The Other Einstein(17)

Ru?ica continued apace, and at first, I wasn’t certain that she had heard the call. But then she shot me a furtive glance, and I realized that she was pretending not to hear. To force Mr. Einstein to seek us out again. I had no experience with guile, so I took Ru?ica’s lead and kept strolling. Only when Mr. Einstein cried out our names again and Ru?ica glanced in the direction of his voice did I allow my eyes to follow.

Mr. Einstein nearly sprinted across the boulevard from Café Metropole to the sidewalk upon which we stood. “Ladies,” he yelled, “what a delightful surprise! I insist that you join me and my friends. We are deep in debate over J. J. Thomson’s demonstration that cathode rays contained particles called electrons, and we could use some fresh opinions.”

Releasing our grip on each other, Ru?ica and I followed Mr. Einstein to the café. The tables were packed elbow-to-elbow with male students, and we wove through the throngs to reach Mr. Einstein’s group of three jammed into a back corner. How had he seen us from this awkward vantage point? His gaze must have been fixed on the street.

Two gentlemen rose and stood alongside Mr. Einstein for the introductions. I realized that I knew one of the men quite well, by sight at least. It was Mr. Grossman, one of my five other classmates. Other than general greetings and necessary classroom exchanges, he and I had never really spoken. The other man was the Mr. Besso that Mr. Einstein had mentioned to me. Dark-haired with brown eyes bearing a humorous spark, he smiled easily.

The men busied themselves borrowing the few free chairs from other café patrons and arranging them around the table for us. As we settled into our seats, Mr. Besso offered to pour us some coffee and order some pastries.

Ru?ica and I glanced at each other and burst into laughter at the mere thought of another morsel of food or drink. With quizzical expressions, the men stared at us, forcing me to explain. “We just came from Conditorei Schober.”

“Ah,” Mr. Grossman said knowingly, “I completely understand. My mother visited from Geneva last week, and we spent a long afternoon there. I don’t think I ate for two days afterward.” These words were the most Mr. Grossman had spoken to me since we became classmates and were most agreeable. For the first time, I wondered whether the fault in our communication was mine.

The men launched back into their discussion of J. J. Thomson’s experiment, and Ru?ica and I grew quiet. This situation was new to me. Should we voice opinions, I wondered, or wait until asked. I worried that Mr. Grossman and Mr. Besso would misinterpret my shyness for sullenness or ignorance, but I didn’t want to be overbold either.

“Miss Mari?, what do you think?” Mr. Einstein asked, as if he could hear my thoughts aloud.

With his encouragement and invitation, I said, “I wonder whether the particles Mr. Thomson found with his cathode rays might be the key to understanding matter.”

The men were quiet, and immediately, I recoiled. Had I said too much? Had I said something stupid?

“Well said,” Mr. Besso said.

Mr. Grossman nodded along. “I quite agree.”

The three men catapulted back into the debate about the existence of atoms that had obviously started before Ru?ica and I arrived, and I grew silent again. But not for long. When the next break in the conversation occurred, I began to interject my opinions. Once it became evident that I would not recede into my shell like a mollusk, the others sought out my thoughts as we moved into a discussion about experiments from around Europe, in particular Wilhelm R?ntgen’s discovery of X-rays. Even though I tried to solicit from her a political science perspective on these developments, Ru?ica remained uncharacteristically quiet throughout. Did the company of Mr. Einstein and his friends disappoint? Had she hoped for a more traditionally structured exchange, with the regular pleasantries instead of this scientific conversation?

Perhaps this adventure had not developed precisely as Ru?ica hoped, but for me, this inclusion, this discussion, Mr. Einstein’s confidence in me, made me feel alive, as electric as the currents running throughout Zürich. I tried not to think what Mr. Einstein’s encouragement might mean beyond this.

? ? ?

“Is that you, Mileva? You missed the Mozart!” I heard Milana call out from the gaming room.

Oh no. The Mozart. Two times this week alone, I had missed my musical appointments with the girls. My cheeks were now flushed with more than exhilaration over my afternoon at Café Metropole.

I crept into the back parlor, not bothering to hide my nervousness over their reception or my own sheepishness at my behavior. Why should I? I deserved blame; these girls had offered me affection and emotional shelter in a new place, and I could not even keep my meetings with them. At the first distraction, I was off. I was a poor friend indeed.

Ru?ica, Milana, and Helene sat around the gaming table, china tea cups emptied and instruments strewn about. The musical interlude was plainly finished—or perhaps never even begun due to my absence—and undoubtedly they were stewing over me. For once, their expressions matched the sternness of their attire.

“It wasn’t the same without you on tamburitza,” Ru?ica scolded, but I could see the affection and teasing behind her disappointment. She would be hard-pressed to berate me further; after all, she was the one who had practically dragged me into the coffeehouse culture, even though she’d declined to join in our discussions since. Too scientific, she’d labeled them.