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R.J. Gadney was a writer, artist and academic. He was born in Cross Hills, Yorkshire in 1941. He studied English, Fine Art and Architecture at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1970 he became a part-time Tutor at the Royal College of Art and later became the youngest Pro-Rector in the history of the College. He lectured both at Oxford and Cambridge universities, Harvard, MIT, at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and at the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Moscow. He wrote several screenplays for television, wrote for the Spectator, the London Magazine and the Evening Standard and authored several crime and thriller novels. He died in May 2018.
Published in Great Britain in 2018 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2018 by Canongate Books
Copyright © R.J. Gadney, 2018
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All quotations from the works and correspondence of Albert Einstein © The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The author and publisher would like to thank The Albert Einstein Archives and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem for their help and support of this publication
Further information on copyright material within the text is given here
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 049 8
eISBN 978 1 78689 048 1
Typeset in Utopia by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire
Nell, Jago, Toby, Elliot
&
Tom
‘If everybody lived a life like mine
there would be no need for novels.’
Albert Einstein, aged twenty, to his sister, Maja, 1899
CONTENTS
Princeton, New Jersey,
14 March 1954
‘Albert Einstein speaking.’
‘Who?’ asks the girl on the telephone.
It’s the morning of Albert’s seventy-fifth birthday. He’s seated at his study table on the second floor of his small house on Mercer Street in Princeton turning the pages of his scrapbook embossed in silver:
ALBERT EINSTEIN SAMMELALBUM
He presses the black plastic Western Electric telephone closer against his ear.
‘I’m sorry,’ the girl says. ‘I have the wrong number.’ Her accent is Boston Brahmin.
‘You have the right number,’ Albert says.
‘I do? May I ask, sir, please – what is your number?’
‘I don’t know—’
‘You don’t know your own phone number? You are Albert Einstein. How come the world’s most famous scientist doesn’t know his own phone number?’
‘Never memorise something that you can look up,’ Albert says. ‘Or, even better, have someone else look up for you.’
Tobacco sparks from his briar pipe spew across a letter from the German physicist Max Born. Albert extinguishes them with a slap.
‘OK, sir,’ the girl says. ‘I’m sorry I bothered you.’
‘You haven’t bothered me in the least. How old are you?’
‘Seventeen.’
‘I’m seventy-five today.’
‘You are? Seventy-five – that’s something. Happy birthday.’
‘Thank you. You have given me a fine birthday present.’
‘I have?’
‘You have raised an interesting philosophical problem. You dialled a wrong number. The wrong number for you. The right number for me. It is a most intriguing conundrum. What is your name?’
‘Mimi Beaufort—’
‘Where are you calling from?’
‘From my lodgings, outside Princeton.’
‘Your lodgings, you say – where’s your real home?’
‘Greenwich in Fairfield County, Connecticut.’
‘That’s a nice place. Will you call me again?’
‘If you really are Albert Einstein, I’ll call again. Sure I will.’
Albert toys with his copious white moustache. ‘Check me out in the directory.’
His right leg is jiggling and bouncing. The ball of his foot rises and lowers rapidly. He flexes his calf muscles. He’s quite unaware his leg is making such rapid movements.
*
