The Other Einstein(65)
“Harsh words?”
How could he have forgotten?
“You don’t really believe that the pregnancy with Lieserl was some sort of hysteria I manufactured as you were starting your patent job, do you?” I asked.
His arms dropped to his side, and he grew quiet. “No, I don’t, Mileva. If I said that, I didn’t mean it.”
“You do realize how difficult that pregnancy was for me? Unmarried and alone, no prospects for a future career, bearing a child? Having Lieserl changed my life. For better and worse.”
I had never spoken to Albert of Lieserl so bluntly. At the time, I’d been too afraid of losing him. Or of losing Lieserl.
“Yes, yes, of course.” He answered too quickly. I sensed that he didn’t truly understand the impact the pregnancy had on my life, that he just wanted peace from me and would say whatever he thought I wanted to get it.
He must have sensed the dissonance between us, because he wrapped his arms around me again and said, “Dollie, can we please make this move to Zürich a fresh start? A new beginning of love and work and collaboration?”
Collaboration? Albert knew my susceptibilities. I allowed myself to stare into his coffee-brown eyes. Within their liquid depths, I swear I saw a different future. Or perhaps I saw what I wanted to see.
I longed to say yes, to believe in Albert, but I couldn’t be so foolhardy. “Do you promise that we will work together again? That in Zürich, you will make time for the sort of physics projects we created for the Annalen der Physik? The articles that have made you so famous and secured you this new Zürich job?” I needed to remind him on whose back he climbed for the heights he now inhabited.
He blinked but didn’t waver. “I promise.”
Did I believe him? Did it matter? I had my vow and couldn’t hope for more. So I said, “Yes, Zürich can become our fresh start.”
Chapter 33
October 20, 1910, and November 5, 1911
Zürich, Switzerland, and Prague, Czechoslovakia
The familiar charms of Zürich worked their magic on me from the very beginning. The aroma of coffee and evergreens in the air, the animated chatter of students in cafés batting about the latest notions of the day, and the allure of strolls through the ancient streets and along the banks of the Limmat River transformed me back into a younger, livelier version of myself. I became the hopeful Mitza of my youth, even when Albert failed to keep his promise of undertaking a project with me.
In lieu of a project with Albert, I found a surprising outlet for my scientific longings. By happy coincidence, we discovered that a Polytechnic graduate who started the mathematics and physics program after our departure and was now assistant to the head of the University of Zürich’s physics program, Friedrich Adler, and his wife, Katya Germanischkaya, a Lithuanian-born Russian who studied physics at the Polytechnic after we left, had an apartment in our building on Moussonstrasse. We became fast friends with the couple, sharing meals with them and their young children, music, and scientific and philosophical discussions. My satisfaction became even more complete when I learned I was pregnant, a state for which I’d prayed for years. For a time, we inhabited the blissful bohemian world of which Albert and I once dreamed—as long as I didn’t allow myself to reflect on his broken promises of work.
But then, a mere six months after our arrival, just as I’d gotten fully settled back into Zürich life, Prague began calling. The prestigious German University of Prague dangled before Albert a full physics professorship and the accompanying position of director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics. I knew this to be an irresistible carrot for him. Double the money, a full professorship instead of his junior professor status, and the head of a theoretical physics institute—how could he resist? Still, I begged him not to take us away from our happy life in Zürich, particularly when our second son Eduard was born on July 28, 1910. Tete, as we called him, emerged into the world very sickly, suffering from one childhood infection after another and sleeping very little. I worried how he would fare in Prague, notorious for pollution as industrialization increased in the ancient city. For nearly a year, Albert acquiesced to my wishes and declined the job, although his displeasure grew.
I sought to alleviate his discontent by expanding our world beyond the Adlers and arranging regular Sunday evenings of music with Polytechnic professor Adolf Hurwitz and his family. I wanted to remind him of the lure of Zürich and reconnect us through our shared love of music. But nothing helped his darkening mood.
His desire for the Prague job soured him on Zürich. And because of my resistance to Prague, his feelings toward me soured further.
One crisp autumn afternoon, the fall sun reflecting off the Limmat River in the distance, a large envelope arrived in the mail. It was addressed to Albert in formal script and bore a Swedish return address. Who could be writing Albert from Sweden? I didn’t think his notoriety had spread that far.
Climbing up the stairs, I placed baby Tete in his bassinet and settled Hans Albert with a book. Because I handled the family finances and, consequently, all correspondence fell to me, I sliced open the letter, even though it was addressed to Albert. To my astonishment, the letter came from the Nobel Prize Committee. It informed Albert that Nobel Prize chemistry laureate Wilhelm Ostwald had nominated him for the Nobel Prize based on the 1905 paper on special relativity.