The Other Einstein

by Marie Benedict

  Mama cared only for the redemption of my soul. Prayers to the Virgin, beseeching Mary to forgive my sin, were an hourly affair, although I detected a hint of vulnerability when Mama asked how I felt. She mentioned that it was rare enough for women with my hip condition to get pregnant and even rarer for them to deliver safely. New prayers were added for my health and the health of the baby, but her head hung low, heavy with her shame.

  Only the letter from Albert’s parents softened my parents’ treatment of me. “Whore,” Mr. and Mrs. Einstein called me. Although both their signatures appeared on the letter, I knew that Mrs. Einstein was its author. Mr. Einstein was too soft for such invectives.

  Hateful names. Hateful accusations. Words I wouldn’t say aloud, let alone write to the mother of my grandchild.

  “This letter is not only offensive, it’s nonsensical,” Papa said after his rare outburst of fury—punching sofas and kicking walls—subsided. A wry smile appeared on his rage-reddened face. “Who would want to trap an unemployed physics student?”

  I had to laugh. He was right. On paper, Albert was no prize. It was the sole moment of merriment in weeks of misery.

  “If Albert’s mother thinks we would permit our beautiful Serbian daughter to marry her rapscallion son, she is sorely mistaken,” Papa announced and sat down to write his response. Papa would rather I raise this illegitimate child on my own or have it adopted by another family, no matter the damage to my standing and our family’s reputation, than entangle our family with Albert’s evil parents any further.

  I was better off without him, he believed.

  To Helene, I confessed everything: the pregnancy, my concerns about Albert’s commitment, our struggles with our parents. I wrote to Helene of Albert’s mother: “How could the world contain such abominable people? It seems clear that her purpose is to ruin three lives: mine, that of her son, and that of her grandchild!” Helene alone displayed compassion for my situation rather than rage or worry or fear for my soul.

  As the weeks passed and Albert still did not journey to Kać, pity set in. I overheard conversations between my parents about “poor Mitza” and clucks of sadness; I knew my parents had been bracing for this sort of rejection my whole life. Their pity wrapped around me like the tentacles of a giant squid until I could no longer breathe. I sometimes felt that I couldn’t bear a minute longer.

  After three months of alternating disappointment, worry, and pity, I needed to get out of Kać. In November, I manufactured a trip to Zürich, claiming that there was a chance I could salvage my dissertation with Weber. I doubted that Papa believed me—even tightly corseted, the bulge of my belly was hard to hide, and it was incredulous that I could get a doctorate having failed my undergraduate classwork—but he allowed me to go and even gave me money for the trip. I was, of course, headed to Albert. He was the solace I sought, the salve for my wounds.

  • • •

  The bold red sign announcing Schaffhausen flew past the train window so quickly, I nearly missed it. I craned my neck for a glimpse of the town’s eleventh-century fortress that Albert had described so prettily in his letters. I saw nothing of the town with its cobbled streets and its astronomical clock tower, only the thick forest that encircled it. I wondered if those were the woodsy outskirts of Schaffhausen where Albert lived and worked tutoring a young Englishman for the Matura exams. It was a temporary job, the only one he could secure after his temporary teaching position in Winterthur ended in August.

  I couldn’t risk leaving the train to find out. Not in my condition. If anyone from his work saw us together, the mark on his reputation might affect his job. We couldn’t afford that.

  No, I would stay on the train until the next stop. I had decided to lodge in Stein am Rhein, the closest town to Schaffhausen to the north. I planned to write Albert of my surprise visit from there. He hadn’t come to see me in Kać and explain our situation to my parents as I’d requested—his pay was only one hundred and fifty francs per month, and he claimed he couldn’t go to his parents for the fare—so I traveled to him.

  From my room in the Hotel Steinerhof in Stein am Rhein, I sent Albert some flowers and a note announcing my arrival. Then I settled into blissful quiet, my growing belly set free from the constraining corsets, and read without interruption or condemnation from my parents. And I waited.

  For an entire day, Albert didn’t write back. I became frenzied. What could possibly delay his reply? Could he be away? Or ill? Perhaps the mail system was to blame? I ventured another letter.

  This time, a response came swiftly. Without mention of my other letter, Albert expressed his surprise and delight but maintained that he couldn’t visit just yet. He proffered two excuses: one, that his cousin Robert Koch was visiting, and since Robert had lost his ticket home and was awaiting funds from his mother to purchase another, his departure date was unclear; and two, that Albert himself didn’t have any money left from his one hundred and fifty francs a month to pay for a ticket to Stein am Rhein.

  The letter ended with numerous “beloveds” and “sweet sorceresses,” but no nicknames could appease me. Did he think I could be so cheaply bought? How dare he not come immediately? Had his mother finally gotten to him? I understood the issue of his cousin—I didn’t want either one of our families to know about my visit—but the money? His pregnant sweetheart had traveled nearly two full days to visit him, and he couldn’t muster thirty francs for a short train ride? One hundred and fifty francs a month wasn’t much, but carefully managed, he should have already amassed a small sum to set up house in Zürich. A train ticket should not be an issue.

  With the upsetting note came some books from Albert’s collection, presumably to keep me well occupied until his visit. I tried to keep my focus on a psychology text from Auguste Forel, director of the famous Burghölzli Clinic in Zürich, but it was futile. Particularly when another letter arrived on the day designated for the visit, begging me to wait yet again. He blamed work, his cousin, his finances, everything but himself.

  This time, I did not control my anger. If he could not even scrape together enough money and time to visit me one train stop away when I’d traversed countries to see him, what type of commitment could I really expect from him? I sent off another missive giving him three days to visit, the three days until my money ran out.

  But Albert never came. I waited in vain until I could afford to stay at the Hotel Steinerhof no longer. Ten days after my arrival, I returned to Kać alone.

  The trip had not helped heal my wounds but inflamed them. It seemed I would be facing this pregnancy alone, just as my parents feared.

  Chapter 20

  January 27, 1902

  Kać, Serbia

  I screamed. As Mama mopped my brow, I heard guttural groaning in the room. Was there a creature in the birthing room with us? Surely, it couldn’t be me making the noises. The screams yes, but not those desperate, animalistic sounds.

  “What is that noise, Mama?” I asked, my voice hoarse from screaming.

  Mama looked at me strangely. “Mitza, the only noise in here is coming from you.”

  How could that be my voice? How could this be my body?

  Another wave of pain hit me. I clutched Mama’s hand tightly as the midwife, Mrs. Konaček examined me again. I tried to breathe and calm myself as she had instructed, but my body convulsed as more stabbing sensations coursed through me. When would this end?

  “It won’t be long now,” Mrs. Konaček announced.

  Not long? I had already been in labor for two days. I couldn’t endure this much longer. Mrs. Konaček had warned me that with a hip condition like mine, labor could be unusually protracted. I was so tired, yet the pain never let me sleep.

  I looked up into the midwife’s familiar eyes; she’d delivered all my brothers and sisters and me, dead and alive, as well. “Think on something pleasant while your mother and I go out to the well to get some fresh
water,” she said with a pat on my hand.

  Something pleasant? Once, the pleasant distraction would have been Albert. After Schaffhausen, however, my distrust in him was too deep for innocent pleasure. How could I have faith in a man who couldn’t even take a short train ride to meet me in Stein am Rhein when I’d traveled across countries to see him? It didn’t matter that his letters since that time—letters I’d left unanswered for weeks—contained news of a near-certain job as a patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, the position Mr. Grossman had mentioned in the Café Sprüngli, the very news for which I’d once longed. Understanding the condemnation in my silence, Albert strained to appease me, professing love in his letters and wondering whether the postman lost my replies in the mail, but his empty words no longer assured me. Once, Albert’s words would have been enough; now, I needed action.

  I would have insisted that my silence continue to wordlessly scream my disappointment and anger except for Mama. In the fall, when everyone else returned to Novi Sad, she and I stayed at the Spire for the birth of the baby. It was the safest choice given that we hadn’t settled on the baby’s future yet. We allowed only a single, well-trusted maid to attend us in an effort to still Kać’s wagging tongues, and consequently, Mama and I were largely alone for the first time in my life.

  To my surprise, I found her domestic routines calming, and we soon established a quiet order to our days. I followed her throughout the house as she changed the linens, mopped the floors, hung the laundry, and prepared the meals. All the housework that Papa had shielded me from as he urged me on toward a professional life, a life of the mind and not the life of a housewife, I learned for the first time as a twenty-four-year-old woman. An unmarried and pregnant twenty-four-year-old woman at that. Yet Mama never shamed me; instead, with respect and caring, she initiated me into the traditional province of women.

  It was on one peaceful afternoon, when we were sitting before the fire after preparing a fine stew for dinner, that she noted the stack of letters from Albert and the fact that I had not posted any in return. She asked, “Will you not answer him, Mitza?”

  I looked up at her in astonishment. Mama never brought up Albert or the future. We existed in a bubble of the present, creating a sanctuary in a house never meant as a winter retreat. “No, Mama.”

  “I understand your anger, Mitza. Albert is the one who led you toward sin, yet you must bear the burden of that sin alone. But please don’t saddle your child with that sin if you have a chance at giving that child a proper family—a mother and a father.”

  I looked up at Mama in astonishment. Her advice directly contradicted Papa’s counsel to break with Albert. “I don’t know if I can do that, Mama. Not after his failure to visit all these months.” Papa had expressed his fury at Albert’s absence, and I assumed that Mama shared his sentiments, though she never mentioned it. I didn’t dare to explain to her the worse offense of his refusal to see me in Stein am Rhein; I might actually unleash Mama’s carefully controlled wrath with the information.

  “Forgive Albert as God forgives us and embrace any chance He offers you to give your child legitimacy.”

  Mama was right. Punishing Albert with my silence would only punish our child. In my anger, I had forgotten something so obvious. I began writing Albert back, and with Mama’s help and encouragement, I even sent him a Christmas package, only days before the pains began.

  Now, there were no pleasantries. It was just me and the pain and the sound of my screams.

  “Mama!” I yelled. She and the midwife were taking forever to get buckets of fresh water. I could hear a storm rage outside; wind whipped against the window, and a thunderclap sounded in the distance. Had they gotten hurt fetching the water? I prayed to God for their safety. The contractions were coming faster and faster, and I didn’t think I could manage alone. The pain seared through me, not just in the birth canal but through my back and hips. I felt like my body was being split wide-open.

  They raced in and froze at the sight of me. Their expressions were worse than any of the pain I’d suffered. Something was horribly wrong. Mama muttered prayers as she set the buckets of water on the floor and kneeled next to me, and the midwife settled at my feet.

  “Oh, Mrs. Konaček, the blood,” Mama said with a cry.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked frantically.

  “Pray to the Virgin Mother,” I heard the midwife say to my mother. She then addressed me. “Miss Marić, your baby is not coming into the world headfirst as we would like. The baby is breech. I will have to reach inside and try to turn him.”

  Mama gasped. I had heard of such births. Injury and death to mother and child were commonplace. How could this be happening to me and my baby?

  The pain was excruciating, worse than any I’d experienced so far. Just when I didn’t think I could bear a second more, Mrs. Konaček said, “We have turned the baby, Miss Marić. The baby is now crowning. If you push one last time, I think the baby will be out.”

  “Are you sure she should push? What about the blood?” Mama implored.

  “There is only one way through this, Mrs. Marić. Whatever the outcome.” She placed her hands on my thighs. “Come now, Miss Marić, push.”

  Tunneling through the pain into a still place deep within myself, I took a breath and bore down. And then, suddenly, the pain and pressure stopped.

  I did not hear the cry of a baby as I expected. I heard the sound of water dripping. More like pouring, actually. What water would be pouring in here? There was no well, no sink. Was there a leak from the storm? Looking down toward my feet, I saw the midwife holding a bowl, not a baby. Even in my pain-induced delirium, I could hear it fill with blood. My blood, not water, was the source of the sound.

  What’s wrong? I wanted to ask. Where is my baby? I longed to cry out. But I couldn’t make the words form in my mouth. I clutched at the air, and then I went black.

  I didn’t remember when I first saw her beautiful face. My eyes may have fluttered open for a few seconds before I fell back into the void of blankness. It may have been hours after the birth or days; I lost so many days and hours in the weeks after she was born. I held her for a few minutes here and there, I thought. I even suckled her for a bit, I hazily remember, as I half listened to Papa read aloud a letter he’d written to Albert about the baby. But I vividly recalled the moment when she opened her bright-blue eyes and looked at me. Even though I knew it was impossible, that newborn babies are incapable of such a thing, I swore she smiled at me.

  I had a daughter. Just like I secretly wanted. A little Lieserl.

  Izgoobio sam sye. I was lost to her.

  Chapter 21

  June 4, 1902

  Kać, Serbia

  Lieserl grinned up at me from her crib. I adored the way her toothless smile emphasized the pillowy softness of her cheeks. Stroking her impossibly silky skin, I thought how deserving she was of every and any sacrifice I could make for her. Physics was nothing compared to Lieserl. God’s secrets were revealed in her face.

  Her cornflower-blue eyes stayed open instead of fluttering shut for her nap as I’d hoped, and I almost reached into the carved oak crib for her, the same one Mama had used for me as an infant. Lieserl had fallen asleep in my arms in the rocker, and I had tried to place her as gently as possible onto her blanket-strewn bed. But the moment her sweet, blond head touched the heather-gray blanket I’d knitted for her, she woke up with that smile on her rosebud-shaped lips.

  I heard Mama’s footsteps thud down the hallway to Lieserl’s bedroom, then the noise stopped. I didn’t need to look at the doorway to know that Mama was leaning against the frame, watching us with a smile on her lips. Mama adored Lieserl nearly as much as I did, illegitimate or not.

  “A letter has arrived for you, Mitza,” Mama said. From her tone, I knew it must be from Albert.

  “Will you stay with Lieserl until she falls asleep, Mama?” I asked, taking the le
tter from her hand.

  “Of course, Mitza,” Mama said with a squeeze on my arm.

  Instead of heading downstairs to the comfortable front parlor with its open windows and early summer breeze, I walked upstairs to the Spire bell tower. I wanted solitude when I read the letter. There, in what had once been my childhood refuge, a time that seemed long ago, I slit the envelope open with a pair of sharp scissors.

  Before I read Albert’s words, I closed my eyes and whispered a small prayer to the Virgin Mary. Mama’s habits had become contagious, and I needed help, especially since the religiosity I used to find in my work was outside my grasp these days. I wanted so desperately for Albert to come visit our baby girl; I’d begged him to come, and he’d continually demurred. He explained that he had to stay in Bern to await final governmental approval for the patent position and couldn’t afford to do anything that might besmirch his reputation. While I understood that the Swiss were notoriously respectable and that Albert needed to be cautious, I couldn’t see how a trip to Kać could possibly jeopardize the position. No one in Bern needed to know whom he was visiting.

  I lowered my eyes to his familiar scrawl. He started the letter with his usual loving nicknames and musings on the baby, what she looked like, who she resembled, and of what she was capable at this stage. I looked up and smiled, thinking of Albert trying to envision Lieserl.

  He then asked, “Couldn’t you have a photograph made of her?” A photograph was an excellent idea. Kać didn’t have a proper photographer, but I could take Lieserl to Beočin, a larger town nearby, for a formal portrait. Surely, if Albert saw his beautiful daughter, all curls and smiles and cherubic folds, he couldn’t resist coming to see her in person.

  I returned to the letter.

  Dollie, I cannot come to Kać right now. Not because I don’t want to meet our Lieserl but for a very good reason. One I hope you will see. The job as patent clerk in Bern has come through as Grossman promised, and I am to start in mere days. So travel is out of the question at the moment. But we have been apart for far too long. I beg you to come to Switzerland, but maybe not to Bern, where tongues may wag, perhaps to Zürich so we can visit each other more easily. And come alone. Come without the little one. At least for the next several months until we can arrange our marriage in Bern. I know this may sound strange, so let me explain. You know how notoriously prim the Swiss are. Well, on my application papers for the patent clerk position, a mere six months ago, I listed myself as not married. If I arrived in Bern with a wife and baby in tow, they would know immediately the baby was illegitimate, a fact that would undoubtedly jeopardize my new position. You do understand this, don’t you? Perhaps we will find some other way to have Lieserl with us at a future date. Maybe your knowledgeable papa can find a way…