watches captivated as Pauline plays Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C minor, K.457. ‘Don’t stop, Mama. Go on, go on.’
‘I can’t spend the rest of my life playing the piano for him,’ Pauline says.
‘Maybe he’ll become a pianist,’ Fanny says.
The same evening, his father embarks upon readings from Schiller.
Albert nestles in his lap listening intently, entranced by the sound of his father’s voice. ‘“There is no such thing as chance; and what seems to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.” . . . “Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.” . . . “Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.”’
From Heine: ‘“Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.”’
And: ‘“Every period of time is a sphinx that throws itself into the abyss as soon as its riddle has been solved.”’
And: ‘“The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.”’
Albert gives his father a smile of admiration.
Members of the Einstein and Koch families frequently beat a path to Rengerweg 14 from across Germany and northern Italy.
Rowdy children fill the garden at the back of Rengerweg 14, including Albert’s cousins Elsa, Paula and Hermine, the daughters of Fanny. Fanny’s married to Rudolf Einstein, a textile manufacturer from Hechingen. Rudolf is the son of Hermann Einstein’s uncle, Rafael. The families relish the complexity of these byzantine relationships. Young Albert memorises all their names.
Increasingly, he prefers to keep his own company. His body and his mind seem separated. A woman visitor suggests he’s isolated like no other boy. He opens his brown eyes wide. Observers notice they are dark and lustreless, like the eyes of a sightless child.
He stays on the sidelines observing pigeons or manoeuvring his toy sailing boat in a water bucket. He shies away from competitive sport or games of any sort; just mooches about alone, sometimes in a temper, or shuts himself away playing with a steam engine, a gift from his maternal uncle, Caesar Koch, in Brussels, a stationary model mimicking a factory, or a mobile engine such as those used in steam locomotives and boats. It has spring safety valves and whistles. The house is filled with the sound of chuffing, crank noises and the endless steam whistles.
Albert delights in irritating the family with the noise of the steam engine. ‘Choo-choo!’ he shouts. ‘Clackety-clack. Tuff tuff tuff, die Eisenbahn!’
He watches them from the corners of his eyes.
To Albert’s disappointment influenza means that he will have to spend his fifth birthday in bed.
‘Look what I’ve got for you,’ his father announces. ‘Here—’
He hands Albert a small package.
‘May I open it, Papa?’
‘Of course.’
‘Are you going to tell me what it is?’
‘Discover for yourself.’
Albert opens the wrapping paper, then a small box, and takes out a compass.
‘Papa. This is wonderful. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.’
‘I hope you like it.’
‘I love it, Papa.’
Albert strokes the small glass window of the compass.
‘Good. I’ll see you again later.’
‘I love you, Papa.’
‘I love you too, Albert.’
Once alone, Albert turns and shakes the device, certain he can fool it into pointing its needle in a direction of his own devising. Yet the needle always finds its way back to point in the direction of magnetic north.
In turn enchanted and pleasurably scared by the miracle, his hands shake and his whole body grows cold. The force is invisible: proof that the world is possessed of hidden mysterious powers. There’s something behind things, something deeply hidden.
Maja watches her seven-year-old brother in wonder as he builds a house of playing cards fourteen storeys high.
‘It is a miracle,’ she says. ‘How do you do it?’
‘It is scientific engineering,’ Albert tells her. When he is interested in something or someone he speaks fluently. ‘Watch, Maja. I use old cards. See? First I create the highest point. I put a pair of cards against each other in the shape of a triangle. I make a line of them. Now I build two apexes. I select a card to be the roof piece and place it above the two apexes. I hold it and lower it carefully till it’s just above them. With the roof piece on I adjust the cards gently. I take my roofed apexes and make a third apex, then a fourth and now a fifth and on and on.’
‘Albert, it’s a miracle. Will you perform miracles and lead your life like Jesus in the Bible?’
‘Maja. We are instructed in the Bible and the Talmud. We are Jews. We are Jews.’
‘What d’you think about Jesus? You know so much.’
‘I know nothing.’
‘But you know everything.’
‘No, Maja. The more I learn, the more I realise how much I don’t know.’
His curiosity constantly gets the better of him.
He wanders aimlessly through the neighbourhood, marketplaces and covered passages, careful to avoid the heavy brewers’ drays jolting and rumbling past. Pauline, to Albert’s pleasure, encourages his explorations. She begins to allow him greater freedom. To think, to be alone with his convictions.
He watches students playing Kegel or ninepins in the drizzle.
‘Please may I have a go?’ Albert asks.
‘You may have a go, little man,’ a student laughs. ‘Here.’ He rolls the ball to Albert.
But the ball is too hefty for Albert and he altogether misses the ninepins. Then falls over.
The students laugh at him. Albert tries to hide the pain of being the butt of the students’ humour.
He walks home in tears.
To cheer him up, his father takes him out in a Droschke, the latest hackney cab, a new feature of Munich transport. They rattle through the Isartor, the eastern gate separating the old town from the districts of Isarvorstadt and Lehel, his father pointing out the frescos of the victory procession of Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria.
A woman tutor is called upon to teach Albert, who sees her appointment as a useless interruption to his thinking.
