The Other Einstein(76)

Even after the question period ended and Albert stepped down from the stage, he was swarmed with scientists. Some sought answers to esoteric inquiries, and others sought his autograph on various papers and articles he’d drafted. When the throng thinned out, he walked toward us.

“What did you think, Helene?” he asked. Incredibly, even after all the flattery, he sought more. From everyone but me.

“Most impressive, Albert.” Helene spoke to the number of attendees and their fawning reaction, the exact response Albert sought. What else could she say? I knew she didn’t understand the math or the physics; she was a history student.

Walking down the long aisles toward the hall exit and then out onto the sidewalk, Helene and Albert nattered on. I overheard her ask about Berlin, and he responded enthusiastically above the move.

As Albert had requested, I walked a few steps behind them. When peers stopped Albert with questions or comments on his talk, they addressed Helene as “Mrs. Einstein,” no matter her attempts at correcting them. Me, a dark shadow cast behind Albert’s light, they utterly ignored.

On one street corner, Albert became engrossed in a debate with the persistent Professor Mie, and Helene and I took our leave. Albert had other meetings to attend anyway. Spotting a cozy café on a nearby street corner, we ordered coffee and two Linzer tortes, the city’s specialty.

Biting into the intoxicating blend of cinnamon, almond, and raspberry, Helene sat back and sighed as she chewed. “It’s been so long since I tasted anything this decadent.”

“You have suffered so much hardship, Helene.” I had taken note of her frayed blue gown—almost a patchwork quilt with its mending and stitchery—which was undoubtedly her best.

“Things haven’t been easy for you either, Mitza.”

“Oh, not nearly as bad as for you. I haven’t had trouble finding healthy food or basic necessities. I haven’t had the specter of war looming over me. I’m fine; it’s just the same sort of marital distress that you’ve suffered too.” Although she hadn’t mentioned marital troubles for some time, I was ever mindful of it.

“Mitza, you may not have been dealing with the harsh reality of war on a regular basis, but your situation is terrible. Why do you think I’m here? Your letters had me so worried I found a way to travel to Vienna to check on you. But now that I see you and Albert in person—and I stare my beautiful friend in the eyes—I think you are far worse than you described. Worse even than when you lost Lieserl.”

Conflicting feelings coursed through me. I wanted to protest that all was well enough, the mantra I’d been uttering to myself for years, the rationale I’d offered over and over to Mama and Papa, but my true feelings bubbled to the surface. I started crying.

“Mitza, you walk behind Albert like a servant. His colleagues were calling me Mrs. Einstein, for God’s sake, and neither you nor Albert corrected them. No matter the private troubles I’ve endured with my husband, I always have his public respect. How has it come to this?”

“I don’t know, Helene,” I said through my tears. “I don’t know.”

“I no longer care for Albert,” Helene said. “I do not like the person he has become.”

It was as if a great weight had been lifted from me. No one else saw the man behind the public mask. “Truly, Helene? I could hug you for saying that. Other friends still admire him for his scientific achievement, even when they’ve witnessed his treatment of me. It’s as if they’ve transformed their professional admiration into unshakable personal affection, no matter how contemptibly he has acted.”

Helene grabbed me by the shoulder, forcing me to look her in the face. “Where are you, Mitza? Where is the brilliant girl I knew from the Engelbrecht Pension? You seemed so quiet back then, but you were always ready to lance anyone with your sharp wit when necessary. Where has that girl gone? We need her back.”

Terrible heaving sobs wracked my body. The prim café’s patrons stared at me, but I didn’t care. “I don’t know where she’s gone, Helene,” I cried.

“Mitza, you must wake up that latent part of yourself, that strong girl you’ve allowed to fall asleep for so many years. Because the future has become clear to me, even though I’m no soothsayer. You are going to have to do battle.”





Chapter 39


July 18, 1914

Berlin, Germany

Albert had been gone for six days, his longest unexplained absence since we arrived in Berlin. Six days of Hans Albert and Tete asking about their father’s whereabouts. Six days of running into Albert’s colleagues, who shared tales of wondrous lunches and dinners they’d just experienced with the lauded professor. Six days of pretending that all would be well when he chose to return to our apartment at 33 Ehrenbergstra?e after storming off when I simply asked if he would be home for dinner that evening.

But all wouldn’t be well when—or if—he returned. At Helene’s urging and Madame Curie’s example, I had awoken my strength. I would not endure humiliation at Albert’s hands again, whether personal or professional. If Albert didn’t appreciate the meek helpmate I had become in our latter years together—the failed physicist from whom he could pilfer ideas at will and the wife bendable at his beckoning—he positively loathed the return of the old Mileva in Berlin. And that was precisely who would greet him at the door when he returned from his cowardly flight to his lover, Elsa.