The Other Einstein(45)
I heard myself say, as if I were looking down on myself from above, “That is exciting.” My tone must not have matched my words, because Albert stopped his monologue. He dragged himself out of the distracting inner workings of his mind and saw me. Really saw me. And for a second, himself.
“Oh, Dollie, I’m sorry. I want you to be free from pressure about this. I promise I’ll continue hunting for any sort of permanent job, and I’ll accept any role. No matter how inferior. As soon as I’ve secured this job, we will marry without even bothering to tell our parents until it’s all done. When your parents and mine are presented with this certainty, they’ll have to accept it.”
“Really?” He was finally saying the words I was desperate to hear, although his focus was too locked upon parental reaction. At this point, I needed the armor of marriage far more than parental approval. I already knew how much his parents would dislike this news; his mother loathed me.
“Really. We’ll live the bohemian life we’ve always dreamed of, working together in our own home on our research.” His eyes crinkled deeply at the corners when he grinned widely. “Only with a little boy on our laps.”
I closed my eyes and rested my head on his shoulder. And for an indulgent minute, I allowed Albert’s beautiful dream to envelope me.
Chapter 19
August 20, 1901, and November 7 through 18, 1901
Ka?, Serbia, and Stein am Rhein, Switzerland
There had been no pretty package of a marriage complete with a job for both of us to present to our parents. When Albert failed to secure a permanent position again and again after his job in Winterthur concluded, we had no choice but to inform our parents of our situation. After all, we would be under their roofs for the coming months. I would have to return to my parents at the Spire in Ka?; I’d completed the exams, and while I awaited results that I knew were terrible, I couldn’t remain in Zürich to work on my dissertation as my pregnancy became more evident. Albert, who had no financial net, had to retreat to his parents, who were taking their holiday in Mettmenstetten at the Hotel Paradise. The fact that he would be in paradise while I would be facing hell at the Spire in Ka? rankled.
Papa’s anguish over the baby was worse than any rage he might have inflicted upon me. When I told him, his broad shoulders slumped, and he cried for the third time in my life. “Oh, Mitza, how could you?” He didn’t need to speak aloud what I knew he was thinking: that he’d carved a path for me through the all-male wilderness of science and math, and I had jettisoned it all for nothing. I let my entire family down.
Papa’s disappointment when the exam results arrived in the mail had paled in comparison. Immediately after I shared my pregnancy news, I’d prepared Papa for the failing final exam grades I believed were inevitable. I told him how hard I’d studied but how horribly ill I’d been in the days and weeks leading up to and including the oral exams—the perpetual nausea, retching, and dizziness that plagued my days and nights, worsened by the ever more difficult lacing of my corset. I explained to him how I’d had to race midquestion from the examination room so that I did not heave in front of my examiners, Professor Weber among them. My descriptions to Papa almost didn’t matter, and neither did the grades once they actually arrived as I’d predicted. He knew that all my professional dreams were lost the minute I became pregnant; failing the exams was a secondary defeat. Even the possible adoption for the baby that he kept hinting at could not restore my honor or my career.
Mama cared only for the redemption of my soul. Prayers to the Virgin, beseeching Mary to forgive my sin, were an hourly affair, although I detected a hint of vulnerability when Mama asked how I felt. She mentioned that it was rare enough for women with my hip condition to get pregnant and even rarer for them to deliver safely. New prayers were added for my health and the health of the baby, but her head hung low, heavy with her shame.
Only the letter from Albert’s parents softened my parents’ treatment of me. “Whore,” Mr. and Mrs. Einstein called me. Although both their signatures appeared on the letter, I knew that Mrs. Einstein was its author. Mr. Einstein was too soft for such invectives.
Hateful names. Hateful accusations. Words I wouldn’t say aloud, let alone write to the mother of my grandchild.
“This letter is not only offensive, it’s nonsensical,” Papa said after his rare outburst of fury—punching sofas and kicking walls—subsided. A wry smile appeared on his rage-reddened face. “Who would want to trap an unemployed physics student?”
I had to laugh. He was right. On paper, Albert was no prize. It was the sole moment of merriment in weeks of misery.
“If Albert’s mother thinks we would permit our beautiful Serbian daughter to marry her rapscallion son, she is sorely mistaken,” Papa announced and sat down to write his response. Papa would rather I raise this illegitimate child on my own or have it adopted by another family, no matter the damage to my standing and our family’s reputation, than entangle our family with Albert’s evil parents any further.
I was better off without him, he believed.
To Helene, I confessed everything: the pregnancy, my concerns about Albert’s commitment, our struggles with our parents. I wrote to Helene of Albert’s mother: “How could the world contain such abominable people? It seems clear that her purpose is to ruin three lives: mine, that of her son, and that of her grandchild!” Helene alone displayed compassion for my situation rather than rage or worry or fear for my soul.