CHAPTER 17

Claudia stood at the front of the room. The Committee member-scientists had assembled in the laboratory conference room. Standing at the head of a long mahogany table, she pointed at a freestanding blackboard directly behind her. Dressed in a midnight blue blazer and slacks provided by Blackstone, she had just filled the board with a string of formulae. Above the blackboard a portrait of Albert Einstein was prominently displayed. Claudia was wrapping up the initial presentation of her treatise. Professor Blackstone sat closest to her, and next to him, Professor Means. Professor Thomas and Professor Whitehead, along with the rest of the Committee scientists, sat opposite Blackstone. They had all reviewed and analyzed Claudia’s treatise, but this was the first opportunity she had been given to present her findings to the entire group.

Professor Thomas and Professor Whitehead simultaneously stood and approached the blackboard. They were awe struck after the young scientist completed her string of equations. She had spent fifteen minutes writing a response to a question from one of the scientists.

She pointed the chalk at the blackboard.

“This is why it works. Once we take the balance of these figures and verify them physically, through the supercomputers, perhaps the collider, and I think we’ll be on our way to proving the theorem.”

The two physicists next to her whispered, nodding their approval at her comments.

“Then we’ll want to do some small experiments, some physical demonstrations, and see what happens,” said Claudia.

Blackstone smiled. “I think we have gotten a little further than that. When we finally get you into the lab, I think you’ll be surprised by the progress we have made.”

The scientists again turned to one another, all of them in on the results of the experiments that were conducted prior to Claudia’s arrival and without her knowledge.

“Good,” she said. “Then maybe you can put this into some practical applications.”

Blackstone again smiled. “Just wait and see.”

Professor Whitehead was the Committee member most excited by Claudia’s presentation.

“Amazing,” he said. “You, at such a young age, have taken a fresh and radical approach to what we have all believed,” he gestured with his arms at his colleagues, “was hornbook physics.” He grinned. “I think you have turned our respective worlds upside down.”

Professor Thomas nodded approvingly at the portrait of Einstein behind her.

“Just like Einstein did.”

“You mean ‘just like Einstein and Maric did,’” said Claudia.

“Maric?”

“Yes,” said Claudia. “People sometimes ignore the fact that Einstein didn’t develop the concept of Special Relativity by himself. Like the rest of the historians, you forget his physicist wife, Mileva Maric. …She was as much a part of his early findings as Einstein. She developed and edited his material, but never got any credit from the men that controlled the establishment scientific media during that period.”

“That is heresy,” said Professor Whitehead.

“Heresy?” said Claudia. “We are not speaking of God, gentlemen.” She pointed an accusatory finger at the Einstein portrait. “A man, only a man… who browbeat the shit out of his first wife, never gave her credit for her accomplishments, and then dumped her when he became a celebrity.”

Her use of profanity startled the group. There were angry grumbles from the scientists.

“How can you say such a thing?” said Professor Thomas.

“Easy,” said Claudia. “Read every biography that has ever been written about Einstein. His so-called ‘greatest work’ occurred when he was in his twenties, with Mileva.”

“Ms. Kohl –”

Claudia was red faced. “Maric. The name is Maric, like my great grandmother.”

“Sorry,” said Professor Thomas. “…Look, I understand your logic. It’s not the first time someone has taken this position.”

“And been refuted,” added Professor Whitehead. “Ms. Maric said as much in her published interviews and writings, after the divorce was finalized.”

“Yes,” said Claudia. “But only so Mileva could collect the Nobel Prize money Einstein agreed to give her - if she went along with the divorce.” Claudia scanned the room. “Looking around this room filled with men, I can understand how you might find that difficult to fathom.”

Professor Whitehead was about to reply when Professor Means stood and touched him, stopping his response.

Professor Blackstone was silent, and watched the debate with mild amusement.

“I will concede your argument, with one request,” said Professor Means, his voice soft. “Explain to me – if what you say it true – how then, if Einstein did his greatest work only with the assistance of his first wife Mileva, do you explain his General Relativity theory, written ten years after his papers on Special Relativity, Brownian Motion and Electromagnetism?” He looked around the room. “With all due respect, Mileva Maric was gone by that time.”

“He plagiarized the work of a mathematician named Dave Hilbert, a genius whose covariant equations proved General Relativity – and the shift in Mercury’s orbit – which Einstein couldn’t prove.”

The entire Committee stood in unison and protested her comments.

“I won’t stand for this,” said Professor Whitehead.

“Do whatever you like,” said Claudia. “I really don’t give a damn. Do your own treatise.”

She threw the chalk against the wall, stormed out of the boardroom and slammed the door behind her.

Blackstone stood at the head of the table grinning. He raised his hands in surrender at the group.

“She is his great granddaughter,” he said, nodding at the portrait of Einstein. “Gentlemen, I was expecting something like this,” he said. “The past few days for Claudia have been rather traumatic. First, a group of mercenaries tried to kidnap her and she now lives under the protection of armed guards. Combine that with being told she is an Einstein –”

“Maric, Dr. Blackstone, Maric…” said Professor Means.

The entire group erupted in laughter.

Professor Blackstone again raised his hands. “In the interests of Committee harmony then, I suggest we conclude today’s assembly.”

***

Claudia fled the conference room and ran outside, into a glade of trees located outside the laboratory. Blackstone was right; she had reached her breaking point and the tension of presenting her treatise to the esteemed group of scientists had unnerved her. She scanned the estate compound, looking for John. When she finally located him in the kitchen, he was drinking coffee with several other security men.

John could see that his friend was upset.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“Can we talk?” she said and gestured at the door.

John put his coffee down and nodded to his men. “I’ll be outside,” he said and turned to follow Claudia out of the room.

When they were standing outside, alone, he asked the question again.

“What the heck is wrong?”

“I need to get out of here.”

“No way,” he said. “That would be an invitation for trouble.”

“Please? …You have no idea what I have been through.”

“Did you forget that I was with you when you went ‘through’ your problems? I also seem to recall taking a few lumps for you.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” she said. “And don’t think that I am not grateful.” She touched his shoulder gently and squeezed. “You are my dearest friend and the only person I would ask this of.” She waved her arms at the estate grounds. “Einstein - that’s what I have gone through. I have lived my entire life as an orphan, not knowing who I was, and yesterday I discover that I am the great granddaughter of the most gifted and famous physicist that ever set foot on this planet. And now, after reading everything ever written about him, I don’t know who he is, or what he was really like.” She paused. “I need to leave here …and as soon as possible.”

“No way,” said John.

Tears welled up in her eyes. “Please. …Just a day or two. I need to get out of here. I want to go to Bern.”

“Two days requires an overnight stay – too dangerous,” he said. “And what’s in Bern?”

“Einstein. The patent office where he worked, the clock tower, and the apartment he shared with Mileva Maric, my great grandmother. …Please, John, I’ll do anything you ask. My head is racing with God knows what. If I don’t get out of here I think I’ll explode.” She wiped away a stream of tears. “I need a little time by myself, to look at who I am, to examine my family history.”

John looked back at the house and paused, unsure of what to say. “I don’t know… but we do have a full contingent of security today… “

“How about just a day trip?” she said. “It’s not that far of a drive.”

He paused. “Let me see what I can do.”

She jumped him with a bear hug and squeezed with all her might. “I knew you’d help me.” Her lips met his with a forceful kiss.

John’s face turned crimson.

Claudia released him and spun, running to the house. “I’ll go get my stuff.”

“Wait!”

She was oblivious to his protests and already halfway across the lawn when John yelled for her to stop. The security man turned and headed for Professor Blackstone’s office, wondering how in the world he would convince the elder physicist to let her go to Bern.