The Einstein Girl

by Philip Sington

  One night, however, I strayed within earshot. I had returned that day with a report from the gymnasium, which I knew was to be one of my last. For once I had obtained my diploma I should have to leave, my education being complete. The question of whether I should have further studies could not be postponed much longer. My mother and father were talking in hushed voices, which was not usual, but which only served to make me more curious. So, I confess, I listened at the door, hardly daring to breathe in case the floorboards in the hallway should creak beneath me.

  They were talking about money, just as I’d expected, and whether they should ask for more – from whom, I could not make out. My mother was all against it, because of a promise they had made, but my father was insistent. ‘We never agreed to shoulder this sort of burden,’ I distinctly heard him say. ‘They can’t expect it. Besides, they have money to burn now. And we have next to nothing.’

  My heart sank, for I knew only too well what the burden was. Still, I was curious to know who it was that had been giving us money. Then I heard my father say that Helene should be prevailed upon to intercede on our behalf again, since she had some responsibility too, which once again my mother opposed, although not as vehemently. I wondered if this could be my Aunt Helene, whom I had not seen for a year or more.

  Aunt Helene was what my mother called her, but this was out of affection, and not because she was any blood relative. Her husband Milivoj was an old school friend of my father’s and had a job at a ministry, although that did not prevent Father calling him a buffoon and a damned fool dreamer behind his back, which he frequently did, mainly on account of his radical politics. They lived in Belgrade and visited occasionally, Helene sometimes coming on her own, because she had relatives outside Novi Sad. My mother, in particular, treated her with great respect. Aunt Helene was a highly educated woman, small and refined in her dress, though with a deformity in one leg that caused her to limp. In particular, I was much impressed with the fact that she had been to university in Switzerland before her marriage. She told me about the great mountains and glaciers of that country, the likes of which I had never seen except in books – for, as you know, the land where I grew up is as flat as a duck’s foot. Once she added in a whisper, as if it were a secret for the two of us, that if I continued to excel in my studies, I too might study in such a place. For it was not unknown for clever Serbian girls to find a welcome in Zürich. Indeed, she said, some had gone for a degree and come back with a husband into the bargain.

  I blushed at this, being still too young to think of the opposite sex, except either as teachers or as scuff-kneed tormentors best avoided. And I wondered if the second glass of apple brandy had gone to her head.

  On at least two occasions, when I was still very young, Aunt Helene arrived with a female companion: a dark, quiet lady, very soberly dressed, but handsome. At first I took her for a companion or a maid, for she sat silently in the corner most of the time, watching us children play and smiling warmly at us whenever our gaze met hers. I think I would have forgotten about her altogether, had it not been for the way her melancholy presence seemed to cast a spell over my mother and father. Aunt Helene’s visits were normally accompanied by a torrent of conversation – about mutual friends, the news from Belgrade, even politics. But when Aunt Helene’s companion was present the conversation kept lapsing into silence, as if everyone in the room were preoccupied with something else. Then when she left, they became light-headed, as if some catastrophe had been narrowly averted. Whenever I saw this lady, I wondered what great sadness it was that she kept locked in her heart, and why no one would speak of it.

  Always, after she had gone, I would dream of her. I dreamed I saw her walk into my room and stroke my hair as I slept, and that she was standing in the doorway watching me, silhouetted against the light. I became convinced that she must once have had a daughter and that she had lost her, perhaps to the scarlet fever that had taken so many children of my age. And on that account her heart was broken.

  I remembered that the companion’s name was Mileva. She and Aunt Helene had met when they were both students in Zürich. She still lived in Switzerland, but had family in the villages of Kać and Titel, which were all within a day’s ride of our house. I did not find out until some years later – in fact from my teacher, Herr Bošković – that she had once been famous in Serbia as the most brilliant female physicist our country has ever produced, and none other than the wife of the great Professor Einstein.

  Twenty-eight

  Mileva Einstein-Marić lived on the slopes of the Zürichberg in an affluent residential district, just above the Polytechnic where she and Albert Einstein had first met thirty years before. Kirsch went on foot, trailing up the long flights of steps that intersected the zigzagging roads, pausing only to catch his breath. Low cloud rolled over the grey waters of the Zürichsee, parting now and then to reveal densely wooded hills on the far shore. Snow was falling. Down below, the trams rolled by on freshly cushioned rails.

  Einstein’s first wife was the one person who was in possession of the facts. No one else – not even Einstein himself – was a completely reliable source where Lieserl was concerned. After all, the child had been born before she and Einstein were married, in circumstances that were far from clear. Only Mileva could say for sure who the father was. For the same reason, she was the best authority on what had become of the child and where she was now. More than anyone’s, these were Mileva’s secrets to keep or to share.

  Number 62 Huttenstrasse was a heavy four-storey apartment building, rendered in cement, with massive stone footings. It had been finished in a sombre version of the art-nouveau style, with stained glass above the doors and in the windows, and delicate ironwork on the balcony railings. Kirsch did not have an appointment. He had decided to give no warning of his coming. Letters were easy to ignore, and the telephone unsuitable for discussions of a delicate nature. He climbed the stairs to the third floor and rang the bell.

  A maid answered the door, took his card and, after a brief consultation, showed him into a drawing room. ‘Please to wait,’ she said. ‘Frau Professor Einstein is come.’

  Mileva still used her ex-husband’s name and title, though they’d been divorced for thirteen years. Was it out of lingering affection? Or was she laying claim to a share of her ex-husband’s fame? If so, the ploy had been a failure. Outside Switzerland her very existence, like that of her sons, was all but unknown. As far as the newspapers were concerned, Elsa was the only wife Albert Einstein had ever had. Even worse, they usually assumed that Elsa’s daughters (in fact the issue of her first marriage), were Albert’s daughters too. It was perhaps proof of Einstein’s indifference to popular opinion that he had failed to set the record straight. It was possible Mileva had never truly accepted the divorce. If she’d been religiously minded or merely old-fashioned, she might have regarded her marriage bonds as dissoluble only by death. Retaining her husband’s name might have been a matter of entitlement for her, a matter of honour.

  The room was airy, with high ceilings and white walls. The furniture was of dark, polished wood. A baby grand piano stood in one corner, a large table in the middle, neatly stacked with books and papers. An eclectic mix of etchings and watercolours hung around the walls. On a sideboard, above a radiator, stood a row of small cactus plants in earthenware pots. French windows led out onto a balcony. Outside was an expanse of grass and fruit trees and, beyond that, the snow-covered roofs of the city.

  Mileva’s family photographs were displayed on a side table. Women in high collars were gathered around bearded patriarchs in carefully posed groups. Chubby-faced toddlers in sailor suits stared stupidly into the lens. In one picture – the oldest, judging from the blotchy condition – three generations were lined up in rows, all facing front. The men wore no jackets, only waistcoats, and the women had scarves tied round their heads. Like their dress, their weather-beaten faces suggested lives of rural toil. The sharper, newer pictures were less formal: a baby in a Christening
robe being bounced on a woman’s knee; two young boys in hiking gear smiling on a woodland path; a handsome young man in a sunlit garden, women either side of him. Kirsch searched for an image of Albert Einstein, but could find none.

  Something about the young man was familiar: the broad forehead, the delicate mouth, the wary expression. He reminded Kirsch of an American movie star, one Alma said was the new Valentino. Then it came to him: he hadn’t seen the face on the movie screen. He had seen it in Mariya’s sketch-book.

  He’s a writer.

  He picked up the photograph and turned it over. Nothing had been written on the back. Was it the same man? On closer inspection, he wasn’t sure.

  Out in the hall, a grandfather clock struck the half-hour. Church bells joined in across the city. Kirsch had never been to a place where the passage of time was marked so assiduously. There was no need to own a watch.

  ‘I see you’ve found Eduard.’

  A woman in a black dress was standing in the doorway. She was small and wore a double string of pearls at her neck. Her fine dark hair was streaked with silver and loosely secured at the back of her neck. Her pupils were like black glass. It struck him that they might once have made her beautiful, but her prominent mouth and strong jaw gave her face an almost simian quality.

  Mileva Marić, Einstein’s wife for sixteen years. Mariya’s mother, perhaps. Kirsch searched for a resemblance, thought he could detect some similarity in the cheekbones and the eyes and the angled arch of the eyebrows. He put the photograph down, stammered a greeting, but she seemed in no hurry to commence the formalities.

  ‘That picture was taken three years ago.’ She closed the door behind her. Her accent was the same as Mariya’s, if less pronounced. ‘Just before we had to send him away. He’s put on a little weight since then. The food they give him at the Burghölzli, it’s all potatoes and dumplings.’

  The Burghölzli was a psychiatric hospital, the most famous in Switzerland. Karl Jung had worked there for many years.

  ‘This is your son?’

  Mileva gestured towards a sofa, seating herself in an armchair. It was as if she’d been expecting him. ‘They say he has a schizoaffective disorder. Is that a particular field of yours, Dr Kirsch: schizophrenia?’

  It occurred to him that Professor von Laue had anticipated his coming, and tipped Mileva off. What else could explain her getting down to business so quickly? Unless this was just the way she was: intelligent, eccentric, with a pressing interest in psychiatry, but none whatsoever in small talk.

  ‘It’s a subject I’ve looked into,’ he said. ‘Although, to tell the truth, I’m sceptical that such labels are really useful. I’m not satisfied their basis is scientific.’

  ‘I see. And does this scepticism extend to Dr Freud and his ideas?’

  ‘I believe we have to remain sceptical about everything until we know it to be true. And when it comes to mental illness …’

  An arch smile formed briefly on Mileva’s lips. ‘A sceptical psychiatrist? I can see why my husband would call on you.’

  Kirsch wished he knew what she was talking about.

  ‘Albert has no time for the modern psychiatric theories. He believes madness is in the blood, something that runs in the family, like …’ She paused, the smile returning. ‘… like a dislocated hip. And there’s nothing that can be done about it, except to stop breeding.’

  ‘Frau Einstein –’

  ‘Eduard, now he’s a great disciple. In fact, he knows more about Freud than the people who treat him. They told me psychoanalysis is useless where he’s concerned: he outwits them every time.’ Mileva glanced at the photograph of the two boys hiking through the woods. Kirsch recognised Eduard as the younger of the two. ‘He’s always had a remarkable imagination. At school his teachers said he should write professionally. His compositions were always outstanding. His principal said it was he who’d inherited the Einstein spark of genius.’

  In Kirsch’s scrapbook was an interview Albert Einstein had given to a magazine three years earlier. Imagination is more important than knowledge, he had said. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

  ‘And you should hear him play the piano.’ Mileva was looking at him. ‘But I expect his father’s already told you all this.’

  At last he understood: Eduard Einstein had been in a psychiatric hospital for the past three years. For some reason, his father had been dissatisfied with the treatment he was receiving, and had insisted on sending a psychiatrist of his own choosing from Berlin. Mileva had simply assumed that he, Martin Kirsch, was the psychiatrist in question. It was the only explanation.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘I’ve not had the honour of meeting Professor Einstein.’

  Mileva stared at him. ‘He didn’t send you?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  She was still for a moment. ‘You’ve just joined the Burghölzli, I suppose. And Eduard is your patient.’

  Kirsch shook his head. ‘My patient, the patient I’m concerned with, is in Berlin, at the Charité Psychiatric Clinic. Her name is Mariya Draganović.’

  He let the name hang in the air, wanting to study its effect, hoping for some evidence of affection or concern. Just before his departure for Zürich, he had looked up the facts of the first Einstein marriage, which had been recorded in detail at the Berlin Town Hall at the time of the divorce. Einstein and Mileva Marić had married at a civil ceremony in Berne, Switzerland on 6 January 1903. That was five months after Mariya Draganović was born, according to the papers she had presented to the Alien Registration Office.

  He saw a flicker behind Mileva’s eyes. But her face betrayed no emotion.

  ‘A student of mathematics,’ he added. ‘She is known to you?’

  Mileva did not answer. Without explanation she got up and went to the door. Kirsch noticed for the first time that she walked with a limp, that one of her shoes had a built-up sole. Runs in the family, like a dislocated hip.

  It seemed the interview was at an end.

  ‘Frau Einstein, I can assure you I have no wish to pry into your private affairs. But I believe –’

  ‘Biljana!’ Mileva was calling down the corridor, demanding something in a language Kirsch could not understand. She glanced back at him. ‘You will take coffee, Dr Kirsch?’ she said, and before he could answer, she gave a nod and disappeared down the corridor.

  When she returned a few minutes later her demeanour had changed. It was as if she were trying to make up for her previous indiscretion. Kirsch sensed a brittleness about her that didn’t augur well. As for his enquiry about Mariya, it was as if he had never made it.

  While the maid poured the coffee, he explained the facts of the case, leaving out only two significant details: the level of press interest and the letter found among Mariya’s possessions. Mileva listened without interruption.

  ‘She’s clearly of Serbian origin,’ he said, accepting a cup with both hands. ‘And the fact that she studied mathematics here in Zürich, I thought it possible you’d come across her.’

  ‘Thank you, Biljana,’ Mileva said. The maid left them. ‘Do you take sugar, Dr Kirsch? Some cream?’

  ‘No, thank you. I showed some of her work to Professor von Laue, at the Prussian Academy. He was very impressed. In fact, he was curious to know who had taught her.’

  Mileva’s expression softened. ‘Von Laue is a good man. He has honour. More than can be said for the rest of them.’

  ‘Was I mistaken, Frau Einstein? You’ve never heard of Mariya Draganović?’

  Her dark eyes fixed on his. He saw for a moment a younger woman: intense, clever, but awkward – an awkwardness born of isolation, perhaps. A child prodigy who couldn’t dance.

  ‘You weren’t mistaken, Dr Kirsch,’ she said. ‘Miss Draganović was my pupil. I taught her for a month or two last autumn. On a private basis.’ She nodded towards the table in the middle of the room. It was here the lessons had been conducted, pupil and teache
r seated side by side opposite the window. ‘I’m sorry to hear she’s been unwell. I hope it’s nothing too serious.’

  ‘It may be serious. She’s suffering from an acute form of amnesia. The cause, I believe, is psychological. Unless I can discover more about her history – and quickly – I fear it may become permanent.’

  Kirsch was sure this revelation would be enough to break down any reticence on Mileva’s part. No natural mother could stand by and let her child suffer harm, however great the distance between them.

  Mileva was silent for a moment. Then she said: ‘I had no idea she was in Berlin. I assumed she’d gone home.’ She turned her cup round on its saucer. ‘I believe that was somewhere near Novi Sad. She never gave me an address. But I think she came from around there.’

  ‘Novi Sad?’

  ‘That’s in Yugoslavia. In the province of Vojvodina. It was part of the empire before the war, the Austrian empire. But all that’s gone now.’

  ‘Isn’t that where you come from?’

  Mileva studied him. It was not the sort of information a stranger would possess unless he had gone to some trouble. ‘No. I was born in Titel. Quite some miles away.’

  ‘But still in Vojvodina?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mileva was perfectly calm. Kirsch detected no hint of distress in her face or her voice. It was disappointing.

  ‘You must have had a great deal to talk about,’ he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else.

  Mileva shook her head. ‘Miss Draganović came here to study, not to chat. Our talk was of physics.’

  ‘Quantum physics?’

  ‘She was anxious to secure a place at university. She’d come into some money, you see. Her father had recently passed away.’

  I remembered finding his grave. The snow and the fresh earth.

  ‘Did she come to Switzerland alone?’

  I remember the feeling very clearly.