“Albert should have two children on his shoulders, Helene. Lieserl would be three and a half now.” I watched Albert march around the square with our son cackling away.
She squeezed my hand tightly. “How you bear it, I don’t know.”
“I don’t. Just when I’m having a moment of joy with Hans Albert, Lieserl’s absence fills the room like a black chasm. I try to channel that energy into work.” I had told Helene about the work I was doing with Albert, the papers we were writing and the theory that Lieserl’s death had spawned. I’d described the scientific partnership we’d formed and how it filled the void left by my own professional failures. I was on the verge of expressing my excitement over the publication of my paper in the esteemed journal Annalen der Physik—in just a few short weeks, I could hardly believe—when I stopped. I had no wish to make Helene, who had no such outlet for her history degree, feel badly.
Reaching for my coffee, I took a sip and changed the conversation’s course. “How about you, Helene? Do you wish we’d kept to the pact?”
So complete was Helene’s pleasure in her children, I expected an emphatic no. Instead, she said, “Lately, yes, although I wouldn’t wish away my girls for anything in the world. You see, Milivoje and I are having troubles.”
“No, Helene!” I exclaimed, accidentally putting my cup down too hard and spilling black coffee all over the marble tabletop. “You haven’t mentioned anything in all these days together.”
“Milivoje has always been within earshot, Mitza. Or the girls. I had to be careful.”
“What has happened?”
Voice quavering, she whispered, “A certain distance has grown between us.”
Before their engagement in Zürich, Milana, Ružica, and I had speculated about their match, wondering whether the brusque Milivoje could satisfy our gentle, intellectual Helene in the long term. But we’d kept our concerns to ourselves and decided not to mention it to her. Perhaps we’d been wrong to keep quiet.
“Oh no, Helene. What will you do?”
“What can I do?” She gazed at me with tears in her eyes and shrugged.
I didn’t answer. What could I say? I knew, as did Helene, that she and the girls were dependent on Milivoje and that she would never do anything to jeopardize her children’s welfare. Not only would it be hard for Helene to support herself and the girls on her own, but the stigma attached to divorced women was immense. Surely, some other sort of escape must be possible.
My mind raced with all sorts of arrangements, and I started to suggest that she and the girls come to Bern and live with us for a while when Papa approached our table. Helene and I had been so engrossed in our conversation that I hadn’t noticed him crossing the square. He wasn’t alone. He had Mrs. Desana Tapavica Bala in tow, the wife of the Novi Sad mayor.
Pushing back our black metal chairs with a swift scrape, Helene and I exchanged curtsies and greetings with Mrs. Bala. She looked me up and down, sizing me up as dispassionately as Mama would assess a side of beef at the market, and said, “Your father is proud of you, Mrs. Einstein. A physics degree, a successful husband, and a nice life in Switzerland. What father wouldn’t be proud?”
I smiled over at Papa, whose chest had swelled at Mrs. Bala’s compliment. Obviously, he was overstating my Swiss education, but I was relieved that after all the shame my parents suffered over Lieserl and my scholastic failures, they still felt a modicum of pride in me. Their strangely intelligent, “deformed” daughter had exceeded everyone’s expectations, including their own. This was due in no small part to the fact that our secret from the Spire—the existence of Lieserl—had been kept.
“Do you ever get a chance to use your fancy education now that you have a son and husband to care for?” Mrs. Bala’s tone and choice of words was strangely confrontational. Was she suggesting that my unusual education was useless in the face of the actual women’s work I now did daily?
Mindful of Papa’s eyes upon me, I squared my shoulders and said, “Actually, I do, Mrs. Bala. I work with my husband on all sorts of articles and studies. In fact, just before we left for Novi Sad, we finished some important work that will make my husband world famous.”
Did I sound too boastful? Defensive? Mrs. Bala’s scrutiny and her odd, challenging questions had made me prickly, but really, I wanted Papa to still see me as a mudra glava. Our busy visit home had left little opportunity for me to share my ongoing work with him.
“My, my. No wonder I overheard your husband saying, ‘My wife is indispensable for many things, including my work. She is the mathematician in our family.’”
“He said that?” I blurted out and then immediately chastised myself. This wasn’t the image I wanted to convey to Mrs. Bala or Papa.
“Oh yes.” She gloated at my reaction. “In fact, he said that he bases his assessment of Serbia as a brilliant nation on what he knows about his wife.”
I didn’t make the mistake of showing surprise at Albert’s comment again, but I couldn’t stop myself from blushing. Thank God I’d returned our relationship back to the language of science. Albert and I had forged our early relationship upon its embers, and it continued to stoke our fires.
Chapter 29
September 26, 1905
Bern, Switzerland
On our return to Bern, my world grew small again. Housework, child care, science. Me, Hans Albert, Albert. As if in a fixed gravitational loop, we circled each other in a constant cycle.
I missed Helene terribly. The camaraderie, the keen understanding we shared, the empathy and total acceptance was found nowhere else in my life. Not with the other hausfraus. Not with my own family. Not even with Albert. I longed for the return to my purest, truest self—the self of my youth—when I was with her.
Instead, I spent the days in an anxious impersonation of my life. Even while I was cleaning the apartment, caring for Hans Albert, cooking meals, and mending Albert’s clothes, I was thinking about the fall publication of the relativity article in the Annalen der Physik and waiting to see my name in print. My mind could settle on little else but my tribute to Lieserl.
I returned to stalking the postman, a practice I’d abandoned with Lieserl’s death. Day after day, I trudged up the four flights of stairs empty-handed but for the hefty Hans Albert. I had nearly given up when the bell rang. Wondering who would be calling—visitors almost never appeared until Albert’s Olympia Academy friends arrived after dinner, as I’d never made friends with the Bern hausfraus—I hoisted the stocky Hans Albert onto my chest and hobbled down the stairs. Swinging the front door open, I stared into the wide eyes of the postman.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Einstein. I’m guessing this is the package you have been waiting for?” He handed over a brown-paper-wrapped parcel, about the correct size and weight and bearing a German return address.
“It is,” I cried out excitedly, hugging him. “I cannot thank you enough.”
Bobbing respectfully, the postman scurried away. Used to Swiss stoicism, my unusual show of affection had unsettled him. It had astonished me too; I didn’t even know the postman’s formal name.
I could barely restrain myself from ripping open the packaging immediately. The very second Hans Albert and I entered the apartment and I settled him with his wooden stacking blocks, I tore into the package. The cover of the Annalen der Physik peeked out, and I pulled it from the tangle of twine. Flipping through the table of contents, I saw the listing for “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” with the author Albert Einstein listed next to it. The omission of my name left me unfazed; there was probably only enough room for one author in the table of contents, and Albert’s name was listed first in the manuscript. As the only one of us with a formal degree, it was necessary.
Thumbing through the volume, I finally reached page 891. There was the title I’d labored over so diligently—“On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.” It looked marvelous in prin
t, even better than I’d hoped. My eyes scanned the rest of the page. Where was my name? I carefully processed each word of the article, but my name was nowhere to be seen. Mileva Marić Einstein didn’t even appear in a footnote. Underneath the title was one author only: Albert Einstein.
How had this happened? Why would the editor have removed my name without consulting us? Was it because I was a woman? This went against every ethical code of scientific publication.
I sank to my knees. What had happened to my tribute to Lieserl? The article had been my way of making sense of her poor, short life and the many months I’d left her behind. I sobbed at the thought of my lost memorial to my secret daughter.
Hans Albert toddled over to me from his block stacking. Laying his warm, chubby body over me, he patted me softly on the back. “Mama,” he said sadly, making me cry all the harder.
Hours later, Hans Albert sat up in the porcelain tub, merrily splashing water all over the kitchen. I rubbed the soapy washcloth over the soft folds of his arms and the chunky rolls of his legs. Delighted with his bath, he kicked his legs harder, spreading water all over the towels I’d set aside for him. For the first time in my life, I did not relish the gentle washing of my young son, usually one of my favorite activities of the day.
I couldn’t get the betrayal by the editors of Annalen der Physik out of my mind.
Laying Hans Albert down to sleep, I finished preparing dinner and began waiting for Albert. Seven o’clock passed, then eight. Where was he? The Olympia Academy could be arriving any minute. Albert could be forgetful and easily distracted, but I’d never known him to arrive so late without giving me advance notice. Had something happened to him?
I paced the entryway of our little apartment. When I finally heard his key in the lock and I knew Albert was fine, I grabbed the copy of Annalen der Physik and met him at the threshold. I didn’t bother with my usual polite greetings, or the normal pleasantries, or even questions about his tardiness. I spit out the words that had been building inside me all day.
“Albert, the article on relativity was published today, but you’ll never believe what happened. It lists only you as the author. Can you believe that the editors would do that? We must write them and demand a correction.”
Putting his fingers to his lips, Albert said, “Be quiet, Mileva. You’ll wake Hans Albert.”
His admonition shocked me. Albert never worried about Hans Albert’s sleep. Only one explanation was possible.
“You knew,” I whispered, backing away from him.
He walked toward me. “Listen, Dollie. It’s not what you think. It’s not as it seems.”
“Is that why you were so late tonight? You were reluctant to come home. You knew that I’d be upset with what the journal has done.”
He didn’t answer, but the expression on his face told me I was correct.
I withdrew from him and backed away until I hit a wall in the living room. If I could have wormed my way into the plaster, I would have. Anything to get away from him. “How could you have let this happen? And not tell me? You know where that idea came from. You know how important it was to me to memorialize Lieserl by publicly authoring that article.”
Flinching at the mention of Lieserl, he grabbed me by the forearms. “Listen, Dollie. Please. One of the editors of Annalen der Physik wrote me, asking questions about you and your credentials. I explained that you were my wife and fully trained as a physicist, even though you didn’t have your degree. In his reply, I sensed hesitation.”
“Did he ask you to remove my name?”
“No,” he said slowly.
“You asked him to remove my name?” I was incredulous. But only in part. I suddenly remembered another time he’d removed my name from an article we’d coauthored. The one on capillaries, for the other Professor Weber.
Never loosing his grip of my arms, he nodded.
“How could you do that, Albert? For the other articles, I wouldn’t have been happy, but I would have understood. But not for the relativity article. That was for Lieserl. You should have insisted.”
“What does it matter, Dollie? Aren’t we Ein Stein? One stone?”
In the past, Albert had often used this clever play on his last name to describe our “oneness.” In my innocence, I’d allowed this fanciful image to color my decisions. How could I let this plea—that we are as one, that what benefits one benefits the other—sway me in the matter of Lieserl? Hadn’t I already sacrificed enough for the “oneness” of our relationship? Didn’t I deserve this one lasting tribute to my dead daughter?
Wrenching my arms out of his hands, I said, “Albert, we may be Ein Stein, but it has become clear that we are of two hearts.”
Chapter 30
August 4, 1907, and March 20, 1908
Lenk, Switzerland, and Bern, Switzerland
“With this machine, we would be able to measure very small amounts of energy,” Albert announced to the brothers Messrs. Paul and Conrad Habicht over a strong pot of coffee at the inn restaurant. The brothers had traveled from Bern to the inn near Lenk where Albert, Hans Albert, and I were holidaying for ten days in August. Albert and I had an idea for an invention, and he hoped to refashion the Olympia Academy without Maurice, who had moved to Paris, to help us create it.
“Why would we want to do that?” Paul asked. The brother of an original Olympia Academy member, Paul, as a talented machinist, was more practical than his theoretical sibling Conrad. His practicality made for lively discussions during the Olympia Academy meetings that he had occasionally attended over the years.
“To record tiny electrical charges, of course,” Albert answered dismissively.
Paul still looked confused, so I tried to clarify. “The Maschinchen would permit us to amplify minuscule amounts of energy and measure them, which would help scientists everywhere assess various molecular theories.” Conrad was used to my comments during our frequent Olympia Academy meetings—including my translations for the often terse Albert—but I wasn’t certain that Paul would be as receptive. I never knew how a particular man would react to a woman speaking the language of science.
“Ah,” Paul said, finally comprehending the link between the machine and one of the great debates among physicists: what was the precise “stuff” of our world. He seemed comfortable with my involvement; perhaps his brother had prepared him, or maybe my brief remarks at Olympia Academy meetings had readied him.
Conrad chimed in, understanding the lucrative nature of the undertaking. “Every lab would want one.”
“Exactly,” I said with a smile.
I passed Hans Albert to Albert and unrolled the rough sketches I had made of the Maschinchen, primarily electrical formulas and circuitry diagrams. I reviewed the plans with the brothers and proposed a schedule for the work. Albert had somehow secured a spare room in a local Bern gymnasium where we could cobble the machine together.
“You will work on this with us?” I offered a silent prayer to the Virgin Mary as the brothers glanced at one another. I didn’t invoke Mary often—without Mama around, I’d become unaccustomed to the ritual—but when I really wanted something, she came to mind. Albert and I were all theory and little practicality; we needed the Habicht brothers to make the Maschinchen a reality.
“We will share the profits?” Paul asked.
“Of course. Twenty-five percent each,” I said. “If you agree, I will consult a lawyer to draw up an agreement. Once we finalize the device, Albert will take charge of getting the patent filed. He has some expertise in that field, of course,” I said with a smile at Albert.
Albert grinned back, visibly pleased at my finesse with the brothers. While he had apologized for the painful omission of my name in our four 1905 papers in the Annalen der Physik—the relativity article in particular—my forgiveness didn’t come from his mere proffered words. An invitation to work was the key to unlocking my absolution, Alb
ert finally learned after months of silence from me. This Maschinchen project, conceived by us both over the past year, with wide berth given for my leadership, was the only form of amends I would accept. In this way, Albert’s words of remorse were finally accepted. And, in theory, I forgave him.
Months after our meeting in Lenk, I stood before Albert and the Habicht brothers, waiting to see the fruits of that conversation. Albert rubbed the stubble that had grown on his chin over the long March weekend which he’d spent holed up with Conrad and Paul working on the machine. His face had thinned recently, hollowing out his pudgy cheeks. He suddenly looked older, not at all the student I’d once known.
The back room we’d seconded from the local Bern gymnasium was littered with wires, batteries, sheet metal, and a host of unidentifiable parts, not to mention the detritus of used coffee cups and tobacco that had accumulated over the months since the summer. Setting Hans Albert down in a seemingly safe corner, I examined the machine.
The cylinder finally resembled my sketches. After seven months of evening labor, once their day jobs came to an end, Albert, Paul, and Conrad had finally tinkered the Maschinchen into being. The men had summoned me for the momentous occasion of testing the device.
“Shall we try it?” I asked them.
Albert nodded, and Paul and Conrad began hooking up wires and setting switches. Then Albert started the machine. Sputtering at first, with a steady stream of smoke emanating from one of the electrical leads, the machine began to work.
“The two conducting plates made the charge, and the strips actually measured them. It works!” I cried out.
The men clapped each other on the back and bowed in my direction. Just as Conrad reached for a dusty bottle of wine hidden behind a pile of wires, the Maschinchen made a horrible screeching sound. And suddenly stopped.
The Other Einstein Page 19