The Other Einstein: A novel

In these chapters, the threat of Mileva’s dishonor becomes reality. She becomes pregnant outside of marriage, which creates several problems for her. Her reputation is thoroughly ruined, but she also endures morning sickness and other stresses related to her pregnancy while studying for the most important exams of her undergraduate career. Mileva fails her exams, signaling the symbolic beginning of the end of the career she sacrificed so much for. Ironically, her parents always thought of her as unmarriageable and unable to have children, yet it is her pregnancy that destroys her academic career. The pregnancy is a major turning point in Mileva’s life; it both ruins her career and gives her a new layer of hope. On the one hand, the failure of her exams is catastrophic. On the other hand, Mileva spent her life believing that she couldn’t be a mother, and she discovers an intense love for her daughter. Unfortunately, her circumstances prove that her concerns about marriage were well-founded: A woman in her era cannot have a family and a career in physics.

Mileva loses not only her dreams of career but also the chance to live as a family with Albert and their daughter due to his lack of commitment to her and their child and his family’s disapproval of the marriage. He wants Mileva to put the baby up for adoption, and he doesn’t marry her right away due to a lack of money and his family’s negativity. He has no concern for his daughter, even when she is dying, and he never even meets the child. What accounts for his apathy toward his pregnant girlfriend and his daughter? In this situation, Einstein demonstrates a depth of narcissism not seen in earlier chapters. He doesn’t have the courage to stand up for Mileva against his family, and he doesn’t extend his love for her to their daughter. Though he promised Mileva that being with him wouldn’t mean sacrificing her career and assured her that he would formalized their relationship before the baby’s arrival, Einstein leaves her to struggle through unplanned pregnancy and new motherhood without him. Benedict characterizes Einstein through these newly discovered flaws as selfish, irresponsible, destructive, and lacking a sense of urgency.

The positive aspect of this difficult period is the restoration of Mileva’s relationship with her mother. Mileva always found her mother distant and cold because Mileva chose the life of education that her father opened up to her. Without the prospect of marriage or motherhood, Mileva didn’t have the typical chores and housework other girls growing up had. This also meant she didn’t spend time bonding with her mother while learning those tasks, as most girls in her era did, and didn’t lighten her mother’s burden by helping her with them. Mileva saw her mother as on the periphery of her more important relationship with her father. As an adult and a soon-to-be mother, Mileva begins to understand her mother’s strength. She also draws closer to her mother as she learns how to cook and clean. She also realizes how much influence her mother has over her father and how intelligent and caring she is. When Mileva gives birth, her father and Einstein want the baby to be put up for adoption. Only Mileva’s mother, who is as horrified by the scandal as everyone else, sets aside social norms to care for the baby. Mileva’s mother falls in love with Lieserl, as Mileva does, connecting the women on an even deeper level. For the good of her daughter and her granddaughter, Mileva’s mother encourages her to return to Einstein while she takes over her maternal duties. Mileva’s mother becomes the only person Mileva she can trust to care for and protect her child as she would. In a world run by controlling men, Mileva again finds that her support system is female.

Einstein’s selfishness continues into his marriage with Mileva. He unreasonably refuses to send for Lieserl after he and Mileva get married. He doesn’t even visit the baby, who dies without him ever having met her. The child also dies without knowing the love of her mother because of their long separation due to Einstein’s controlling and dependent personality. He treats the death of his daughter with a complete lack of empathy. Lieserl is also a physical reminder of Einstein’s failings. He didn’t manage to procure a good job quickly after graduating university, thus delaying his promise to marry Mileva and failing to provide a good home for her and their daughter. His apathy also indicates that he doesn’t care to have the family that he and Mileva unexpectedly find themselves with. In their conversations about being together and getting married, they never spoke about having children, and Mileva always assumed that she could not bear a child. They didn’t plan for children in their life together, nor is there any evidence in the novel that either of them wanted a baby. This again highlights the differences in gender roles that drive the novel’s plot. As a woman, Mileva is tied to her pregnancy, whether she wanted to become pregnant or not. As a man, however, Einstein can pretend the child doesn’t exist; he keeps Mileva away during her pregnancy, doesn’t make the effort to meet the child, and is resentful at being left alone so she can care for her dying child.  

As a woman, Mileva has little choice but to endure these injustices. After failing her exams, sacrificing her identity and intellectual work for Einstein, fighting for her child, and then losing her, Mileva returns to her now-husband, Albert, pregnant with a second child. She has no other recourse but to continue with her relationship with Einstein, because in her era a single woman with a child is an unthinkable scandal and has no means of supporting herself or her offspring. Benedict offers some degree of hope for Mileva at the end of this section. While contemplating the tragedy of time on the train, Mileva conceptualizes what becomes Einstein’s crowning glory: the theory of relativity. Since it is common knowledge for a reader in the contemporary era that he alone receives credit for this theory, this scene has a contradictory role: It simultaneously foreshadows both hope for Mileva’s rejuvenated intellect and further censorship of her voice in Albert’s published work.