The Other Einstein(66)

I lowered myself to the couch, my hand trembling. My paper was being nominated for the Nobel Prize? No matter how many accolades the paper had already garnered, this tribute was beyond my wildest speculation. Even if no one ever learned of my role in the creation of the relativity theory, I felt a certain sense of peace that Lieserl’s death yielded this magnanimous laurel.

Admittedly, a tiny part of myself smarted that no recognition would fall to me. But when I realized that this award might be exactly what I needed, I tucked away my disappointment. Perhaps the Nobel Prize nomination would soften the loss of the Prague position and make staying in Zürich more palatable for Albert. Maybe he would realize that to climb to scientific heights, he didn’t need to leave Zürich.

That evening, I waited for Albert by the door with the letter and two congratulatory glasses of red wine, one for each of us. And I waited.

Nearly two hours after his usual arrival time home, he finally arrived. Instead of chiding him for his lateness, I smiled and handed him the wine and the letter.

“What’s this?” he asked gruffly.

“I think you’ll be pleased.”

As his eyes scanned the pages, I stretched out my glass, ready to toast him when he finished reading. Without clinking his glass to mine, he tossed back the proffered wine and muttered, “So the old boys are finally recognizing me.”

Recognizing “me”? Had he really just said that? As if he’d forgotten my authorship of the paper now in contention for the Nobel Prize. As if he’d rewritten history in his own mind such that he’d actually created the article himself. I didn’t know what to say; his statement stunned me. It was one thing to present the special relativity theory to the world as his own, but it was quite another thing to pretend to be its creator to me.

“You are happy that the committee is recognizing your paper?”

“Yes, Mileva, I am.” His eyes dared me to say more.

If I was stunned before, I was dumbfounded now.

Abruptly, he asked, “Is dinner ready?”

I realized then I had become only a hausfrau to Albert. Mother of his children. Cleaner of his home. Launderer of his clothes. Preparer of his meals. There would never be anything more.

These were the only crumbs Albert had left for me. Yet he seemed to loathe me for accepting his scraps.

I had a choice. I could leave Albert and take the children with me, destroying forever their chance of a normal family life and exposing them to the reputational stigma emanating from divorce, all because their father abandoned his promise to me. Or I could stay and try to fashion the best home life for them, walking away from the dream of a scientific partnership with Albert. A partnership, if I was truthful with myself, whose time had passed long ago. Either way, there was no hope of another collaboration. Only the happiness of my children. Certainly not myself. And all of that was dependent on Albert and his satisfaction.

As Albert walked to the dining room and sat at the table, ready for me to serve him dinner, I said, “Albert?”

“Yes?” he asked without bothering to turn back to me.

“I think we should go to Prague.”

? ? ?

Black industrial soot clogged the Prague air, and it settled on me like a deep depression. I felt as if I were swimming through sludge when I made my way through the dense warren of Prague streets with the boys. The unpleasantness of the city’s atmosphere was mirrored by the attitudes of its ethnically Germanic rulers and elite, whose rumored dislike of Slavic people and Jews was confirmed from the start. The mounting political instability in Austro-Hungary of which Prague was a part, as relations between the Ottoman Empire and Austro-Hungary continued to break down and the Serbs tried to create a nation for Southern Slavs within the Austro-Hungarian borders, only reinforced their adherence to their Germanic roots. They wanted to distance themselves from Slavs at all costs. How could I create the home life I’d decided upon in this setting?

Still, I tried. When brown water began running from the taps in our apartment in the Smíchov district on T?ebízského Street, I traipsed to a fountain up the street and hauled cooking water into our apartment, boiling it before use. When bedbugs and fleas infested our bedding, I made a grand show of heaping the beset items in a bonfire and exchanging the mattresses and dour blankets with brightly colored replacements. I turned the boys’ attention away from the lack of fresh milk, fruit, and vegetables and refocused them on the plentiful music available in concert halls and churches and the city’s exquisite architecture, particularly the famous town clock that sat above the Old Town Hall.

I stopped clamoring for work from Albert and tried to mold myself into the hausfrau role that he’d left for me. Yet Albert wasn’t present very often to witness my efforts. Theoretical work, teaching, and conferences filled his days, and nights out became his mainstay, leaving the boys and I alone for weeks. The only evidence of his continued presence was trails of clothes on the floor or the sound of his voice lecturing to colleagues in the living room late at night, after the Café Louvre had finally kicked them out or the weekly salon at Mrs. Berta Fanta’s home on Old Town Square closed down.

It wasn’t constant marginalization. Albert would sense that I’d reached the limits of his neglect and show up for a few family dinners. He’d toss the boys in the air and tickle them, and once, he even hinted at collaboration. “Should we return to relativity, Dollie? Should we explore the connection that gravity might have to relativity?” The next day, it was as if he’d never spoken the words. I tried not to let it bother me.