by Stuart Clark
She swept into the room, summer-weight skirt swinging around her sturdy calves, carrying the flowers in a tall glass vase. He noticed that her skirt fabric was printed with red roses too. She positioned the vase on the sideboard so that the light caught the glass and danced through the water, then she made a final small adjustment to rotate it into just the correct viewing position.
‘There, don’t they look pretty? Brighten the place up.’
‘I’m glad you like them, Elsa.’ He fought to say more but could not coax words. It was a confounded sensation; when had he ever felt anything other than comfortable in Elsa’s presence?
‘Was it terribly difficult at the station?’ she asked. ‘Your letters made it sound awful.’
‘It was for the best.’ He looked around. ‘Are Ilse and Margot here?’
Elsa shook her head. ‘They’re out watching the soldiers.’
‘You let them go?’
‘Now, now, Albertle. Let them have some fun. They’ll stay together.’ She gestured for him to sit and they took positions on either side of the fireplace. She sat forward, leaning towards him, knees properly together. ‘I’ve been thinking. You could put your desk in the dining-room, near the window. We could move the plates off the dresser to give you some bookshelves. And you won’t be bothered much, only at mealtimes, and then you’ll be eating with us. Also …’
‘Elsa, I’m not moving in with you.’ There, he had said it.
Her brow creased and a puzzled expression crossed her face. Abruptly she rubbed her hands together. ‘I’ll get some tea. You must be parched from walking over here in this heat.’
Her departure raised a breeze in the room. After a few moments he followed, hesitating in the doorway to the kitchen, not daring to cross the threshold. He watched her draw water from a juddering tap.
‘Get the cups down for me, Albertle. Make yourself useful,’ she said over her shoulder.
He stood his ground. ‘Elsa, it’s not because I don’t want to be with you. I just find that I … I … I know you’re here for me when I need you. I can content myself with that for the time being. I’ll see you often; we’ll have all the trappings of being together but none of the getting under each other’s feet. It’ll be ideal, don’t you think?’
‘But how will it look when we’re married? If we’re not living together, I mean?’ She swung the kettle to the stovetop.
‘Elsa, I’m not asking Mileva for a divorce, just a separation.’ She stopped what she was doing and stared at him briefly. ‘I’ll get the cups then.’
‘Elsa!’ He hated it when she pretended not to hear him. She froze, her face a mask.
‘Elsa …’
Knocking like rifle-shots at the front door interrupted them. Einstein bit his lip in exasperation. Elsa was already in motion again.
‘I’ll get that. You get the cups.’ She brushed past.
He reached up to massage his eyes but paused when he heard his name.
‘Is Herr Einstein here? It’s really most urgent that I see him.’ The voice was female, young and unfamiliar.
Elsa’s voice was full of suspicion as she tried to fend her off.
‘Please, I have to see him,’ begged the intruder.
Einstein stepped into the hallway and the young face flooded with relief. It was too round and her lips too full to be beautiful,
but her nose was neat and her eyes shone chocolate-brown. Einstein knew they had met, but guiltily could not place her.
She rushed forward past Elsa, checking herself just before colliding with him. ‘Erwin’s been captured. You’ve got to get him back.’
He stared at the young woman in front of him.
‘Herr Haber at the university told me you’d be here.’
‘Do you two know each other?’ Elsa asked from the doorway. Einstein nodded, realisation flooding through him. ‘Elsa, this is Frau Freundlich, Erwin’s wife. We met last year, on their honeymoon.’ He smiled at the visitor. ‘But I didn’t pay you as much attention as politeness deserved on that occasion, Frau Freundlich. I apologise.’
‘Please,’ she said, ‘call me Käte.’
Their meeting had been in Zurich. Einstein had insisted – almost demanded – that the newlyweds detour for a day during their Swiss honeymoon. From the moment of their meeting on the station platform, the two men had talked non-stop about relative motion and its potential for understanding gravity. Käte had trailed in polite silence, contemplating the buildings and the scenery.
‘I dare say that was his favourite day of the honeymoon,’ said Käte, after Einstein had recounted the story to Elsa.
The older woman nodded with resignation and closed the front door. ‘Take her through, Albertle. I’ll get the tea.’
Käte stared into her cup, raising it occasionally but barely wetting her lips. Elsa made a few attempts at small talk but the conversation died quickly every time.
‘At least he’s alive.’ Einstein handed back the typed letter informing Käte of her husband’s capture. He had read it through twice before the words sank in.
‘What can we do to get him back?’
Einstein felt as helpless as she did. Nevertheless, he spoke off the top of his head. ‘Krupp in Essen helped sponsor the expedition. They must have some leverage with the government, they’re a big firm.’
She nodded hopefully.
Einstein thought about the time it would take to arrange the meeting. The girl obviously needed comfort now. ‘And we can go to the university and speak to Max,’ he said.
‘Herr Planck? Erwin has talked about him.’
‘He’s a good man. He’ll know what to do – he backed the expedition, persuaded the Academy to provide money for the equipment. They’ll be eager to bring this to a safe conclusion.’
Plan formulated, he ushered Käte into the hallway.
They were halfway to the staircase when he heard Elsa calling him from the apartment. He swung back to see her chasing after them. She was carrying his hat.
‘You forgot this.’
‘Thank you.’ He lifted it to his head and went to turn away.
‘Albertle, I lo—’ The words died on her lips.
He looked into her eyes from under the trilby’s brim. ‘I do too,’
he said.
The streets were full of young men again, only this time the straw boaters had been replaced by spiked helmets; three-piece suits had given way to grey uniforms and boots had substituted for shoes. Each man carried a rifle. Sheathed bayonets swung from their belts, and their marching feet pounded out a steady rhythm over which the cheering of the onlookers became a single continuous melody.
Unable to contain herself, a young woman leapt from the pavement and pinned a flower to a soldier’s lapel. He broke rank to accept the talisman. She hugged him clumsily and rushed back to the pavement, face glowing red.
Einstein stared. At least the girl was neither Ilse nor Margot.
‘Madness,’ he muttered and guided Käte on.
It was quiet now at the university, the rush to enlist having drained the place of young blood. Long lines were stretching down the streets from the recruitment offices. When night fell and the doors were closed, pride dictated that those still waiting would stand their ground, sinking to the pavement to sing songs and slumber against the sun-warmed flagstones until dawn saw the offices open again.
‘How can we lose with determination like that?’ Einstein had heard one old woman say, clutching her bag of groceries.
He shook the memory from his head and led Käte into the university.
He saw Nernst first, and had to blink to convince himself that he was not hallucinating. The short, pot-bellied chemist was swaggering along the corridor in full army uniform. He waved a pair of riding gloves at Einstein. ‘I’m a courier on the western front.’
Haber was with him, looking dapper as usual, fortunately still in civvies and wearing a faintly bemused look on his face.
Einstein tried to ignore the Fatherland’s
newest recruit. ‘Where’s Max?’ he asked Haber.
‘In his office.’
Nernst stepped into his path. ‘This is our chance to prove ourselves. All three of us …’ He noticed Käte and studied her for a moment. ‘I dare say all four of us. We Jews can show our patriotism.’
Einstein looked down at him. ‘By killing foreigners?’
‘If it secures us an equal place in Germany. I’m sick of the suspicion against us.’
‘Albert, you probably haven’t been here long enough yet to notice it,’ said Haber. ‘We’re tolerated one minute, ignored the next, then ridiculed, but never really accepted.’
‘And you forget, I’m not German. I’ll always be an outsider.’
‘That makes being a Jew even worse.’
There was the crash of double doors rocking on their hinges. The four of them turned to see Planck striding towards them, his face flushed. ‘Belgium is calling up its forces. They’re going to fight!’ he announced.
‘But they’re neutral,’ said Haber.
Planck shook his head. ‘Not any more.’
‘Stupid fools,’ said Haber. ‘Why not stand aside and let us march to France? They’d have been under German protection, the war could have passed them by.’
Käte looked askance at Einstein, who tried to reassure her with a faint smile.
‘Belgium resisting,’ growled Nernst.
‘Civilians have been sniping against our boys, and now it’s a full mobilisation,’ said Planck.
‘They will pay for this outrage,’ said Nernst.
Einstein’s mouth dropped. ‘Walther, that’s enough of this nonsense.’
‘They were neutral.’ Nernst waved the fist carrying the gloves.
‘They should have let our forces pass through, as is our right. This is … treachery!’
Haber closed his eyes and dropped his head; he seemed to be muttering something to himself.
‘Fritz, please talk some sense here,’ said Einstein.
Haber nodded slowly. ‘Something must be done to end this war quickly.’
‘The Belgians have no idea what they have brought upon themselves!’ Nernst was almost shouting, holding a finger in front of his face like an exclamation mark. ‘They stand in the path of a steamroller. They will be utterly destroyed. Gentlemen, I must go, I have duties to attend to.’ With that, he turned and waddled away, swinging his arms, huffing and puffing.
In the silence that followed, Einstein took his chance. ‘Max, I must talk to you.’
Planck’s office was plush, with a wide desk that the physicist kept in an orderly fashion. There were three piles of paper, an almost spotless blotter and a shiny inkpot. Shoulder-height bookcases lined the walls, topped with vacuum tubes, flasks, clamps and other apparatus that looked somehow arranged as art, rather than stored in readiness.
From behind his desk, Planck tapped a long finger against his lips. Approaching sixty, he was a hangover from the nineteenth century. Although he had never sported lamb-chop sideburns to Einstein’s knowledge, the long moustache was distinctly oldfashioned. Yet it suited Planck, conferring a patrician air.
He looked at Käte, his eyes as round as an owl’s. ‘Let’s start with the consulate. See what they can do.’ He lifted the receiver and placed his request with the operator.
Einstein exchanged hopeful glances with Käte as Planck was alternately connected and then passed back to the operator, talking to one person after another, his voice always patient as he sought the right official. ‘Erwin Freundlich, an astronomer leading an eclipse expedition,’ he said numerous times. Eventually, his face set like stone and he replaced the receiver a little too heavily in its cradle.
Käte’s face drained of colour.
‘They say they’ll do their best to locate him. I’m sorry. They wouldn’t promise any more information.’
Einstein could feel Käte staring at him.
‘What if they shoot him? I’ve heard the Russians are capable of anything. His death will be on your conscience, Herr Einstein.’
Einstein kept his face impassive. He had thought of nothing else since Käte had arrived with the news an hour or so before.
4
Odessa, Russian Empire
The camp was a series of single-storey wooden huts, each one raised up on stilts to provide some protection from rats and a convenient place for the children to play.
The inhabitants were mostly expatriate Germans, with a smattering of Austrians. Many had been local inhabitants, rounded up as soon the hostilities had begun, and their conversations generally turned to expressions of betrayal by neighbours. Even if the war ended tomorrow, Freundlich suspected, it would take a herculean effort for life to return to normal.
As far as he could tell, no one had yet established himself as de facto leader of the refugees, and there were new arrivals each day to keep the population in constant flux. One morning he counted every spare bed, and then averaged the number of new arrivals over the week. At this rate the camp would be full in a little over a month.
He and Mechau had secured reasonable bunks in a hut far from the dusty exercise patch. They were away from the door but near a window. The building was so new it smelled of sawdust and the bedposts offered a ready supply of splinters.
‘What are we going to do?’ hissed Mechau one afternoon from the cool of the lower bunk.
‘Nothing. We keep our heads down, do what we’re told and everything will be fine.’ Freundlich was lying on the thin mattress above. ‘If they’d planned to shoot us they would have done so by now.’
His tousle-haired companion’s head shot up beside the bed.
‘Sorry, Robert. Bad joke.’
The young technician tried to laugh it off. It was an unconvincing sound. ‘How long do you think we will be here?’
Freundlich looked at him squarely. ‘I don’t know. No one does.’
It might not have been a satisfactory answer, but it was an honest one.
After catching his fingers once too often on the bedpost, Mechau palmed one of the blunt knives from the mess-hut and used it to scrape the bunk’s uprights. It proved such a laborious job that he took to scouring the compound for flints, and gradually the bedposts took on a smoother finish. He even talked about putting a chamfer on them.
Anything, thought Freundlich, if it keeps him busy and stops him brooding.
At night, Freundlich would point out the constellations through the hut windows. It was hardly ideal, but with the curfew in place it was the best that they could do. He was hoping for a final sighting of Antares before the ruby star slipped below the horizon to visit the southern skies for autumn and winter.
One evening as twilight was painting the sky, Freundlich led Mechau to the southern perimeter fence. They could see down the tumbling hill, over the town to the sea.
‘There!’ said Freundlich, his arm ramrod straight.
Mechau’s small gasp told him that he had seen it, too: the twinkling point of blood-red light, just visible in the gathering violet of the night-bound sky.
‘We don’t even know what keeps them burning,’ said Freundlich,
‘yet they’ve shone for aeons.’
Mechau stared, captivated. ‘How long have you been interested in the stars?’
‘Always. I think they’re the most beautiful things in nature:
more so than mountains or trees or flowers.’
‘More so than girls?’
Freundlich laughed, the first spontaneous laugh he had enjoyed since their arrest. ‘You’re right. Nothing could be that beautiful,’ he said, thinking of Käte.
The bell rang out, breaking the spell. He tutted loudly and turned to glare at the tower.
‘Come along, Erwin. Remember, we’re keeping our heads down.’
In general the camp was a quiet place, which was why the sound of a woman’s anguished voice outside their hut one afternoon immediately drew attention. Through the window, Freundlich saw a hunched grandmother fighting a tug-o
f-war with a boy over a length of sausage.
‘Hey!’ He jumped from the bed and bounded for the door. Mechau rushed after him.
As he rounded the outside of the hut the boy broke away and ran, carrying his prize. The old woman began crying out at the top of her voice. ‘It’s mine. I’ve been saving it.’
‘Come back here, you!’ Freundlich gave chase but the boy’s short legs were a blur. He was about to round the corner when another figure appeared. The boy slammed straight into the rotund chest, midway between the braces that held up heavy brown trousers.
‘What do we have here then?’ The man’s accent was rough. The boy held up the food. Freundlich came to a halt as the man looked up with crooked eyes. ‘Chasing a youngster for food?’
The man lifted the boy and swung him round behind him. He was upon Freundlich before the astronomer could utter a word. Blow after blow rained down and then Mechau was in there too, hammering away at the assailant.
‘Stop what you’re doing at once!’
In his panic, Freundlich thought it was Mechau shouting. But the voice had the wrong accent. Then he heard the click of rifles being cocked.
*
Next morning every single one of the camp inmates was called to muster on the strip of land in front of the huts. The commandant was a surly creature who stood stiffly in front of them, flanked by more guards than Freundlich had realised patrolled the camp. Not even the commander’s sharp uniform could make up for the fact that he was ugly. A giant black mole squatted on his left cheek.
‘There will be discipline in this camp. I will not tolerate fighting over food or any black market in goods. You are fed and you are cared for. Can’t you see that this is the best place for you in this war? You’re safe here.’
Freundlich’s jaw still smarted, and Mechau’s right eye was swollen, from the blows that the bully had landed. The guards had been rough in pulling them apart, but had insisted upon hearing all sides of the story before providing witch hazel and rags to treat their bruises.
