The Other Einstein(55)

If the train left the station at rapid speeds approaching the speed of light, the clock’s hands would still move, but the train would be moving so quickly that light could not catch up with it. The faster the train accelerated, the slower the hands would move, ultimately freezing once the train reached the speed of light. Time would effectively freeze. And if the train could go faster than the speed of light—an impossibility, but for argument’s sake, assumed—then time might roll backward.

There it was. The new rule was so simple and natural. Newton’s laws about the physical universe only applied to inert objects. No one needed to be bound by the old rules anymore. Time was relative to space. Time was not absolute. Not when there is motion.

This new law was so simple and natural. Elegant, even as it challenged Newton’s physical laws that had held fast for hundreds of years and the new laws about light waves proposed by Maxwell. It was the sort of divine law for which I’d been searching my whole life. Why did God only allow me to see his handiwork after so much suffering?

But I did not have a train that traveled the speed of light or faster. I had no way to halt or roll back time. My newly uncovered law wouldn’t bring Lieserl back.





Chapter 26


October 13, 1903

Bern, Switzerland

On this occasion, Albert came to the Bern station.

“Dollie,” he cried out merrily as he lifted me down the final step from the train. “How your belly has grown in only two months!”

In truth, my belly was a little larger than when I’d left, although hardly big enough for the usually dreamy Albert to notice in normal circumstances.

I tried to smile as we left the station and hopped in a hansom cab to our apartment. I attempted to leave the sadness of Ka? behind as I breathed in the familiar antiseptic smells of Bern—the crisp Swiss air with hints of evergreen, the freshly scrubbed laundry drying in the wind, the woodsy smell of freshly lit fireplaces. I struggled to focus on our new little girl, as Albert kept calling the baby in my belly, and his warm welcome home. I even endeavored to listen to his chatter about his boss, the director of the Swiss Patent Office, Friedrich Haller. I even nodded encouragingly when he said, “You’ll see. I’ll get ahead so we don’t have to starve.”

Very obviously, Albert was trying to divert the mood from the melancholy loss of Lieserl to the more hopeful future. But I couldn’t pretend for long. How could I act as if our beautiful daughter hadn’t lived? How could I forget her horrible, pain-filled death?

My tears began falling as soon as we entered our apartment. When I left for Serbia, I’d hoped that when I next crossed the apartment’s threshold, Lieserl would be in my arms. Instead, my arms hung unfilled at my sides—superfluous limbs.

“Oh, Dollie, it’s not so bad as that!” Albert said, gesturing around the dusty, paper-strewn living room. “I tried to keep up on the cleaning, but your Johnnie doesn’t have the knack. Anyway, I think a cluttered, busy house signals a cluttered, busy mind…and, well, I’ll let you guess what I think a clean, empty house signals.”

He smiled at me, those familiar crinkles appearing around his eyes. I reached up and stroked his cheek gently, wishing desperately that affection without sadness or anger would return to my bereft interior. Instead, the tears flowed again.

I let my hand drop down and ignored his beseeching eyes. Walking into the bedroom, I lay down on our bed, curling into a ball. I didn’t even have the strength to remove my traveling coat or boots. I was so very tired and soul-sick. Albert stared at me for a long minute and then sunk down into the mattress at my side.

“What is it, Dollie?” He sounded genuinely perplexed, as if he’d expected me to bustle in from the train station and whip up a four-course dinner with a radiant smile.

“How can you not know?” I asked, not hiding my anger at his ignorance. When he didn’t respond, I muttered, “You are a genius at everything but the human heart.”

The loquacious Albert was rendered momentarily speechless. Finally, incredibly, he guessed, “It’s Lieserl, isn’t it?”

I didn’t answer. There was no need. My silence, broken only by sobs, answered for me. Albert looked over at me helplessly.

“I imagined her here with us, Albert,” I tried to explain. “Every single day I was in this apartment with you, I was waiting for her to join us. Each time I passed a park or strolled to the market, I thought, ‘I will bring my Lieserl here soon.’ But that will never happen now.”

Our bedroom was absolutely still for a long time but for the ticking of our bedside clock. Finally, Albert spoke. “I’m very sorry about what happened to Lieserl.”

His mouth uttered the correct words of solace and consolation, but I couldn’t hear any emotion in his voice. He sounded hollow and false, like an automaton.

It seemed I had a choice. I could cling to my fury at the unfairness of Lieserl’s death and my anger at Albert for his incomprehension and selfishness. Or I could surrender my wrath and instead embrace hope for a new family life with this baby. The sort of life I’d wished for Lieserl.

Which path would I choose?

Inhaling deeply, I stilled my breathing and wiped my tears. I chose life. For a successful life with Albert, that meant choosing science. It was the language in which we first communicated and the only one Albert comprehended perfectly.