As I placed the final canister into the cupboard, I heard male voices boom from the living room. Not the youthful male voices of our boys but adult male voices. It was Albert and someone else. But who? We’d just arrived at 116 Hofstrasse, halfway up the steep Zürcherhof from the Polytechnic, and while we had acquaintances aplenty in Zürich, we’d shared our address with no one. Or so I thought.
A laugh reverberated through the foyer. It sounded oddly familiar. Could our old family friends the Hurwitzes or the Adlers be here? I knew we’d assume our routine of musical evenings with them soon, but I hadn’t sent them our details yet. I placed the peppers and onions down on the kitchen counter and stepped into the living room to identify our guest.
It was Marcel Grossman, our old Polytechnic physics classmate. He appeared much the same but for some graying at his temples and wrinkles around his eyes. I wondered how aged I seemed to him; my own hair was shot through with gray now, and my skin was lined. Still, my heart surged with joy. Wouldn’t Mr. Grossman be a wonderful addition to our lives? A friend who knew me from my student days. A fellow mathematician and scientist who had consulted me on tricky problems in the past. Someone who knew of my intellect and not just my skills as a mother and housekeeper.
“Mr. Grossman!” I cried out and embraced him. “How wonderful to see you!”
“You too, Mrs. Einstein!” he replied with a tight squeeze. “We have been so excited that the Einsteins have returned to their old stomping ground.”
“Please, after all these years of knowing one another, don’t you think it’s time you called me Mileva?”
He smiled. “And don’t you think it’s time you called me Marcel?”
“So, Marcel, Albert tells me that you are the chairman of the Polytechnic math department now.”
“Yes, it’s hard to believe sometimes.”
“Congratulations. You are young for the job but up to the task.”
“Thank you,” he said with a smile. “How about you, Mileva? Do the boys occupy all your time?”
I glanced over at Albert. An idea occurred to me. Wouldn’t Marcel be the perfect person with whom to hint about my earlier work with Albert? Marcel had the power to start me on a path of my own if he knew that I’d continued to work on my math and physics in the years since the Polytechnic. Nothing formal of course, as I had no degree, but maybe some tutoring or research. Then I wouldn’t have to depend on Albert at all to feed my scientific cravings. Perhaps some of the tension between us could lift.
“Albert and I have been known to collaborate on some papers from time to time,” I said.
“I knew it!” he said with a slap on his leg. “I reviewed some of his articles and knew Albert couldn’t manage all those mathematical calculations on his own. You were always better at math than him. Than most of us, actually.”
I blushed. “Coming from the head of the Polytechnic math department, that’s quite a compliment. And here I am, just a housewife.”
“The department chair could have been yours if this old man hadn’t stole you away from science,” Marcel said, nudging Albert.
I laughed. It had been so long since someone thought of me as anything but Albert’s wife. His shy and strange and gimpy wife, as I’d been declared by the gossips in every place we’d landed. Someone always let this appraisal of me slip in the guise of “helping” me reshape myself into a better semblance of a professor’s wife. They wanted me to be Albert’s match, outgoing and charismatic. This was the only Albert they knew, of course, the public Albert.
“Speaking of math, you are one of the main reasons I’ve come to Zürich.” Albert interrupted our banter with a furious glare at me.
What had I done wrong to warrant that look? Maybe he was angry simply because I was talking with Marcel. Lately, any sign of my youthful exuberance irritated him. He had no concrete reason for his temper; it wasn’t as if I’d identified which part of his articles I’d authored. I had only hinted at collaboration on the 1905 papers to Marcel, something that anyone who knew us from our student days would assume.
Was it so wrong that I wanted scientific work for myself? That work was the core of my being, the link to my long-neglected spirituality and intellect. Without it for so long, I felt hollow. Perhaps if I had work of my own, science could become less of a battlefield between Albert and me, a symbol of my sacrifice and neglect, and science could again return to its original sacred place in my world.
“Me?” Marcel asked now, clearly surprised. “What could I possibly offer that would lure you to Zürich? I assumed that taking over the physics chair of your alma mater was enticement enough.”
“I am searching for the connection between my theory of relativity and gravity—the impact they have on one another—to further the special relativity article that was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1910 and again this past year as well. And your math genius will lead the way.”
Had I heard Albert correctly? Was he proposing that Marcel collaborate with him on the math for an expansion of my theory?
“Would I have to do any of the physics?”
“No. I will handle the physics, if you manage the math.”
Marcel looked at Albert skeptically for a moment, as if he was trying to reconcile the irresponsible college student he’d once known with the successful physicist in front of him.
“Please, I need you, Grossman,” Albert begged. Then, very pointedly, he stared at me. “Compared with this problem, the original theory of relativity is childish.”
When Marcel still didn’t answer, Albert asked, “Will you work with me?”
The successful physicist standing before him must have won out, because Marcel finally said, “Yes.”
So this was to be Albert’s new collaborator. He gave the work long earmarked for me away—to Marcel. I’d told myself that the hope of collaboration was long past, but to actually witness the passing of the baton was unbearable. How could Albert make me stand by and watch as he utterly robbed me of the bohemian partnership he’d promised? On the theory I created. He knew how much this must hurt me. Since an Easter trip to Berlin to see his extended family four months ago, he had become noticeably more callous. But I never thought he could be this cruel.
Chapter 35
March 14, 1913
Zürich, Switzerland
“Happy birthday, Papa!” Hans Albert and Tete yelled out as they marched into the living room. My little men carried a cake to Albert, who put his pipe on the stand to collect it from them. The boys and I had prepared a surprise birthday celebration for Albert before we headed out for our usual Sunday evening of music at the Hurwitzes.
“Mmm, boys, this looks delicious. Shall I eat it all myself? It’s my birthday after all,” Albert teased with a twinkle in his eye. In these brief moments of familial contentment, with a rare, lighthearted Albert, I remembered why I stayed. Despite the betrayal with Marcel. And so many other deceptions.
“No, Papa!” Hans Albert protested. “It’s for sharing.”
“Yes, Papa. For sharing,” Tete piped in, a high-pitched echo of his serious older brother.
After slicing the chocolate cake into generous pieces and passing them around for everyone to enjoy, I cleared the plates and headed to the kitchen. I could hear Albert toss Tete into the air and Tete’s squeals of delight. The exchange pleased me. Tete had been a delicate child until recently—he suffered from chronic headaches and ear infections—and Albert had avoided playing with him as a result. Albert’s relationship with the sturdier, serious Hans Albert had always been more solid. No matter my disappointment, even anger at Albert, I wanted the boys to have strong relationships with their father. Like I’d had with Papa.
“Careful,” Hans Albert cautioned his father on his tossing Tete about. Ever old beyond his years, he took seriously the paternal role that fell to him so often in Albert’s absence.
The past sev
en months in Zürich hadn’t brought the new life for which I’d hoped, although the familiar surroundings and network of old friends helped keep things civil between Albert and me, particularly our Sunday evenings of music at the home of our old friends the Hurwitzes. Otherwise, any spare time Albert had available from his new professorship was spent with Marcel. As I washed dishes, reviewed homework, read books to the boys, and readied them for bed, I quietly listened to Albert and Marcel work into the night. The beginning of their partnership had been giddy as they hammered out the notion that gravity creates a distortion in space-time geometry and, in fact, bends it. But as the days grew longer and the math became more elusive, their despondency grew. As did their desperation. They delved into a version of space-time geometry invented by Georg Friedrich Riemann and played with various vectors and tensors. They struggled with the goal I’d set out for myself since the death of Lieserl, a generalized theory of relativity that extended the principle of relativity to all observers, no matter how they were moving with respect to one another, and posited the relative nature of time.
At this juncture, they couldn’t make it work. They couldn’t achieve the holy grail that Albert had convinced himself that he, and not I, had created. In fact, the men were preparing a paper called “Outline of a Generalized Theory of Relativity and of a Theory of Gravitation,” or “Entwurf,” in which they laid out the beginnings of their theory but acknowledged a failure, that they hadn’t yet found a mathematical method to prove their theory.
I could’ve led them toward the answer. Even though Albert hadn’t invited me into his theoretical world for years, not with any regularity since the Maschinchen, I hadn’t exactly slept through that entire time in a haze of dishes and diapers. I’d been reading and thinking and quietly writing about the broader reaches of my relativity theory. I knew that they needed to jettison the goal of finding a law of physics applicable to all observers in the universe and focus instead on gravity and relativity as it applied to rotating observers and those in steady motion—by using a different tensor. But I had been waiting to be asked to the dance before I shared my knowledge. If Albert wasn’t going to invite me, I wasn’t going to dance for him.
I let him struggle. It was my only actual rebellion against his ever-mounting annoyance with me.
As Albert grew gloomier, I retreated into myself and grew darker still. Only to Helene did I confess the black fog that had descended upon me, explaining that, as Albert had become a renowned physicist and an important member of the scientific community, the boys and I had faded into the background of his life.
Birthday dishes done, kitchen clean, instruments and sheets of music assembled, I had an hour or so to tackle the piles of paper in the dining room before we left for the Hurwitzes. Ever messy, Albert had left the detritus of his work with Marcel all over the dining room table. Inwardly, no matter how willingly I seemed to assume the hausfrau role, I snarled at having to be his maid. How had my life devolved entirely into this?
Heaped on top of some notes left behind by Marcel was an array of letters conveying birthday wishes. Work colleagues like Otto Stern, old friends like Michele Besso, Albert’s sister Maja, his mother Pauline, even his cousin Elsa, all remembered the famous professor’s birthday. Never mine. Not even Albert recalled mine.
I was curious about this cousin Elsa, the one he’d stayed with in Berlin to see over the Easter holidays last year instead of returning home to celebrate with us.
Dearest Albert,
Please don’t be upset with me for breaking our agreed-upon silence by sending you birthday wishes. Daily, I think of our trip to Wannsee last Easter and recall your words of love. Since I cannot have you, since you are a married man, can I at least share your science? Can you recommend a book of relativity suitable for a layperson? Can you send a photograph of yourself for my private reflection?
I remain your devoted,
Elsa
Swaying a little, I sat down on a dining room chair. The submerged sensation I’d experienced when I read the suggestive letters from Anna Meyer-Schmid returned. But this time, they reappeared laced with terror. This was no affair contemplated. This was an affair consummated. I had no ability to stop it before it began.
I read the sickening words again, praying I’d misinterpreted them. That I was overreacting. But there could be no mistake. Albert and Elsa had professed their love for one another.
I started crying. My last thread of hope—that even if Albert wasn’t my scientific partner, he was still my husband—disappeared before me. He loved someone else.
Albert walked into the room. “What is it, Mileva?” Mileva is what he always called me now. Never Dollie. Never even Mitza.
Not trusting myself to talk, I stood up. I wanted desperately to leave the apartment. I didn’t care that the streets were icy and dangerous, especially with my limp. I didn’t care that I wasn’t wearing a coat on a frigid day. I needed to flee.
But I had to pass by Albert to leave the room. As my arm brushed his sleeve, he grabbed my hand. “I asked you a question, Mileva. What is wrong?”
Handing him the letter, I started to walk away from him. To the streets, to a café, anywhere but the apartment. He grabbed me. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I have to get out of here. Away from you.”
“Why?”
I glanced at the letter in his hand. A silent invitation for him to read it.
Keeping one hand on me, he skimmed it quickly. “So you know?” He let out a sigh that almost sounded like relief.
How dare this be a relief.
Something sprung loose in me. “How could you! After Anna, after all your promises in the Engadine Valley, how could you betray me again! And with your cousin.”
“You drove me to it, Mileva. With all your disappointed looks and dark moods. When I was back in Berlin over the Easter holidays last year, how could I not be attracted to Elsa’s lightness?”
Berlin. Easter. Elsa. The worsening in his heartlessness. It all made sense.
I started to screech and wrenched free from his hold. Drawing closer to me, he gripped my shoulders and muttered, “Don’t make a scene in front of the boys.”
Squirming away from him, I lunged for the door, but he held me down firmly. I wriggled my hands out of his grasp and shoved him off of me. He grabbed me again, and I slapped his hands away.
Hands and arms flew until I felt the force of his hand fully upon my face. Like a slap. Whether accidental or intentional, I didn’t know. All I could think about was the pain.
I sunk to my knees, hands on my face. The pain was nearly as intense as the childbirth that had wrecked my body. It seared so badly I could barely breathe, let alone sob. Warmth trickled down my cheeks. I looked at my palms. They were crimson with my blood.
Two sets of little feet pattered down the hall.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” Hans Albert cried out, fear and concern bubbling up in his voice.
“It’s all right, boys. Mama will be okay,” I answered, quickly placing my hands over my face again. The boys would likely become hysterical if they saw the blood streaming down my face.
Tete whimpered, “Mama’s hurt,” and started to creep toward me.
I didn’t want the boys to see what Albert had done, so I stood up and said, “No, no. Mama is just fine, just…just…a bad toothache. I’m going to lie down in my bedroom until it passes, all right?”
I was halfway down the hallway when I heard Albert say to the boys, “Let’s just write a little note to the Hurwitzes to explain that we cannot come for the recital tonight because Mama has a toothache. Then we will have some more cake, okay?”
As I took refuge in my room, one of Newton’s basic laws of motion crept into my mind unbidden: the law told us that an object will continue on a particular path until a force acts upon it. I had continued on the fixed path as Albert’s wife for years
, but now three forces acted upon it that I couldn’t ignore—Marcel, Elsa, and Albert’s hand on my face. Surely, the path must alter.
Izgoobio sam sye. I was lost. But I could no longer afford to be.
Part III
To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.
Sir Isaac Newton
Chapter 36
March 15, 1913
Zürich, Switzerland
The knock echoed throughout the apartment. My hand froze in midair, and I stopped scrubbing the pots. My stomach churned. Who could it be? I wasn’t expecting anyone. I considered not answering, but the boys were playing loudly, and the person outside the door could certainly hear them.
Cracking open the door, I peeked through the slit. It was Mrs. Hurwitz and her daughter, Lisbeth, the closest things to friends I had in Zürich. By God, what was I going to do?
“Hello, Mrs. Einstein. We missed you last night and wanted to see how you were feeling. You know, with your toothache.” Mrs. Hurwitz spoke through the crack.
“Thank you so much for coming,” I answered without opening the door any wider. “I’m still in pain, but I’m able to manage the children.”
“Can we come in and help?”
“No, we are doing fine, but many thanks for your offer.”
“Please, Mrs. Einstein?”
How could I decline to open the door? Which would be worse to circulate around the Zürich academic circles: the peculiar tale of Mileva Einstein—already considered recalcitrant and strange—refusing to open her home to social callers, or the story about my bruised and swollen face? The blame for one would fall on me; the blame for the other would fall on Albert.
I chose Albert.
“Of course, please forgive my rudeness,” I said as I unlatched the door and opened it for the Hurwitzes to enter. “I wasn’t expecting visitors, so I’m still in my housedress. My apologies.”
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