I stood up. An envelope slithered under the door. It contained two letters. Holmes studied the first and moved on to the second. He read it through twice before returning to the first.
‘As your German is shaky, Watson, I’ll translate. Both these letters were posted from Mileva in Novi-Sad to Albert nearly two years ago. In this one she calls Albert “Johnnie” and signs herself Dollie. She indicates she is enceinte - with her son Hans Albert as it turned out. Not feeling well ‘just like the first time’ confirms she had been so before.
Friday 19 June 1903
My Dearest Little Johnnie,
Your poor Dollie misses you terribly. I’m not feeling at all well, just like the first time. It’s so hot even the quail are hiding in the tall grass. Here I am, stuck in stinky Novi-Sad dreaming I am walking in the cool Bernese Alps in the arms of my beloved sweetheart, amid the Asters and Rock Jasmine. It’s getting very humid. My mother has just evicted our cat. To avoid bad luck, a black cat must be ejected from the house whenever there’s thunder in the air.
So many superstitions rule our lives in Serbia. Whether the cocks crow in unison, the dogs bark much (or not at all), the frogs croak. Sorceries are practiced when a woman has no children. People with blue eyes are more likely to have the Evil Eye. The American painter Holman Hunt had difficulty in getting Serbs to sit for him, despite the offer of a most handsome fee. On Judgement Day they feared their portrait might arrive at the Gates of Heaven before them. When the Holy Archangel arrived with the sitter’s soul, Saint Peter would wave the soul away as an imposter. I really do laugh internally but I don’t want to offend my dear family by giggling out loud at their backward beliefs. As to burial customs among our mountain brethren - my supply of writing-paper is running too low to go into those.
There is a superstition I hold to because it is beautiful. Each person is assigned a star which appears in the sky at the exact moment of his birth and will snuff out for ever when he dies. On our birth certificates even today we put the hour as well as the day. My sweet little treasure, when I am back in Switzerland we must buy a good telescope and take it up the Gurten and search out your star. I know you were born on the 14th of March 1879. Can you discover from your mother the exact hour, even the minute?
I am doing as you ordered, fattening up so that I will rest against you once more, plump as a dumpling and healthy and cheerful. My ‘peasant’ diet consists largely of wheat bread and pasulj, a thick gruel made of beans boiled in water until pulpy, and potato and pepper stews. Sometimes we have gibanica which one day I shall bake for you.
How my heart will pound when I next see your open arms! I’ll be so proud and happy when we are together again and can bring our work on relative motion to a successful conclusion.
We have a saying, “Life gives to every slave an empty glass to fill either with tears or with hope”. Mine is a quarter full (of tears).
My mother is calling to me. Please write very soon.
Think a bit about your little one, and be hugged and kissed by your
‘What a truly affectionate letter, Holmes,’ I cried.
‘As you say, Watson, a truly affectionate letter, but it gives us no clue as to what Zorka requires of us. However, I believe we shall find our answer in this second letter.’
He added, ‘This time Mileva signs herself Doxerl. ’He unfolded the single page.
‘Friday 26th June 1903 Novi-Sad
My dearest little sweetheart,
Your letters from Schaffhausen told me you doubted the correctness of our ideas about relative motion. Your reservations are due to a simple mistake in the numerical calculation. The value for the mass of the sun is off by a factor of 10.
You told me of your struggles with the mass-energy equivalence problem. I locked myself up and I believe I have found the answer. I’ve come to the conclusion that mass is a direct measure for the energy contained in bodies, so light transfers mass. If a body releases the rest mass energy L in the form of radiation, its mass is diminished by L/V², thereby we come to the formula L=mV².
I hope you have had time to do more work on frames of reference in uniform relative motion with respect to each other. Shall we call it Special Theory? I am certain it will make you world famous. How all the universities will clamour to employ you, even stuffy Berne.
When you are famous, I shall look forward to lying in your arms once more on a little holiday. I have often heard the adage “I was so happy I wish I’d died”. Those were my feelings when we were on our first holiday together in Como and made love on the banks. Do you remember when we boarded that bright white steamer and heard the sound of church bells across the water? The Italians told us the peals were for the fishermen pulling black eels and grey herrings from the lake but I know they were not. The bells were for us.
A Fijaker is stationed outside our front door all day, ready for a quick departure. My father is thinking to remove the family to the mountains to escape the scarlet fever. Now that he understands how much I love you, I am sure he has forgiven you for being a Swab. A Jew is fine with him. Our family Saint, Stefan the Martyr, was born a Jew. We are in it together. Everyone looks down on Jews and everyone looks down on us Serbs too.
A thousand kissies from your poor lonely Doxerl.
PS. Later we must formulate equations of the gravitational field.’
‘Holmes,’ I exclaimed, ‘I fail to see how these letters add to our knowledge. The one is a letter from a woman deeply in love with a husband many hundreds of miles away. The second talks about a scientific theory they’ve clearly been discussing for quite some time. And now Einstein has published that formula in the Annalen der Physik.’
Holmes threw the letters towards me with a triumphant gesture. ‘The first letter confirms her sister’s love for Einstein. At the very least Zorka is warning us not to do anything which destroys the lad’s career or shatters the marriage. That was never her intent. But this second letter - why do you suppose Zorka has sent it to us?’
‘As I say, I presume she - ’
‘Presume nothing, Watson- think! We come back to the question I asked myself time and again, what was it Zorka really wants - why did she lead us to the grave-pit? I believe I have the answer. It was you, Watson, who gave me the clue. Do you recall making use of your compass at the burial site? What was it you discovered?’
‘That the skeleton lay roughly on a north-east axis?’
‘And therefore?’
‘It was not a Christian burial.’
‘So let me recapitulate. By leading us to the grave, Zorka believed she was handing us a sword of Damocles, though for what purpose we had no idea. The moment we entered Professor Sobel’s office on our return from Titel I realised-just in time- there was an insuperable flaw. Revealing the circumstances of Lieserl’s life and especially her death would lead where? Einstein would hotly refute any knowledge whatsoever of the matter. Who would contradict him? Miloš Marić? He will say nothing - he could be found guilty of murder and shot in open ground. Zorka? That mirna ludakinja? Mileva? It could wreck her husband’s career and Steinli’s future. Professor Sobel and the Rector? Absolutely not - they are beside themselves with glee at the prospect of clasping this genius to their bosom.’
Holmes tapped the second letter.
‘Whatever her plan, if we were to carry it out Zorka had to provide us with a weapon of exemplary power - and she has. This letter proves that two years ago Mileva - not Albert - arrived at the mass-energy relation. We only have to release the letter to the Annalen der Physik and the world will rank Mileva alongside Newton in the pantheon of science, far above Einstein. Do you think for one instant the young man’s monumental ego will permit this?’