The Other Einstein(43)

“I know, Johnnie. These have been terribly hard days.”

“My poor little kitten. Preparing for your final exams and dealing with Weber are horrific tasks I remember well.” He clucked sympathetically.

“It’s been quite a bit more than that, Albert.”

He reached for my fingers and said, “I know, Dollie. After Como, it’s strange to be apart. Without you, I have no life.” Craning his neck to make sure no one lingered in the hallways adjoining the parlor, we stole a kiss.

The uniformed parlor maid, whose name I never bothered to remember as there seemed to be a new one every week, entered with a rattling tea tray. Albert and I sat down on the settee and waited expectantly for her to finish setting up the cerulean-blue teapot, cups, and sugar, and strain the tea. My heart thunked louder as the moments passed, but the maid wouldn’t leave. I wondered if Mrs. Engelbrecht had ordered her to keep watch over us.

Finally, Albert had enough of the maid’s presence, and pulling me to standing, he whispered, “Come, let’s leave this philistine prison. We need nature with all her freedom.”

Arm in arm, we walked the distance to Universit?tsspital Park. The air was clear and crisp, the sun agreeably bright, and for the first time in days, I felt light. We passed through the park gates, and I broke from Albert to admire a particularly bright bluish-purple alpine columbine.

As I leaned down for a whiff of its fragrance, I felt Albert’s hands around my waist. He whispered in my ear, “Not unplucked anymore, my little ragamuffin.”

I blushed.

We linked arms again as Albert talked about his week of teaching. After recounting the challenges of instructing high school boys, his focus returned to his private research—thought experiments, he called them—into thermoelectricity. Usually, we pursued projects together, but the demands of my dissertation and final exams made that impossible just now. “I’m not satisfied with my theory, Dollie.”

“Why, Johnnie?”

“As you know all too well, parts of it rely on Drude. But I’ve found some mistakes in Drude’s text. So how can I publish my paper if the research upon which it’s based is riddled with errors?”

He described the problems he’d identified in Drude’s work and asked for my advice. I thought for a moment, and said, “Well, perhaps if you wrote to Drude and pointed out his mistakes, you might feel more comfortable sharing your theories. You might even forge a useful alliance with him if you do it tactfully enough. One admirer of physics to the other, that sort of thing.”

“That’s a capital idea, Dollie. It’s a bold move, but we are bold bohemians, are we not?”

I smiled; I adored making Albert happy. Particularly when I was about to share some very unsettling news. “We are indeed.”

For a moment, we strolled in silence. Was this the right moment to bring up the pregnancy? Stuttering a bit, I lost my courage and instead asked him about something that had nagged me since Como. “Did you share our paper with the Winterthur Professor Weber?” I emphasized our paper; I wanted Albert to remember that I had given permission to remove my name from its authorship, but for this purpose only.

“Yes, yes,” he said distractedly.

“What did he make of our theories on the phenomena of capillarity?”

“He was quite interested,” he said, then returned to his musings on thermoelectricity. I didn’t pursue the topic any further. Albert was like an unstoppable train once his mind had fastened onto a particular idea, and there was no shaking him from thermoelectricity. He often said that since his family’s dwindling money supply was due solely to a short-lived electrical business his father had founded, it would be appropriate if he was the one who finally uncovered the scientific secrets about how electricity actually worked. It was soothing to see him happy and engaged after the long months of worry and moodiness.

I hated to spoil it. But I had no choice.

We stopped at the Café Metropole, securing a well-placed outdoor table with just enough seclusion. Albert was thrilled to be returning to our favorite spot now that he had a job, necessary armor for any acquaintances we might come across. Before I could say anything, Albert summoned a familiar waiter. “Two Milchkaffee please, Heinrich.”

The very second the waiter placed the cups down, Albert proudly paid for us both. Heinrich’s eyebrows raised in surprise—Albert never had the funds to pay for my coffee before—but he didn’t remark. As we clinked our cups in a toast, he said, “I wish we could pursue a beautiful life together right away. But between my parents and the fact that I could only land a temporary job just now, fate seems to have something against us, my sweet Dollie.”

“I know, Johnnie. It isn’t fair.”

Albert placed his cup down and stroked my cheek. “My love, this waiting will only make things better later on when the obstacles and worries have been overcome. Our luck will change soon.”

“Our luck cannot change soon enough.” Albert, of course, had no idea how very quickly I needed our luck to change.

He smiled. “I have some news for you. There is a secret I’ve been keeping from you.”

His smug grin told me he wasn’t serious, and I pretended at pouting. “We promised never to keep secrets from one another.” Even though I’d kept my own for nearly a week.

“This is a secret you will like, my sweet sorceress.” He paused before announcing, “In addition to the Bern prospect that Marcel suggested, Michele Besso has a possible job for me.”