The Other Einstein(29)

“Truly? It looks exactly like my own!” another answered back.

The voices belonged to Ru?ica and Milana.

I stood up from the piano. The girls had finally arrived, forty minutes past the time we usually played music before dinner. More and more frequently, Ru?ica and Milana claimed they couldn’t make these previously sacrosanct appointments. Their excuses ranged from study sessions at school to late afternoon lectures to simply forgetting, but a clear pattern had emerged. If Helene couldn’t make the musical gathering, a more frequent occurrence these days as her relationship with Mr. Savi? deepened, or if Mr. Einstein was in attendance, then Ru?ica and Milana were unavailable.

Smoothing my skirt and taking a calming breath—I didn’t want to push the girls further away with my disappointment—I poked my head out of the parlor. “Hello, girls! Mr. Einstein and I were just beginning to play and hoping that you’d arrive soon. Care to play?”

Milana shot Ru?ica an inscrutable look. What did she mean by it? Once, I’d been able to read those glances as easily as I could read Papa’s, but now they were as incomprehensible to me as hieroglyphics. Had Helene been the glue holding our formerly merry band together? If so, bit by bit, the adhesive joining Ru?ica, Milana, and me together was dissolving, leaving us as distant friends and dining companions. Even when I sat across from them at meals, I missed them.

Milana spoke for both of them. “That is such a kind offer, Mileva, but Ru?ica and I were just lamenting the amount of work we have. I think we’ll retire to our rooms before the dinner bell rings.”

“Yes, Mileva. Not all of us can function on as little sleep as you,” Ru?ica said with a kindly wink. I was notorious for studying all night with my window open to keep me awake. Of the two, Ru?ica had remained the friendlier.

Giving me the politest of smiles, the sort normally reserved for maidenly aunts, not bosom friends, they trudged up the stairs to their rooms. I returned to the parlor, hurt and angry. Mr. Einstein and I had returned to the pension from our weekly Café Metropole coffee with our classmates instead of taking a stroll with them explicitly to meet the girls. And this was the treatment I received? What had I done to bear the brunt of such rejection, however kindly delivered?

I returned to the parlor from the entryway and plopped back down at the piano. My fingers found the keyboard, and with Mr. Einstein staring at me, I pounded out the music I was meant to play before the girls’ loud interruption. All my anger poured into those notes, until slowly, the fury drained from me, and my fingers desultorily plonked out the last bars.

“The girls are too busy to play with us,” Mr. Einstein said. He had been listening. To the girls. To me.

“Yes,” I said distractedly. “So they say.”

Why had Ru?ica and Milana decided to exclude me from all but the necessary interactions? I couldn’t fathom what I might have done to cause their behavior. After all, my relationship with Helene remained strong despite the time she spent with Mr. Savi?. Their affair had been a blow to me, but I could not object when I saw the happiness lighting up Helene’s face.

I stopped playing altogether. Perhaps the reason behind Ru?ica and Milana’s distance wasn’t me. Perhaps it was Mr. Einstein. With Helene gone so frequently, he had become more of a presence. Did Ru?ica and Milana object to him? His unkemptness, his familiarity, his jokes, his constant presence at the pension, his strangeness? These were some of the irreverent qualities I liked about him, the differences that drew us together. Was I paying for his perceived sins?

“What’s wrong?” he asked me.

“Nothing,” I answered distractedly.

“Miss Mari?, you and I have been friends for too long for lies.”

He was wrong about that. In every interaction I had with him, every day, I lied to him with my words and my body. I fabricated the false persona of Mileva Mari?, only classmate and friend. And I lied to myself, reassuring myself that, if I just pretended long enough not to care about him, it would become the truth.

I was sick of pretending.

I glanced over at him. Mr. Einstein sat on the settee by the fire, his usual spot, and was tuning his violin. I watched as he gently cradled the violin’s neck and turned the tuning pegs, puffing his pipe all the while. As the pipe smoke rose and he twanged the strings, I realized that my feelings about him had grown much deeper since Heidelberg. Why was I clinging to falsehoods? For Papa? For my promises to Helene that she herself had broken? Aside from Papa, Helene had been the most instrumental person in my decision to walk away from Mr. Einstein’s overtures, and I had lost her to Mr. Savi?. Had I sacrificed Mr. Einstein—and the possibility of a love I never thought I’d have—for nothing in return? For a lonely life of work as my sole calling? Certainly, Ru?ica and Milana were not going to be my consolation prize for Helene or Mr. Einstein. I used to think of the solitary scientific life somewhat romantically, but not anymore.

This time would not be like the Sihlwald forest. I would not be caught unaware. I would not walk away. I would seize this chance with both my hands and fashion the life of my dreams.

Mr. Einstein stopped working on his violin and looked up at me. I walked over to him and sat on the chair next to his. I leaned toward him, bringing my face so close to his I could feel his breath on my cheeks and his mustache on my lips. He didn’t move. My stomach fluttered. Was it too late?

“Are you certain, Miss Mari??” he whispered. I could feel his breath on my skin.