking God’s plan for his people and world, a sort of religiosity all my own. At the moment, it felt like godless drudgery. I saw no grand divine design.
“Now, let’s turn our attention to page sixteen, where I noticed some sloppy calculations. Based on this work, I surmise that you are months away from completion, Miss Marić,” Weber barked at me.
I suddenly felt violently ill. Without even excusing myself, I raced from the room to the sole ladies’ lavatory in the building, two floors up. Unsure whether I’d make it in time, I swung open the door. I kneeled before the toilet bowl and began heaving. I had never been so sick in my life.
When the retching finally ended, I sat back on my haunches. Had I been served something spoiled at breakfast? I’d eaten only toast with jam and some tea with milk. I hadn’t even touched the boiled eggs. What could be making me so ill? Surely not Weber’s criticism alone.
Then something occurred to me, something I was unsure would ever be possible. I did some quick calculations, and I gasped.
It was very early days, but I was certain. After all, I was a mathematician and a physicist, even if Weber maligned my skills. I was pregnant.
Chapter 18
June 2, 1901
Zürich, Switzerland
I paced the front parlor. The threadbare russet-and-navy Turkish rug no longer had a defined pattern, and I couldn’t help but think that my nervous treading in the past week contributed greatly to its demise. Why must so many of my life events be played out in the Engelbrechts’ parlor?
Unlike the last Sunday when Albert and I saw each other, the anxiety I was experiencing wasn’t one of pleasant anticipation. It was the precursor to terror. What would Albert do when I told him my news?
When I finally heard his distinctive rap and saw his twinkling brown eyes in the doorway, my anxiety melted away for a moment. I wanted to leap into his arms. From the way his arms instinctively outstretched, I saw that he wanted the same. Only the judgmental sniffing of Mrs. Engelbrecht slowed us.
Instead, we exchanged a polite bow and curtsy, with Mrs. Engelbrecht lingering in the parlor, ensuring the propriety of our reunion. Under the shadow of Albert’s mustache, I saw a mischievous grin at this contrivance, and I had to restrain a giggle.
Mrs. Engelbrecht normally hovered without a word, but I must have looked pitifully peaked, because she asked, “Are you quite all right, Miss Marić? Shall I have the parlor maid bring in some tea to restore the color to your face?”
“That would be most welcome, Mrs. Engelbrecht. Thank you for your kindness.”
She left the room, and I heard Albert exhale. Not many people scared him, but something about Mrs. Engelbrecht’s Teutonic firmness made him anxious.
He reached for my hand; he wouldn’t dare embrace me until the parlor maid had delivered the tea and Mrs. Engelbrecht was safely gone. “Oh, Dollie. Two weeks is too long.”
“I know, Johnnie. These have been terribly hard days.”
“My poor little kitten. Preparing for your final exams and dealing with Weber are horrific tasks I remember well.” He clucked sympathetically.
“It’s been quite a bit more than that, Albert.”
He reached for my fingers and said, “I know, Dollie. After Como, it’s strange to be apart. Without you, I have no life.” Craning his neck to make sure no one lingered in the hallways adjoining the parlor, we stole a kiss.
The uniformed parlor maid, whose name I never bothered to remember as there seemed to be a new one every week, entered with a rattling tea tray. Albert and I sat down on the settee and waited expectantly for her to finish setting up the cerulean-blue teapot, cups, and sugar, and strain the tea. My heart thunked louder as the moments passed, but the maid wouldn’t leave. I wondered if Mrs. Engelbrecht had ordered her to keep watch over us.
Finally, Albert had enough of the maid’s presence, and pulling me to standing, he whispered, “Come, let’s leave this philistine prison. We need nature with all her freedom.”
Arm in arm, we walked the distance to Universitätsspital Park. The air was clear and crisp, the sun agreeably bright, and for the first time in days, I felt light. We passed through the park gates, and I broke from Albert to admire a particularly bright bluish-purple alpine columbine.
As I leaned down for a whiff of its fragrance, I felt Albert’s hands around my waist. He whispered in my ear, “Not unplucked anymore, my little ragamuffin.”
I blushed.
We linked arms again as Albert talked about his week of teaching. After recounting the challenges of instructing high school boys, his focus returned to his private research—thought experiments, he called them—into thermoelectricity. Usually, we pursued projects together, but the demands of my dissertation and final exams made that impossible just now. “I’m not satisfied with my theory, Dollie.”
“Why, Johnnie?”
“As you know all too well, parts of it rely on Drude. But I’ve found some mistakes in Drude’s text. So how can I publish my paper if the research upon which it’s based is riddled with errors?”
He described the problems he’d identified in Drude’s work and asked for my advice. I thought for a moment, and said, “Well, perhaps if you wrote to Drude and pointed out his mistakes, you might feel more comfortable sharing your theories. You might even forge a useful alliance with him if you do it tactfully enough. One admirer of physics to the other, that sort of thing.”
“That’s a capital idea, Dollie. It’s a bold move, but we are bold bohemians, are we not?”
I smiled; I adored making Albert happy. Particularly when I was about to share some very unsettling news. “We are indeed.”
For a moment, we strolled in silence. Was this the right moment to bring up the pregnancy? Stuttering a bit, I lost my courage and instead asked him about something that had nagged me since Como. “Did you share our paper with the Winterthur Professor Weber?” I emphasized our paper; I wanted Albert to remember that I had given permission to remove my name from its authorship, but for this purpose only.
“Yes, yes,” he said distractedly.
“What did he make of our theories on the phenomena of capillarity?”
“He was quite interested,” he said, then returned to his musings on thermoelectricity. I didn’t pursue the topic any further. Albert was like an unstoppable train once his mind had fastened onto a particular idea, and there was no shaking him from thermoelectricity. He often said that since his family’s dwindling money supply was due solely to a short-lived electrical business his father had founded, it would be appropriate if he was the one who finally uncovered the scientific secrets about how electricity actually worked. It was soothing to see him happy and engaged after the long months of worry and moodiness.
I hated to spoil it. But I had no choice.
We stopped at the Café Metropole, securing a well-placed outdoor table with just enough seclusion. Albert was thrilled to be returning to our favorite spot now that he had a job, necessary armor for any acquaintances we might come across. Before I could say anything, Albert summoned a familiar waiter. “Two Milchkaffee please, Heinrich.”
The very second the waiter placed the cups down, Albert proudly paid for us both. Heinrich’s eyebrows raised in surprise—Albert never had the funds to pay for my coffee before—but he didn’t remark. As we clinked our cups in a toast, he said, “I wish we could pursue a beautiful life together right away. But between my parents and the fact that I could only land a temporary job just now, fate seems to have something against us, my sweet Dollie.”
“I know, Johnnie. It isn’t fair.”
Albert placed his cup down and stroked my cheek. “My love, this waiting will only make things better later on when the obstacles and worries have been overcome. Our luck will change soon.”
“Our luck cannot change soon enough.” Albert, of course, had no idea how very quickly I needed our luck to change.
He smiled. “I have some news for you. There is a secret I’ve been keeping from you.”
His smug grin told me he wasn’t serious, and I pretended at pouting. “We promised never to keep secrets from one another.” Even though I’d kept my own for nearly a week.
“This is a secret you will like, my sweet sorceress.” He paused before announcing, “In addition to the Bern prospect that Marcel suggested, Michele Besso has a possible job for me.”
Proper etiquette be damned. I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. The possibility of a position from a good friend like Michele Besso had more promise than any of the job applications Albert had submitted to universities across Europe. Perhaps our luck was indeed changing.
This was the moment.
“I have some news of my own. Although you may not like it quite as much as I like yours,” I said, my voice quavering.
“Not another job offer, I hope? I confess that it was the teensiest bit humiliating that you got a job offer so easily when I was struggling. Not that I wasn’t proud of my Dollie, of course.” This reference to the job I’d declined in Zagreb reminded me again of my sacrifice. I hoped I wouldn’t have to make more, but my current condition made things complicated. Sacrifice might well be the order of the day.
“No, it’s not that.” How should I say it? What words would soften the blow?
“What then, kitten?” he asked, nestling toward me.
I drew closer to him, so I could whisper in his ear. “I am with child.”
Like a threatened snake, he recoiled from me, moving into the farthest recesses of his chair. “You are certain?”
“I am. A result of Como.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. Then, instead of reaching for my hand as I’d hoped, he reached inside his jacket for his pipe.
“Whatever shall we do, my dearest little sweetheart?” he finally said.
We. While the mention of “we” wasn’t an immediate offer of marriage, this pregnancy was to be our problem, not mine alone. It was an enormous relief. “What do you think we should do, my love?” I asked back, wondering what he would say.
He puffed on his pipe for an interminable amount of time. After blowing a huge smoke ring into the air, he finally reached for my hand and looked at me. “Dollie, I’m not certain how we will manage this exactly, but I want you to be happy and not worry while I work out a solution. You will just have to wait.”
Wait? I had been waiting for so long now, I could hardly remember a time when I had the luxury of impetuousness. I’d been waiting for nearly a year for Albert to secure a job so we could marry, and that was before I was pregnant. “I’m not certain I have an abundance of time, Johnnie,” I said in as pleasant a tone as I could muster. I knew how poorly Albert reacted to pressure.
Running his free hand discretely across my flat abdomen, he asked, “When will the boy arrive?”
“The boy?” I laughed at his assumption.
“Yes.” He smiled. “Our little Jonzerl.” Little Johnnie indeed. “Or maybe a Hanzerl?” I laughed at his proffered diminutive of the name Hans.
“Not a little girl? A Lieserl?” I joked, suggesting a diminutive of Elizabeth. I’d been privately thinking of a girl. It felt good to be laughing with him.
“We shall see, I suppose.”
“I estimate he or she will arrive in January.”
“January.” He smiled. “In January, I will be a papa. That’s many months away, Dollie. By then, I promise that you’ll have a wedding and a home of our own. Can you envision how wonderful it will be for us to be in our own home, completely uninterrupted in our work and with no Mrs. Engelbrecht to look in on us? We will be able to do whatever we like,” he said with a slightly different smile. A naughty one.
Did he not understand that I couldn’t wait until January? If there was any hope for me to work after I passed my exam in July, I needed to be wed now, before my exams and before my pregnancy became apparent. No illegitimate pregnancy could besmirch my name. My personal reputation wouldn’t survive it, and I would have no hope of forging a professional one. All these years of hard work—and Papa’s support—to create a life of science would dissipate in an instant. Even if we did marry immediately and a baby was born in seemingly proper course, I would still face intense criticism and resistance if I chose to pursue my profession while a mother. And what was this mention of working undisturbed in our “own home”? What peace did he think a baby would bring? I remember well the noise and work that followed the births of Zorka and Miloš. A baby would bring nothing but disturbance.
I wanted to scream. Couldn’t Albert see that my world was shattering? I felt nauseated, and not from the baby.
But I said none of the things I thought. Albert valued me as a strong and independent partner. Now was not the time to dissolve into a nagging philistine like the women in his family. I could not risk alienating him in any way. What if he decided to walk away from me? All would be lost.
Instead, I said, “A home of our own? Where no one will disturb us? Johnnie, it nearly makes my worries about our parents’ reactions and my fear about my profession evaporate.”
“Dollie, all the things we want—jobs, a marriage, a home—we will have in the future. I promise.”
Sipping his coffee, he said, “I need to tell you of a very exciting development I had this week.”
“Yes?” Perhaps this was more job news.
“Yes, I had a free morning this week to read Wiedemann’s Annalen der Physik in detail. Can you believe that, in his text, I found validation for the electron theory?” he said, his eyes shining.
How could he think that, at a moment like this, I wanted to hear about his ephemeral studies instead of his career prospects? Did he expect me to engage him in a spirited discourse on the matter of life right now?
I heard myself say, as if I were looking down on myself from above, “That is exciting.” My tone must not have matched my words, because Albert stopped his monologue. He dragged himself out of the distracting inner workings of his mind and saw me. Really saw me. And for a second, himself.
“Oh, Dollie, I’m sorry. I want you to be free from pressure about this. I promise I’ll continue hunting for any sort of permanent job, and I’ll accept any role. No matter how inferior. As soon as I’ve secured this job, we will marry without even bothering to tell our parents until it’s all done. When your parents and mine are presented with this certainty, they’ll have to accept it.”
“Really?” He was finally saying the words I was desperate to hear, although his focus was too locked upon parental reaction. At this point, I needed the armor of marriage far more than parental approval. I already knew how much his parents would dislike this news; his mother loathed me.
“Really. We’ll live the bohemian life we’ve always dreamed of, working together in our own home on our research.” His eyes crinkled deeply at the corners when he grinned widely. “Only with a little boy on our laps.”
I closed my eyes and rested my head on his shoulder. And for an indulgent minute, I allowed Albert’s beautiful dream to envelope me.
Chapter 19
August 20, 1901, and November 7 through 18, 1901
Kać, Serbia, and Stein am Rhein, Switzerland
There had been no pretty package of a marriage complete with a job for both of us to present to our parents. When Albert failed to secure a permanent position again and again after his job in Winterthur concluded, we had no choice but to inform our parents of our situation. After all, we would be under their roofs for the coming months. I would have to re
turn to my parents at the Spire in Kać; I’d completed the exams, and while I awaited results that I knew were terrible, I couldn’t remain in Zürich to work on my dissertation as my pregnancy became more evident. Albert, who had no financial net, had to retreat to his parents, who were taking their holiday in Mettmenstetten at the Hotel Paradise. The fact that he would be in paradise while I would be facing hell at the Spire in Kać rankled.
Papa’s anguish over the baby was worse than any rage he might have inflicted upon me. When I told him, his broad shoulders slumped, and he cried for the third time in my life. “Oh, Mitza, how could you?” He didn’t need to speak aloud what I knew he was thinking: that he’d carved a path for me through the all-male wilderness of science and math, and I had jettisoned it all for nothing. I let my entire family down.
Papa’s disappointment when the exam results arrived in the mail had paled in comparison. Immediately after I shared my pregnancy news, I’d prepared Papa for the failing final exam grades I believed were inevitable. I told him how hard I’d studied but how horribly ill I’d been in the days and weeks leading up to and including the oral exams—the perpetual nausea, retching, and dizziness that plagued my days and nights, worsened by the ever more difficult lacing of my corset. I explained to him how I’d had to race midquestion from the examination room so that I did not heave in front of my examiners, Professor Weber among them. My descriptions to Papa almost didn’t matter, and neither did the grades once they actually arrived as I’d predicted. He knew that all my professional dreams were lost the minute I became pregnant; failing the exams was a secondary defeat. Even the possible adoption for the baby that he kept hinting at could not restore my honor or my career.
The Other Einstein Page 14