be seen again. Albert simply wants to be left alone sitting quietly, reading, with no one paying attention to him.
His thirst for knowledge is unquenchable. It takes him on solitary journeys of the mind to places where no one else can follow. Here he is happiest. And he continues his amblings around Munich.
On one walk in the driving sleet an elderly Italian offers the bedraggled Albert shelter in his grand house.
Albert stares at the glass cabinets filled with knick-knacks of glass, china and small models. Standing on a satinwood table is a model of Milan Cathedral built of cream-coloured cardboard. The tracery of the windows, the bas-reliefs, columns, pinnacles and statues are made of bread. The old man is not an architect. He says he’s built his models from his imagination. ‘I spend my life in my head,’ the old man says.
‘So do I,’ says Albert. ‘What is the grave?’
‘The model of my wife’s grave. She died two years ago in bed. Where the model’s standing. The model marks the place of death.’
Albert tells his father about the kindly Italian. Hermann says: ‘The signore is entirely self-educated. He made a small fortune in his twenties and with nothing much to do he lives with his models in his imagination.’
As a special treat Hermann takes Albert to watch the first voyage of the small steamer on Lake Starnberg on the morning of the Frühlingsfestival, the spring festival. At the time steamboats are more common on the Danube, Elbe and Rhine.
It’s a beautiful day. Albert savours the fragrances of white viburnams and narcissi. In the meadows he identifies the lilac flowers of Crocus tommasinianus.
It seems all Munich has turned out on the banks of Lake Starnberg among the beech woods. The white Starnberg houses, St Joseph’s church and the hotel built like a Swiss chalet captivate Albert. Far in the distance he can see the Alps. Blue. Silver. Rose-blue. Jagged peaks. Pale orange.
In the foreground, flags, wreaths and drapery decorate the houses. Albert watches the steamer being decorated with garlands. At the edge of the woods, for his mother and Maja, he assembles bouquets of Alpine gentians and oxlips. No matter that the midday meal is of rubbery boiled beef and a dry potato salad. Albert and his father join in the merrymaking as the boat is launched.
By night, he has difficulty sleeping. Mainly because he’s frightened of the dark. He lies awake waiting until he hears his father and mother go to bed, when it’s safe to tiptoe barefoot out of his room and light the Stubenlampe. The thin wick is wide, providing a comforting circle of white-reddish light. Back in bed he gazes at the light coming through the slit at the bottom of the door. It banishes the idea of a prowling monster born after a suicide or sometimes an accidental death. It heralds sickness, disease, agony and oblivion. Finally, it eats its family members, then devours its own body and funeral shrouds.
At dawn he wakes, restless. The light beneath the door is now a hindrance to sleeping. Anyway, he doesn’t want his parents to know he turned it on. So he creeps out of his room again and turns it off.
Back in bed the light coming into his room through the gap in the wooden shutters bothers him. He buries his head in the pillow. But of course the light’s still there. It’s entered his room from 93 million miles away. Thank you, Sun.
Quick journey. Travelling at 186,000 miles per second. So that light, coming through the shutters, was in the Sun eight minutes ago. I can slow it down. He moves the glass of water towards the rays. The light rays bend, refract. He screws up his eyes. The light comes through his eyelashes and spreads out in stripes. Tighter, tighter, he screws up his eyes. The light spreads wider. When he completely closes his eyes it vanishes.
Each November, after several days of snowfall, to Albert’s delight, sledging begins.
In the Englischer Garten, Albert marvels at the heavy snow hanging in strange shapes on the dark branches of the fir trees. The purity and silence is broken by the sound of bells from a bright green and gilded sledge drawn by a black horse. The rider is wrapped up in a cloak, with a fur cap over his brows.
Carriages on sledges instead of wheels fill the streets. Everything travels on sledges: tubs of water and buckets, wooden milk pails hooped with brass. Everyone takes a childish pleasure in the sledges. The colours of the winter enthral him. Red leaves, rose-green and silver leaves, the fantastical bowers of clematis festooning branches and the heaps of pure white snow. The light is dazzling. It sparkles and bends and bends.
‘We’ll go to the Aumeister,’ his father announces.
‘What’s the Aumeister?’
‘Best coffee in the city, pretty ladies and cakes. Lots of cakes. Mainly pretty ladies.’
‘Pretty ladies, pretty ladies,’ sings Albert.
He loves his father’s gaiety.
Aged twelve he likes to hold forth on religion and culture at home.
His father delights in introducing Albert.
‘I have the honour to ask Professor Einstein to address the family on a subject of his choice.’
‘Thank you. Today the subject of my lecture is Ashkenazic or Ashkenazim Jews, with some modest proposals.’
The family applaud.
‘As we all know, we are Ashkenazi Jews. The Ashkenazim came together as a distinct community of Jews in the Holy Roman Empire towards the end of the first millennium. According to Halakha, Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday. The lighting of candles and the recitation of a blessing usher Shabbat in. The evening meal typically begins with our blessing, kiddush, proclaimed over two loaves of challah. Shabbat is closed the following evening with a Havdalah. On Shabbat we are free from the regular labours of life. We contemplate life’s spirituality. We spend time with the family.
‘I now turn to diet. My proposal is that we don’t eat pork. Rather, matzo ball soup and pasta filled with chopped meat floating in broth, or corned beef with fried potato latkes, and slices of noodles mixed with dried fruit, fat and sugar.’
He suddenly falls silent.
‘And?’ says his mother.
‘As we all know, we are Ashkenazi Jews. The Ashkenazim came together as a distinct community of Jews in the Holy Roman Empire towards the end of the first millennium.’
‘Albert?’ says his mother.
‘Please don’t interrupt, Mama.’
‘But you’ve already said that.’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘I cannot take this seriously,’ says his mother.
‘Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.’
‘I think we’ve heard enough,’ she says.
I will never be understood, he tells himself.
‘Algebra,’ says Uncle Jakob, ‘is the calculus of indolence. If you don’t know a certain quantity, you call it x
