The Other Einstein

by Marie Benedict

  The men hastened to the device and played with wires for what seemed like an hour. As I bounced Hans Albert on my lap to keep him entertained for just a little longer—it was well past the little fellow’s bedtime—I said, “I suppose we were premature on the congratulations.”

  Paul looked up at me. “Why do you say that?”

  I gestured to the still smoking Maschinchen.

  “This is nothing. Just some faulty insulation. We’ll fix it in no time.”

  “Truly?” I asked, relieved.

  “Truly,” Conrad answered for his brother. “Once we get it running consistently, we will file the patent application right away. Albert already has most of the application finished, including the blueprints. Right, Albert?”

  Albert hadn’t mentioned this to me. I was surprised at his speed, but then, this must be what he’d been working on in the gymnasium workroom while the Habicht brothers assembled the machine. I knew Albert wasn’t as skilled on the practical side as Paul and Conrad.

  “Can we take a look at the patent filing, Albert?” Conrad asked.

  Albert, his hair a wild, dusty mess around his face, glanced up as if he’d forgotten I was there. “Surely,” he said and stood up. Sorting through a table covered with electrical parts, he pulled out a disorganized pile of papers.

  “Here it is. It’s still rough, but this is the general idea,” he said, spreading out the sheets before me and the Habichts.

  The sketches were an exact replica of the machine as it had evolved, and the descriptive verbiage necessary for the filing was precise. Paul and Conrad suggested a few minute changes, but otherwise, they expressed pleasure at the draft. I made no remarks, as the patent particulars were outside my expertise. All seemed in order. Now we just had to ensure the proper working of the Maschinchen before we actually submitted the filing.

  “Why isn’t Mileva’s name on the patent filing?” Paul asked Albert, a quizzical expression on his face.

  I stared at the papers again. Surely, Paul was wrong; Albert would not commit such a grievous sin twice. Not after the months of silence he had endured. My name must be on the filing somewhere. Scanning the page containing the applicants’ information, I saw that Paul was right. Nowhere was the name “Mileva Einstein” listed.

  How dare Albert?

  The room grew still. Albert, Paul, and Conrad understood the offense and waited uncomfortably for my response. Even the typically frenetic Hans Albert didn’t move, as if he felt the unusual tension in the room.

  I wanted to rage at Albert for his thoughtlessness and cowardice. Surely, he could have predicted my reaction, if he had even given me a second thought. Had he been too scared to talk to me directly about the applicants he’d listed? Did he really prefer this public vetting? If Albert would have raised the issue with me in private, explained that the patent would fare better without an uncredentialed woman on the applicant list, I wouldn’t have been happy, but I would have appreciated that he cared enough about me and my feelings to spare me embarrassment in front of Paul and Conrad.

  I wasn’t going to let Albert humiliate me, privately or publicly. Not again. I forced a smile upon my face, and as if I’d known about the omission of my name all along, I calmly said, “Why should my name be listed, Paul? Albert and I are Ein Stein—one stone.”

  “Of course,” Paul said too quickly.

  Albert said nothing.

  Very pointedly, I stared at Albert. As my mouth moved to form the words, I felt something pure and trusting harden within me. “Are we not of one stone, Albert?”

  Chapter 31

  June 4, 1909

  Bern, Switzerland

  Albert and I slowly began to ignite the world of physics in the months after we received our patent on the Maschinchen, the invention I’d hoped would bring us a steady income. Letters from physicists around Europe began to pour into our Bern apartment on Kramgasse. But none of the letters contained requests for the Maschinchen, which was struggling for acceptance in labs. Instead, once Europe’s most esteemed physics professor Max Planck began teaching relativity to his students, other physicists began inquiring about the four articles we’d published in the Annalen der Physik in 1905, my article on relativity in particular. Not that any of the letters came for me, since my contribution had been erased. No, the letters all came for Albert.

  Like a spider, Albert became busy building a name for himself in the center of the intricate web of European physicists. Offers to write more articles and comment on others’ theories for various journals began to appear. Invitations to physics conferences and convocations formed piles around the apartment. Strangers started stopping him in the Bern streets when they learned who he was. But Albert’s new web lacked a sticky foothold for me and Hans Albert. We became merely the tree branches to which the web was attached.

  Day after day, I tended to the house, cared for Albert and Hans Albert, and even took in student boarders to live in our two spare rooms, cooking and cleaning for them too. The extra work exacerbated my already aching legs and hips, which had never really recovered from Lieserl’s birth, but I did it without complaint, because I was waiting for Albert to invite me back into the secret world of physics we’d once wrapped around ourselves. Since the Olympia Academy had unofficially disbanded when Maurice relocated to Strasbourg, France, and Conrad returned to Schaffhausen, only Albert could invite me into that world again. I conjectured that if I freed him from financial worry through the student boarders, he could begin theorizing again, and an invitation would ensue. It angered me that I had to take such measures, but there was no other avenue for me to return to science.

  But no true invitation came in the months after we completed our work on the Maschinchen. Albert was no longer available for collaboration, no matter how well I freed his time to focus. Occasionally, as he responded to letters from physicists on the four Annalen der Physik articles or drafted reviews of others’ articles for scientific journals, he requested emergency consultation in the nuances of the relativism theory or mathematical calculations. I kept myself ready for his invitation by reading the latest journals and studying the textbooks Albert left at home, but we slowly lost the language of science that we once spoke to one another. Childish chatter to Hans Albert and worried mutterings over our finances took the place of those sacred conversations.

  The trusting part of me that had hardened during the Maschinchen patent omission solidified further, and the spark of hope that Albert and I might rekindle our scientific projects transformed into a flame of anger instead. Only to Helene could I confess my feelings, that fame had left Albert with little interest in his wife, that I worried his desire for notoriety would overtake any humanity remaining within him.

  I had become the philistine hausfrau I never wanted to be. The sort Albert had always mocked. This wasn’t the bohemian life I wanted, but what choice had he left me?

  Hope for our relationship—marital and scientific—came in the form of a job offer. On the heels of his growing acclaim in the physics world, Albert received the professorial position he’d sought since our school days. He was asked to be a junior physics professor at the University of Zürich after a protracted debate among the professors over his Jewish heritage and a rocky conclusion that he didn’t exhibit the more “troubling” Jewish traits. We planned to settle there some months before the winter term began in October. I began praying again to the Virgin Mary, this time for a fresh start in the city of our school days. The city of a very different Mileva.

  The packing for Zürich was left to me, of course, while Albert finished up his days at the patent office. One day, after I busied the studious five-year-old Hans Albert with the piano, I turned to the heaping mass of papers Albert had strewn about the dining room table, kitchen counters, and bedroom floor, including piles of documents he had begun to bring home from his patent job. It was like a trail from “Hansel and Gretel.” I began to organ
ize the articles, notes, and other assorted papers into categorical piles.

  It was then that I saw it. A postcard stuck out from between two pages of an article Albert had been sent for review.

  Dear Professor Einstein,

  I hope you will indulge a congratulatory note from an old girlfriend that you may well have forgotten in the ensuing years. If you will recall, I am the sister-in-law of the owner of the Hotel Paradise in Mettmenstetten, and we spent several weeks in each other’s company one summer ten years ago. I noticed an article in our local Basel newspaper about your appointment as extraordinary professor of theoretical physics at the University of Zürich, and I wanted to wish you well in your new role. I often think of you, and I treasure the weeks we spent together in our youth at the Paradise hotel.

  Best wishes with all my heart,

  Anna Meyer-Schmid

  I almost laughed at the cloying, sentimental note. I’d grown accustomed to Albert receiving adulatory notes from scientists and lay people alike; I was always cleaning them up around the apartment. A note from an old girlfriend was a first, but perhaps I’d raise it as a little joke over dinner.

  I continued with the sorting when I came across another postcard in the same handwriting.

  Dear Professor Einstein:

  How wonderful to receive such a rapid reply! I never expected that a man of your reputation and busy schedule would have the time to respond so quickly to a simple Basel housewife. I am surprised and delighted that you recall fondly the weeks in Paradise. What a wonderful invitation you’ve extended to meet you at your offices in Zürich once you are settled. I would be very honored to see the professor in his new offices. I will send dates for our rendezvous.

  With all my heart,

  Anna Meyer-Schmid

  My heart began racing. Albert had written back to this woman. In his reply, he must have invited her to visit him in Zürich. This was no joke I’d be raising over dinner. This was the beginning of an affair.

  Outrage simmered within me. I had suppressed my own ambitions, even sacrificed some of the little time I had with my daughter, for Albert. To tend to his wishes and desires. He had become my life, my pathway to love and work, even if he was blocking that route at the moment. The blood of bandits, as Papa would say, began to boil within me. If Albert thought that I would hand him over to some Basel hausfrau without a battle, he was wrong.

  I picked up a pen and a sheet of paper. Addressing a letter to Mr. Georg Meyer, the woman’s husband, at the address she helpfully provided, I described to him what his wife had begun: “Your wife has written a suggestive letter to my husband—”

  The door slammed. I hadn’t expected Albert back so early. I started to hide the postcards and letter I was drafting, then thought the better of it. Why should I hide? I wasn’t the one who’d done something wrong.

  When Albert called for me, I responded, “I’m in the bedroom,” and continued writing my letter.

  I heard the clop of his footsteps, and then his voice. “What are you doing, Dollie?”

  I answered without looking at him. “Writing a letter to Anna Meyer-Schmid’s husband about the exchange between you two.”

  After a long pause, in a quivering voice, he said, “What are you talking about?” As if he did not know.

  “In my packing, I came across two postcards from Mrs. Meyer-Schmid in which it seems you two have arranged a rendezvous in Zürich. I thought Mr. Meyer had a right to know.”

  “It’s not what it seems,” he stammered.

  “I believe I’ve heard that excuse before.” I continued writing, my eyes locked on the page. I feared that if I saw his face, I would soften.

  “Really, Dollie. Her note seemed innocent to me—the congratulations of an old friend—and I don’t know what led her to write another letter.”

  “You didn’t invite her to visit you in Zürich in your reply?”

  “Only in the most general way, as I would to any friend.”

  “Good, I’m glad to hear that.” I did not believe him. I recognized the bluster in his voice too well for that. “Then you won’t mind if I explain that to Mr. Meyer.”

  He launched into me. “How dare you make this so public, Mileva?”

  “How dare I? How dare you arrange an assignation with an old girlfriend! And how dare you express frustration at me!”

  He grew quiet. “It’s not what it seems.”

  “You’ve already said that. So you should have no objection to me sending this letter.”

  Silence filled the room as fully as a scream. I knew why Albert was desperate for me to not send the letter—because he was lying to me. I had to call his bluff and end this relationship before it began. This time, I looked directly at him and held his gaze. But I said nothing. I simply waited.

  “Go ahead, Mileva, send the letter. You create problems at the most important times in my life. First, by having a baby when I was about to get the patent office job, and now, just as I’m finally about to start my university professorship. You only ever think of yourself.”

  Chapter 32

  August 14, 1909

  Engadine Valley, Switzerland

  “Let me take him from you, Dollie,” Albert said as he lifted the sleepy Hans Albert from my arms.

  I almost said no, just like I’d almost said no to this entire trip. I’d resisted Albert’s thoughtful show of niceties—his manner of apology for Anna Meyer-Schmid—since we arrived in the Engadine Valley for our summer holiday. But my leg and hip ached with the grade of the climb and the weight of Hans Albert in my arms, so I relented.

  The hill grew steeper as we neared the flat apex. The final crest was almost unbearably precipitous, and I nearly stopped. I pushed myself along on the waves of my ongoing anger over Anna Meyer-Schmid and Albert’s hateful words. No more weakness.

  I could no longer accept Albert’s grand shows of affection—this holiday as compensation for his flirtations with Anna Meyer-Schmid, the Maschinchen project as atonement for his omission of my name on the 1905 paper on relativity—instead of what he knew I wanted in the way of amends. Work. I withdrew into the shell of my exterior, like the mollusk I’d once stopped myself from becoming. That hard, protective layer was necessary to survive the turbulent waters that were my relationship with Albert.

  The beautiful Engadine Valley spread out before me, giving me momentary relief from my inner turmoil. The azure River En cut through the verdant valley, turning the high mountainous peaks into a dramatic snowcapped backdrop. Picturesque spire-laden towns dotted the valley, and trails cut through the hills like swooping paint strokes. I knew why Albert brought me here: to reawaken old memories and loving affection. Feelings that seemed like faraway memories. Feelings that would make me forget about his failings.

  Albert laid the sleeping Hans Albert down on a soft, mossy patch of green, pulling off his jacket and tucking it around our son. Turning away before he caught me staring, I gazed back out at the vista. Albert walked over to my side and placed an arm around me. I stiffened at his touch.

  “The headwaters of the Rhine River are over that ridge, Dollie.” Albert pointed into the distance.

  I made no movement. Did he think he could sway me with a simple “Dollie”? I wasn’t the guileless girl I’d once been.

  “The Maloja Pass is just there.” Albert pointed to a cleft in between two mountains. “It links Switzerland and Italy.”

  I did not answer.

  “It is only a few miles from the Splügen Pass. Do you remember our day there?” He wrapped his other arm around me and bored his eyes into mine. I met his gaze, but still I wouldn’t speak.

  “Remember how we called it our bohemian honeymoon?” Albert said.

  The reference to our “bohemian honeymoon” was a misfire. The mere mention of our time in Como conjured up images of Lieserl, the two-year wait until our actual wedding a
nd honeymoon, and the destruction of my career. It hardly enticed.

  “What is this quiet all about, Dollie?”

  I heard the first pangs of frustration in his voice. How dare he be frustrated with me? I’d clung to silence, but how could I let such a stupid question go unanswered? “I think you know, Albert.”

  “Listen, Dollie. I made a mistake. Mrs. Meyer-Schmid’s card stirred up old feelings from my youthful holidays in Mettmenstetten, and I overreacted in my response to her. I don’t know what more I can say but that I regret it.”

  My anger stemmed from more than his attempted dalliance with Anna Meyer-Schmid, although that had inflicted a deep enough wound. “Do you regret your harsh words to me too?”

  “Harsh words?”

  How could he have forgotten?

  “You don’t really believe that the pregnancy with Lieserl was some sort of hysteria I manufactured as you were starting your patent job, do you?” I asked.

  His arms dropped to his side, and he grew quiet. “No, I don’t, Mileva. If I said that, I didn’t mean it.”

  “You do realize how difficult that pregnancy was for me? Unmarried and alone, no prospects for a future career, bearing a child? Having Lieserl changed my life. For better and worse.”

  I had never spoken to Albert of Lieserl so bluntly. At the time, I’d been too afraid of losing him. Or of losing Lieserl.

  “Yes, yes, of course.” He answered too quickly. I sensed that he didn’t truly understand the impact the pregnancy had on my life, that he just wanted peace from me and would say whatever he thought I wanted to get it.

  He must have sensed the dissonance between us, because he wrapped his arms around me again and said, “Dollie, can we please make this move to Zürich a fresh start? A new beginning of love and work and collaboration?”

  Collaboration? Albert knew my susceptibilities. I allowed myself to stare into his coffee-brown eyes. Within their liquid depths, I swear I saw a different future. Or perhaps I saw what I wanted to see.