Exile, 1946
By K. Overman-Edmiston
Copyright 2010 K. Overman-Edmiston
All rights reserved.
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Exile, 1946 is from the short story collection Night Flight from Marabar.
Paperback print edition (ISBN 9780646369693) published by Crumplestone Press
PO Box 6546, East Perth
Western Australia 6892
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Exile, 1946
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
[Matthew 16:26]
My name is Albert Einstein and I have been called a dolt and a genius in the space of one lifetime. A varied existence. For many years of that life I was exiled from my own country. And for less than one day, I was an exile from myself. I could tell you in a second which of the two was the more terrifying.
When I was in my mid-thirties the world fell to its knees in the War to End all Wars. Less than three decades later the lie became apparent. There was no war to end all wars. We had condemned ourselves to repeat our mistakes, only more terribly, with greater vigour, with greater efficiency. The nightmare recurred. This time the venom within my country unleashed itself upon my kind.
I am Albert Einstein. And I am a Jew.
The terror set loose upon those of my race was extreme. The vehemence unfathomable. The hate had depths beyond plumbing. But then, as life has taught me over and again, fear and terror are less yielding of explanation than are bends in the warp and weft of space. There are some places in the human psyche bigger than any understanding.
Did I look on in horror at events taking place in Mitteleuropa? Did I know what was happening? What did I do with all those half-whispered stories, those half-disclosed tales of fear, trembling and annihilation? Where did I go to during the war? Did I leave Europe, fly to England, flee to America? Did I leave my people, take leave of my senses? It was all so long ago, wasn’t it? Where did I go?
All I remember was my homecoming. A return to a topography of terror.
Just after the war I organized a visit, incognito, to my home at Caputh just outside Berlin. In 1933, when Hitler became Chancellor, I had renounced my German citizenship and was exiled from my country. And so, after the war I had to smuggle myself back into the land of my birth. My departure from the escalating madness had apparently enraged the Nazis, so they confiscated my home. Years later when the insanity had spent itself, I wanted to see my home again, my house by the lake.
With false papers I made my way back into Germany under the name of Hans Andersen. Crossing the French border, I picked my way through the debris thrown off by a useless war. I headed for Caputh, skirting the shadows thrown by Berlin. I could not enter that city knowing that somewhere among the ruins was the grave of a monstrosity. A bunker is a humble place to hold a point of singularity so evil.
I eventually arrived in Caputh and made my way to the lake. My summer house stood in the winter darkness, its light extinguished save a few particles that squeezed themselves from behind thick curtains. I thought the Nazis must have allocated my home to another family, perhaps one of their own, given the amount of security that had been installed.
The walls were topped with barbed wire, and spotlights stood at all corners. I walked quickly past the locked front gates and under a large sign placed over these gates. Most of the perimeter lights were not working and so I could not read the sign. As to what use my home had been put, I had no idea.
I went to the back of the property, found a low section of the wall and climbed until I reached the barbed wire. In trying to jump the wire I snagged my jacket, tearing the material and sending my forged papers flying across the lawn. A dog started barking. My heart thumped its way towards my throat. A moment, an infinity. Time bent; then re-set itself to its usual linear form. I snatched up my papers and shoved them into my breast pocket, then headed towards a ground floor window. I was in my sixties when I went on this venture, and I suddenly felt ancient. Until this point, I had not realized that time is also relative to one’s emotional state.
I wanted to revisit my old study. I wanted to sit at my desk and look through my window. I wanted to rest my eyes upon summer lawns, after having unrolled the cosmos and twisted time into my beautiful equations. ‘Politics are for the moment,’ I had thought, ‘an equation is for eternity.’
I prised open the window, crept in and made for the corridor. I could hear people laughing in the rooms downstairs. From upstairs I heard the gentle murmur of conversation. I crept through the shadows of my own home, my heart still in my mouth. Reaching the upper level of the house I was appalled to see light sliding from beneath my study door. A wave of masculine laughter spilled from the study. There was a commotion downstairs and a rough voice roared out, ‘Quiet up there! Quiet, or I’ll send you all to your rooms! I have the keys! I will do it!’
I did not understand the imperative. Had my home been turned into a school for delinquents? I crept up to my study and gently placed an ear to the wood. Suddenly, a hand grasped the back of my jacket and pushed me through the door. I fell in a sprawl across the floor and landed at the feet of some men who sat around my old desk. The man behind me closed the door and stood his ground to block my way.
‘And who do we have here?’ the oldest of the company asked. I said nothing. Another man bent down and picked up my papers. He read the name ‘Hans Andersen.’
Four men sat around the desk, one stood at the door behind me, and another sat in the corner reading. He did not look up from his book.
The oldest man took the papers from his friend and read them, ‘Hans Andersen,’ he repeated, then looking down at me, ‘your middle initial wouldn’t be “C”?’
I did not answer.
‘That would be Hans Christian Andersen then, eh? What an imagination you must have.’
The others laughed.
‘Well, Hans, tell us your story.’
I said nothing, I was still frightened.
‘Then let me introduce myself and my companions. My name is Friedrich Schiller, this is my dear friend Johann Wolfgang Goethe, to my left is Samuel Coleridge, and this is Queen Elizabeth – of England,’ he whispered, and pointed to a man in his thirties with a full beard. ‘By the door is Boadicea, another Queen of course and there, with his head in a book, is the quietest of our little club, Einstein … Albert Einstein.’
I was too stunned to make any response. The man in the corner had raised his face from the book, politely nodded, then returned to his reading. He was at least twenty years younger than me, with a ruddy complexion and red hair.
‘Is this some sort of dramatic society?’ I stammered.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Schiller, or the man calling himself Schiller, replied.
‘You said you were a club?’
‘Yes, a group of companions, we read, we converse. As you can imagine we have quite a range of experience upon which to draw.’
I still didn’t understand, ‘But why do you give yourselves such names?’
‘Because these were the names endowed upon us by our parents. Why do you call yourself your name?’
‘Hans Andersen?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is a false name. I am no longer a citizen of Germany. I needed false papers to re-enter the country.’
Schiller looked mildly confused. His face cleared. ‘I suppose that is where you differ from us. These are our real names, no subterfuge is needed. I am Friedrich Schiller, that is Albert Einstein.’
It was too much. ‘He is not Albert Einstein. I am Albert Einstein, and this is my home.’
The group began to laugh.
‘Aha,’ said Boadicea, ‘So Hans Christian Andersen has decided to tell us a story. Do go on …’
‘I am not Hans Christian Andersen. I am Albert Einstein. This is my home.’
The red-haired man in the corner put down his book. He came over to me and said gently, ‘Why do you think you are me?’
‘I am not you,’ I replied, ‘I am Albert Einstein. I am a scientist. I own this house. It was taken from me before the war.’
‘What war?’ he asked patiently.
‘The war that finished a few months ago. Germany, Europe, America, Japan – the entire insane world,’ I said, my voice rising against their disbelief.
The men looked at each other. It was obvious they thought I was mad.
‘Why don’t you just relax and tell us a nice story, Hans?’ said the bearded Queen Elizabeth. The others murmured gentle encouragement. I was more terrified and frustrated than I had ever been.
The red-haired Albert Einstein took me gently by my arm and led me over to where he had been sitting. He pulled up a chair. He left his hand on my arm, looked at me with infinite
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