patience and asked, ‘What is it you are wanting?’ and with enormous compassion, he added, ‘my friend, Albert.’ Never has my name sounded so foreign to me. I knew he was using it to ease my anxiety, and not because he believed it was really my name. ‘Why did you come here?’
‘I wanted to re-visit my home,’ I said honestly.
‘And now that you have visited, what else is it you need?’
There was nothing I could say in response.
In the background I could hear the others talking quietly. They muttered words of concern, concern for me the agitated and unstable intruder, and concern for their companion, the gentle, studious Albert Einstein with whom they were all familiar.
Coleridge, a perky, obese man in his sixties, approached Einstein and whispered into his ear. Einstein turned to me and asked, ‘Would you like some tea?’
‘No thank you,’ I replied.
‘Laudanum?’ Coleridge added, eager to please.
Einstein frowned at him and Coleridge scuttled away. ‘Is there anything I can do for you, anything we could do for you?’
I was without words. My desire to visit my old study had been met, I had nothing more to do. I had not expected any of this. I was without purpose and, momentarily, without my own identity. ‘What is the name of your club?’ I asked.
‘Oh, we have no name,’ Einstein replied, ‘we just meet here every evening, unless there is a curfew, and we talk, or we read.’
‘Curfew, what curfew?’ I asked.
Schiller looked across at Einstein and shook his head. In the distance a bell rang. The gathering began to leave, led by Boadicea and Queen Elizabeth. They nodded at me kindly, but as if I were an innocuous half-wit.
‘I’m afraid we have to go now,’ Einstein looked genuinely apologetic, ‘do come again.’ He squeezed my arm gently. He treated me as I would treat a sad, lost cause. He turned back quickly and handed me the book he was reading. ‘For you,’ he said, ‘I hope you enjoy it. I’ve been reading it these past years, trying to recollect what it was I was trying to say. Trying to remember what I had thought as a young man. I read the words but almost seem a stranger to myself.’ He smiled, handed me the book and was gone.
Goethe put his arm around his shoulder, ‘Come on, Albert, until tomorrow.’ And they left.
I was alone in my old study, a complete stranger. I had returned home from exile only to find another more profound form of dispossession.
The house was in silence now. I ran down the stairs, out of the house and over the wall. I looked at the book in my hands, it was a collection of my scientific papers, published years beforehand. I passed by the front gate and looked up to the dark sign. “Caputh Home for the Mentally Troubled”. I ran and kept running until I reached Princeton. And only then did I stop.
** ** **
I have heard people term this the Century of Einstein, the Century of Relativism. Was I wrong? In my soul I have such a thirst for absolutes. How much of my Theory of Relativity was driven by ego? My ego.
I put forward my theory, I bent time, I stretched space – simply because I could. And I could do it with ease. My subtle, pliable mind could roll the cosmos out flat as a pastry, then tweak at its edges. I could punch holes through its material and leave spaces crammed with infinity. A teaspoon of this darkness held the weight of eternity. I could do all this because that was my gift, this was my mind. But what could I do when someone took the ‘me-ness’ from me? How did I react when someone took my identity, reduced me to a shadow, surrounded himself with support and context? When that mad and gentle man usurped me – and with such graceful ease – when I was placed in exile from myself, I died a small and profound death.
I am not relative to myself. I am not relative to my God. I am not relative at all.
It took me years to teach myself all that was and is Relativity. I bent universes to achieve this. It took a few moments of exile to learn the value of what is me, what is absolute, what is irrevocable, incontrovertible. A lifetime of learning in a moment of loss.
** ** **
About the Author
Karen Overman-Edmiston
People’s motivations and their interior life are at the core of Karen Overman-Edmiston’s writing. In addition, impressions and experiences gained while travelling have had a strong impact on her work. These factors are strongly evident in the novel, The Avenue of Eternal Tranquillity, as well as in an earlier publication, Night Flight from Marabar, a collection of short stories. Both titles are available in bookshops and online.
Karen Overman-Edmiston was born in the United Kingdom. Educated in the U K, Ireland and Australia, she gained a Master of Arts at the University of Western Australia. Having previously worked for the West Australian government, Karen runs her own consultancy business as well as continuing her writing.
Karen has written for the stage and has had competition-winning plays performed, including at the Festival of Perth. She is also a prize-winning short story writer who has had stories published in several magazines.
Find out more on the publisher’s website: https://sites.google.com/site/crumplestonepress/
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