The Other Einstein: A novel

The finals chapters of Part 1 present Mileva with a problem: Einstein’s interest in her disrupts Mileva’s female space. The women at the pension are suspicious of a man among their own, and when Mileva starts skipping social events with the girls, they worry that she is losing herself to a man. This poses a difficult conflict for her. Mileva grew up without friends, male or female. Her early months in Zürich provided her with both for the first time in her life, so she doesn’t have experience navigating friendships. Furthermore, she can’t help but be charmed by her suitor’s intelligence and flattered by his inclusion of her in male-dominated spaces, but the women at the pension are fighting against the patriarchy. To them, any man who distracts an ambitious woman from her studies is an enemy. Einstein’s privilege as a man keeps him from understanding that showing up to the pension without an invitation means he is invading a sacred female space. He is unwanted there, but the women are too conditioned to be polite to men to turn him away. Therefore, both his and Mileva’s friends carefully dance around the social norms governing propriety. This comes at the cost of Mileva’s sense of security in her group of friends.

Central to this conflict is what women offer Mileva versus what men offer. With the women at the pension, she can be fully herself. She can laugh loudly, confide in her friends, and—literally—let her hair down. With men, Mileva can’t be as affectionate, unrestrained, or vulnerable, but she can debate modern theories of physics and mathematics. On one end of this spectrum are the women who provide Mileva with comfort. On the other are the men who push her to become a better physicist. This push and pull is rooted in the patriarchal norms that oppress Mileva; in her 19th-century world, women are not free to move between male and female friend groups, and Mileva is often forced to choose between her female friendships and being included with the men in their discussions. These sectors remain divided, despite both groups’ including serious students of science.

Another difficult choice Mileva is forced to undertake because of the patriarchal society is that of a romantic relationship versus a career. There are few, if any, role models for female academics in Mileva’s time. Most of the girls her age in her home country are already married. Because she doesn’t know of any woman who is both a wife and an academic, Mileva imagines that her life offers two mutually exclusive choices: Be the career woman she always dreamed of being, or marry. That she could both be married to Einstein and continue her career as a physicist is unfathomable. Mileva’s decision to set her career back a term to avoid him emphasizes the high stakes and sacrifices inherent in being a woman who deviates from the traditional path in her era. Unlike Einstein, Mileva doesn’t have the privilege to pursue everything she wants.

The introduction of Michele Besso in these chapters is an important historical allusion. Besso, a Swiss-Italian engineer, worked closely with Einstein throughout their careers; he was both a close colleague and Einstein’s best friend, and their conversations led to Einstein’s important breakthroughs. His inclusion in these chapters highlights Einstein’s respect for Mileva as a scientist: Their introduction signifies his belief that she is the men’s intellectual equal.

Though Part 1 ends with Einstein and Mileva not speaking, their eventual marriage is clear from the prologue. In this section, therefore, Benedict does not build suspense as to whether Mileva will succumb to his efforts at wooing her; rather, she begins to establish some of the conflicts—both within their relationship and outside it—that will affect their marriage and the challenges Mileva will face as a woman who attempts to combine family and a career.