The Other Einstein(8)

I organized my papers and began to slide them into my bag. Lenard’s article sat on top of the pile, and a phrase caught my attention. I began reading again and became so engrossed that I jumped when I heard my name.

“Miss Mari?, may I intrude on your thoughts?”

It was Mr. Einstein. His hair was wilder than ever, as if he had been running his fingers through his dark curls and willing them to stand on end. His shirt and jacket looked no better; they were rumpled almost beyond recognition. His disheveled appearance was at odds with the careful mien of the other students at the library. But unlike them, he was smiling.

“Yes, Mr. Einstein.”

“I’m hoping that you can help me with a problem.” He thrust a stack of papers into my hand.

“Me?” I asked without thinking and then chastised myself for my obvious surprise. Act confident, I told myself. You are every bit as bright as the other students in Section Six. Why shouldn’t a fellow classmate ask you for help?

But it was too late. My self-doubt had already been revealed.

“Yes, you, Miss Mari?. I think you’re quite the smartest in our class—by far the best at maths—and those Dummkopfs over there”—he gestured to two of our classmates, Mr. Ehrat and Mr. Kollros, who stood between two book stacks, whispering and gesticulating wildly to one another—“have tried to help me and failed.”

“Certainly,” I answered. I was flattered by his assurances but still wary. If Helene were here, she would urge caution but also push me to forge a collegial alliance. Next term, I would need a lab partner, and he might be my only option. In the six months since I had entered the physics program and sat in class with the same five students every day, the others had shown only the basest civilities and an otherwise practiced indifference toward me. By his daily kindnesses in greeting me and occasionally inquiring into my thoughts on Professor Weber’s lectures, Mr. Einstein had proven to be my sole hope.

“Let me see.” I looked down at his papers.

He had passed me a nearly incomprehensible mess. Was this the kind of unorganized work that my fellow students were doing? If so, I did not have to worry about my own efforts. I glanced over his messy computations and quickly spotted the error. It was laziness, really, on his part. “Here, Mr. Einstein. If you switch these two numbers, I believe you will arrive at the proper solution.”

“Ah, I see. Thank you for your assistance, Miss Mari?.”

“It’s my pleasure.” I nodded and turned back to the business of packing up my belongings.

I felt him peering over my shoulder. “Are you reading Lenard?” he asked, surprise evident in his voice.

“Yes,” I answered, continuing to pack my bag.

“He isn’t part of our curriculum.”

“No, he isn’t.”

“I’m quite amazed, Miss Mari?.”

“Why is that, Mr. Einstein?” I turned to face him square on, daring him to challenge me. Did he think I couldn’t handle Lenard, a text far more complicated than our basic physics curriculum? Because he was quite a bit taller than me, I was forced to look up. My short stature was a disadvantage that I had come to loathe as much as my limp.

“You seem the consummate student, Miss Mari?. Always in attendance at class, following the rules, scrupulous in your note-taking, toiling for hours in the library instead of whiling them away in the cafés. And yet, you are a bohemian like me. I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“A bohemian? I don’t catch your meaning.” My words and tone were sharp. By calling me bohemian, a word I associated with the Austro-Hungarian region of Bohemia, was he insulting my heritage? From cracks made by Weber in class, Mr. Einstein knew I was Serbian, and the prejudice of the Germanic and western European people such as himself against easterners was well known. I had wondered about Mr. Einstein’s own heritage, even though I knew he hailed from Berlin. With his dark hair and eyes and distinctive last name, he didn’t look the traditional Germanic blond. Perhaps his family settled in Berlin from somewhere else?

He must have sensed my latent anger, because he rushed to clarify himself. “I use the word bohemian in the French manner, after the word bohémien. It means independent in your thinking. Progressive. Not so bourgeois as some of our classmates.”

I did not know how to read this exchange. He didn’t seem to be mocking me; in fact, I thought he was trying to compliment me with his strange bohemian label. I felt more uncomfortable by the minute.

Busying myself with the remaining sheaf of papers on the carrel’s desk, I said, “I must go, Mr. Einstein. Mrs. Engelbrecht keeps to a strict schedule at her pension, and I mustn’t be late for dinner. Good evening.” I sealed my bag shut and curtsied in farewell.

“Good evening, Miss Mari?,” he answered with a bow, “and my gratitude for your help.”

I passed through the arched oak door of the library and across its small stone courtyard out onto R?mistrasse, the busy street bordering the Polytechnic. This boulevard overflowed with boardinghouses, where Zürich’s plentiful students slept at night, and cafés, where those same students debated great questions in the daylight hours not spent in class. From my furtive glances, it seemed that coffee and pipes were the primary fuel for these heated café conversations. But this was only a guess. I didn’t dare join in at one of these tables, even though I once spied Mr. Einstein with a few friends at an outdoor table at Café Metropole, and he waved me over. I pretended not to see him; sightings of women alongside men for these free-spirited café exchanges were rare, and it was a line I couldn’t yet bring myself to cross.