The Other Einstein(26)

“Of course I forgive you for not writing me back.” I sounded flat and formal. Come on, I told myself. Be the old teasing Mitza with him. You want the relationship to return to normal, don’t you? Act as if it already had. With a taunting voice, I said, “After all, you’ve forgiven me for leaving, haven’t you?”

His face broke open in a wide grin, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m so relieved, Miss Mari?. You departed so quickly, and I was afraid—” He stopped himself. I knew he was about to refer to our kiss. Thinking better of it, he said, “I’m sure you won’t regret your decision to return, even if we don’t have such esteemed professors on our faculty as you did at Heidelberg. No Lenards here.”

He asked if he could escort me to the library, and I agreed. As we walked across the plaza, he regaled me with stories of heated debates at the Café Metropole, hikes he had tackled in the mountain ranges outside Zürich, and sails he and his friends had launched on Lake Zürich. The stories were so smooth and rehearsed, they seemed crafted just for retelling to me.

“You must sail with me and Mr. Besso when the weather breaks. Perhaps your lady friends from the Engelbrecht Pension might like to join? They are an adventurous group,” he said as we entered the library.

“You’ve painted such a dangerous picture, I’m not at all certain that we’d be safe,” I jested.

A librarian passed by and glared at us, and two students looked annoyed at our loud chatter, so we quickly quieted and settled into adjoining carrels. Reaching into his messy bag, he pulled out a stack of notebooks. Typically, he only carried one notebook to class. He must have planned on delivering this pile to me today.

Handing them to me, he whispered, “Everything you need to catch up on your studies can be found in these notebooks. They contain notes from Hurwitz’s lectures on differential equations and calculus. I think I captured Herzog’s talks about the strength of materials. I tried to get every scrap of Weber’s lectures on the qualities of heat. Oh, and I didn’t forget Fiedler’s lectures on projective geometry and number theory.”

I felt sick as I flipped through the notebooks. I had tried to keep up while in Heidelberg, but had I really missed this much? How could I possibly catch up? Not only had I missed half of Weber’s linchpin physics class, but I’d missed these other foundational classes. I needed to become proficient in this material before I could begin to comprehend my current and future courses. For the first time, I understood how stupid I’d been to go to Heidelberg. How, in trying to be strong and not let a man swerve me from my path, I’d actually let a man dictate my course.

I gave Mr. Einstein a wan smile, but my distress must have been evident. He stopped rattling off the theories I’d need to learn and the calculations I’d need to master and studied my expression, glimpsing outside himself for a rare moment. He placed his hand on my upper arm in a cautious gesture of reassurance. “Miss Mari?, you will be fine. I will help you.”

Taking a deep breath, I said, “Thank you, Mr. Einstein. You’ve been extremely generous and kind in assembling these notebooks for me. Especially given the way I left and our—”

He gently shook his head. With a solemn tone I’d never heard from him before, he said, “We need not speak of it. You know how I feel, and you have made your position clear. I will happily abide by your wishes to secure your ongoing friendship. I would not jeopardize that for anything.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, more ambivalent than ever.

His hand moved up and down my arm in a gentle caress. “Please know that I will be waiting. Should you ever change your mind.”

As I tried to process his words, he dropped his hand, and his mischievous smile returned. “Now, let’s get back to work, you little escapee.”





Chapter 10


June 8, 1898

Zürich, Switzerland

“How can he ignore the latest theorists? It is unconscionable for a man of science,” Mr. Einstein exclaimed to me and Messrs. Grossman, Ehrat, and Kollros over coffee at the Café Metropole. As I listened to him, I thought how, in many ways, my days were passing precisely as they had before I left for Heidelberg. Or better. Just as Mr. Einstein had promised.

I glanced around the table at my Section Six classmates as Mr. Einstein continued his rant. We’d formed the habit of going to our favorite coffeehouse every Friday after last class, and my classmates had revealed themselves to be far more approachable and welcoming than I assumed. And more human as well. I learned that Mr. Ehrat was a worrier who kept his place at university only through sheer hard work. Mr. Kollros, who hailed from a French village, was cut from much the same cloth as Mr. Ehrat, only with a strong French accent. Only Mr. Grossman, from an old, aristocratic Swiss family, was naturally gifted, especially in the area of mathematics.

In between sips of coffee or drags on their pipes and cigars, everyone expressed their frustration with Professor Weber’s stubborn adherence to only classical physicists’ theories and refusal to pursue the latest ideas. Mr. Einstein’s face alone displayed actual anger. Once Mr. Einstein had become certain that Weber wasn’t going to cover any more recent material beyond theories created by his beloved teacher Helmholtz, including contemporary topics like statistical mechanics or electromagnetic waves, he had grown furious.