The Other Einstein(19)

“Can you tell me about it?” Helene asked.

I told her about that day as a frustrated seven-year-old.

“Did you ever act on your suspicion that you were a better math teacher than Miss Stanojevi??” She laughed.

“Actually, yes.” It felt strange to be sharing this incident.

“What happened?”

“For some reason, the teacher was called away from the classroom. She was gone a long time, and the girls began to chatter and wander away from their seats. Seriously disobeying the class rules, of course.”

“Of course.”

“One of the girls, Agata I think her name was, walked over to me. I wondered what she wanted. It wasn’t like I was friends with her or any of the other girls for that matter. I thought maybe she was going to make fun of me, you know?”

“I do know.”

“Instead, she leaned over my desk and asked me to explain multiplication to her. So using my own methodology, I started to explain Miss Stanojevi?’s lesson. As I talked, more and more girls drifted over to my desk, until nearly the whole classroom was gathered around me. Finally, even though it was risky, I limped up to the chalkboard. I did it to help them as much as to help myself. If I made the lesson easy for all of them, then maybe Miss Stanojevi? would be able to move on to something more interesting. Like division.”

“What was the methodology you showed them?”

“Instead of reviewing the tables Miss Stanojevi? had written on the board, I took a single equation: six times three. I told the girls not to memorize the equation but to think of it using addition, which they’d already started to understand. I explained that all six times three really meant was this: to add the number six three times. When I heard ‘eighteen’ called out a few times, I realized that I helped at least a couple of my classmates.”

“So that was the moment.”

“Actually, the moment came just after that. I turned away from the chalkboard and saw that Miss Stanojevi? had returned. She stood in the doorway with another teacher, Miss Kleine, at her side. Their jaws had dropped at the sight of a student at the chalkboard.”

We giggled, thinking of the bold little Mileva and her scandalized teacher.

“I froze, thinking that my knuckles would be rapped for my audacity. But incredibly, after the longest minute of my young life, Miss Stanojevi? smiled. She turned to Miss Kleine, and after they conferred for a moment, she said, ‘Well done, Miss Mari?. Will you kindly show us that lesson again?’” I paused. “That’s when I knew.”

“Knew that you were different? More clever?”

“Knew that my life wouldn’t be like the other girls’.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “The girls made sure that I understood that too, that I would never be one of them.”

I told Helene my secret story. How, later that same day, when I was walking home from school and carefully avoiding the scrubby field where the students played, Radmila, one of my classmates, walked over and invited me to join their games for the very first time. Even though I was suspicious and I wanted to look into Radmila’s muddy brown eyes and decline, part of me wanted a friend. So I said yes. The girls, who had already linked hands in a circle, opened their closed ranks to admit me and Radmila to their game. I joined in the games’ rhythmic swaying and silly chants, bobbing to and fro on the waves of the children’s hands, dust swirling around us. Then, suddenly, the rules changed. The pace increased furiously, and I was whipped around wildly. When my legs buckled beneath me, the children dragged me around the circle, chanting all the while. They then released my hands, tossed me in the circle’s center, dusty and bruised, and stood by laughing while I struggled to stand. Crying, I pushed myself to standing and hobbled down the dusty road toward home. I didn’t care if they laughed as I lurched down the road; they had already cut into me as deeply as they could go. Humiliation for my audacity in leading the classroom and for being different had been their goal all along.

“My own story is much the same,” Helene whispered. Reaching over to embrace me, she said, “Mitza, I wish I’d known you all my life.”

“Me too, Helene.”

“I apologize for being so hard on you today and for my obvious distrust of Mr. Einstein. I know I encouraged you to form an alliance with him initially, but I didn’t realize he’d be so, well, presumptuous and unorthodox. It’s taken me so long to find others like myself. I find it difficult—and I overreact—when it seems they are drifting away, particularly to someone I’m not certain deserves them.”

Squeezing her tight, I said, “I’m sorry, Helene. I wasn’t drifting away from you. By spending time with Mr. Einstein and his scientist friends, I actually thought I was moving closer to the professional goals we talk about so often. The men speak of nothing but the latest scientific developments at the café, advancements of which I would otherwise be unaware.”

She grew quiet. “I didn’t realize. I thought you were being lured by the ‘bohemian’ ways he’s always talking about. By him, not science.”

I rushed to correct her. “No, Helene. The time I spend with him is more in the manner of a colleague. I glean much from him professionally at school and at Café Metropole, no matter how frivolously he acts here.” But as I said these words to Helene, I realized they were not entirely true. My feelings were more complex; I felt alive in Mr. Einstein’s company, understood and accepted. The sensation was unique and unsettling.