The Other Einstein(10)

“The name is as beautiful as they are.”

“Yes, I’ve always been partial to the name. It’s quite lyrical. Fagus sylvatica can live for nearly three hundred years. If given enough space to grow, they can reach nearly thirty meters. Crowd them, and their growth is stunted,” she said with an enigmatic smile.

I caught her unspoken meaning; in our own way, we were like Fagus sylvatica. I grinned back.

I glanced down at the hiking path. I was wary of my footing, even though I had not taken a misstep yet. I became so engrossed with the ground that I bumped into Milana, who had stopped suddenly. When I gazed over her shoulder to see what lay before us, I understood why.

We had reached the Albishorn, the peak of these woods, with its legendary vista. Spread before us was the vivid blue of Lake Zürich and the Sihl River, set off against white-capped mountains and rolling green hills dotted with farms. The blue of the Swiss waters was so much more brilliant than the muddy Danube of my youth; the Albishorn’s accolades were well deserved, particularly since the air was filled with the crisp wonder of the mountains’ ample evergreens.

I felt reborn here.

I took in a big breath of the invigorating air. I had done it. I had not been certain that I could manage this hike. I had never tried anything like it before. Only when the girls begged me to come—and Helene pointed out her own success on past Sihlwald hikes despite her limp—did I concede. Helene really left me with no excuse. Although her limp resulted from a childhood bout of tuberculosis in her hip and not a congenital hip defect like mine, her gait approximated my own. How could I claim that my disability prevented me from trying?

I had learned something new about myself. The unevenness of my legs was not as marked on uneven terrain. My disability was actually more pronounced on even ground. I could climb as well as any of the girls. What freedom.

I glanced over at Helene, and she smiled at me. I wondered if she had experienced the same self-doubts and the same revelation on this trail, even though she had hiked with her father growing up. When I smiled back, she reached for my hand and gave it a little squeeze. She released it only when she walked closer to the tip of the Albishorn for a better view.

The sun had set by the time we stumbled back into the Engelbrecht pension. The foyer seemed overstuffed and dim compared to the clear, bright, simple beauty of the wilderness, not to mention that it smelled cloyingly musty, no matter the cleaning lengths to which Mrs. Engelbrecht went. The maid helped us struggle out of our packs and rumpled coats, and we giggled with the effort.

“You girls are quite a sight!” Mrs. Engelbrecht said as she entered the foyer. The commotion had attracted her attention, and although she usually liked order and quiet in the pension, she could not help but laugh along with us.

“What a day we’ve had, Mrs. Engelbrecht!” Ru?ica said in her usual singsong.

“The Sihlwald was breathtaking as usual?”

“Oh yes,” Milana answered for us all.

Mrs. Engelbrecht turned to me. “And you, Miss Mari?? How did you find our jewel?” She had raved about the Sihlwald to me before our departure, reminisced about walks that she and Mr. Engelbrecht had taken there in the early days of their marriage.

The words to describe my experience did not come easily—for me, it was so much more than a mere hike—and I stammered. “It was so very…”

“So very…?” Mrs. Engelbrecht asked expectantly.

“Miss Mari? adored it, Mrs. Engelbrecht.” Helene came to my rescue. “Look, the Sihlwald rendered her speechless!”

Milana and Ru?ica chortled, and Mrs. Engelbrecht indulged us with another smile. “I’m delighted to hear it.”

Mrs. Engelbrecht pointedly glanced up at the clock on the wall and then scanned us. “Perhaps you will want to freshen up before dinner? It will be served in fifteen minutes, and the windy boat ride across Lake Zürich has wreaked havoc on your hair. Unordentliches Haar.” She emphasized the unsightliness of our appearance.

Even though we were brilliant university students outside the Engelbrecht pension, within the pension doors, we were ladies who were expected to be respectable at all times. I patted my hair. I had carefully braided it this morning, then swept the heavy braids together on top of my head in a topknot, thinking it would withstand the hike and return boat trip, but I felt a mass of curly tendrils slipping out of the braids, knotting together in places.

“Yes, Mrs. Engelbrecht,” Ru?ica said, answering for us all.

As we tromped upstairs to our rooms, I tried to untangle one particularly stubborn knot. No success. As Milana and Ru?ica tromped off to their respective rooms, Helene reached from behind me to help. I paused as she teased out the hairs.

“Do you want me to come to your room, and we can take turns with each other’s hair? Otherwise, I’m not sure we will make dinner in fifteen minutes,” she asked.

“Please.”

After I unlocked my door, I grabbed two combs and some hairpins from my dressing table. We settled onto my creaky bed, and Helene began the painful business of fixing my hair. We visited each other’s rooms often enough, but this was the first time I recalled ever working on each other’s hair, although I’d spotted Ru?ica and Milana creating styles for each other often enough.

“Ow,” I yelped.

“Sorry. There’s nothing for this birds’ nest other than a thorough combing. You’ll have your revenge in a few minutes.”