Albert Einstein lay in a Princeton, New Jersey hospital bed in 1955 when a system of intricate blood vessels around his heart burst like a piñata. He turned to the nurse, in considerable pain but still elegant in his focus to die with dignity, and said something in German, then expired. As she, regrettably, did not speak the language, the last words of the most famous physicist and intellectual that ever lived, passed unknown. His final spoken testament, heard by one person who was in charge of his care, evaporated. This caused very little consternation in Einstein’s adopted home as people quickly mourned the loss of his oeuvre rather than his person but quite a lot of discomfort came from the land of his birth. While trivial to some, this loss joins various wasted data. The Germans, being notorious for their love of clean lines and resolute knots, could not imagine that such imprudence took place in the presence of a genius like Dr. Albert. Thankfully, the nurse on call that evening, Ms. Marlette Blumfeld, gave an interview to Die Neue Zeitung (The New Times), a popular German newspaper, before she died in 2014. It was never printed, as the Madame declared it “an exercise in bullying a caregiver” rather than the exposé she was told it would become. A classic bait and switch, she insisted.
The transcript of this interview is reproduced below.
Die Neue Zeitung (DNZ): Thank you for allowing us into your home. It is very nice here.
Marlette Blumfeld (MB): Well, it’s a pleasure to have you. Florida’s too muggy this time of year but with an enclosed porch and a wall unit, it feels like New Jersey again!
DNZ: Right. I was just there, in fact. In Princeton. When did you move?
MB: Many years ago. The winters dried my hands too much and the summers were so sweltering. I didn’t want to be one of those old folks who died in their houses when the weather turned.
DNZ: That is quite a problem, isn’t it.
MB: Don’t I know it! I’ve got three friends who died in the last heat wave. Not a lot of old buildings are equipped with air conditioning. The moment we reach above one hundred it can feel like the surface of the moon. I wanted more friendly conditions for my retirement.
DNZ: I hope you found what you were looking for. So, for the record, how old are you now?
MB: Sixteen. Just kidding – you know those people who say they’re thirty every year after they turn sixty? I’m not one of them. In fact, I kind of despise the friends I have that are like that. Time passes for all of us. Why fear time? It’s the idea of death that can shake you, but time? How arbitrary. You wouldn’t be scared of a layover in Georgia, you’d be scared of the flight that awaits you on the other side!
DNZ: Okay.
MB: Do you understand? I know there’s a language barrier here.
DNZ: Um… I think it’s a metaphor that is not quite doing what it intends, but yes, I do understand. So… your age.
MB: Eighty four years and eleven months. If you want to get into days I’ll have to call my general practitioner.
(Marlette laughs. The interviewer becomes slightly uncomfortable.)
DNZ: When did you start working for the University Hospital?
MB: I was twenty-one years old when I began. Worked there for forty years.
DNZ: What made you want to get into the profession?
MB: Well, customs were very different back then. To be a woman in 1950 was little different than being a woman in the year of Christ. It was men who killed Jesus, you know? Roman men. Jewish men!
DNZ: Um…
MB: Don’t get bashful. I know your kind. All your parents and grandparents were NAZIs. You might pucker up when I talk about the Jews, but you’ve heard it before. From an uncle maybe? An older brother of one of your friends? The Jewish question has always intrigued me, too. Why have we been so cruel to them? Did they ask for it? I don’t think so. I have some Jewish blood in me, in fact. A great grandfather, hence the ‘Blum’ in Blumfeld. I never identified with it, though. Jews were always too secretive and grinny for me. You know? Ask me what you want to ask.
DNZ: Well, you see, I, I’m only interested in your time at the Hospital.
MB: Great. Go ahead.
DNZ: You were the night nurse there?
MB: Bingo. Next?
DNZ: And you… were part of the team that cared for Dr. Einstein?
MB: Now we’re getting somewhere! See how long it took for you to ask the question that you wanted to ask? The compunction of you Europeans is always tiring. Who has the time! Yes, I was there when he was there. Yes, I cared for him. And yes, I know your next question. Yes, I was there when he died. His body emitted a terrible odor at the end.
DNZ: Is that so?
MB: Oh yes. The stench of death is stronger in some than others. As you can imagine, I saw a considerable amount of terminal patients in my career, and all of them stank in a particular manner. All different, but all putrid and unkempt. Albert was no different. Worse, even.
DNZ: Did you call him Albert?
MB: We all did. He was a dying man. There wasn’t much speaking.
DNZ: I’m glad you brought that up –
MB: See what I did there? You’re welcome.
DNZ: Yes, I just want to get a sense of your background. Did you learn other languages besides English before you began to work?
MB: So this is about that, then? Nobody asks the right questions here. Where you’re from, there’s a problem.
DNZ: Excuse me?
MB: I got a lot of flack for not remembering that man’s final words, you know that –
DNZ: That’s why we’re here.
MB: Don’t I know it. The reality is that I didn’t learn German because I’m one-eighth Jewish and a whole lotta A-MERI-CAN. We learned Spanish in high school. What’s the big deal–I didn’t get the old geezer’s words right– I’ve seen – have I told you I’ve seen a lot of people die in my day and most of the time they don’t spit out a soliloquy – they don’t crap out an equation.
DNZ: But this wasn’t just some old man, as you say, it was Doctor Albert Einstein. He could have revealed something crucial.
MB: Yeah? About what? You meant to come here and embarrass me for not knowing what your beloved Doctor Bert said before he croaked? That’s very like a German. You know one of the things the guy did say as he checked into our care? “I’m an American citizen.” No bull! We asked for his I.D. and his insurance card and the man handed it to us before declaring, “I’m an American citizen.” So he liked it here, with our nurse practitioners and our leaving everyone to their liberty. You get out of here, now.
DNZ: I don’t mean to upset you, it’s just… we’re very curious. To hear about his final hours.
MB: It’s been said, the boy wasn’t a push over. He was very ill when he came to me and he only got sicker. He had a weak heart. Isn’t that a shame? He couldn’t even write letters, which he brought with him to the hospital. A whole bunch of papers that he kept trying to work on. But the fact is… he slept mostly. When someone is about to go… You don’t know death, son. I’m sorry for you. And I’m happy for you. The grip of the matter is that when someone’s body is ready to go… there ain’t nooo stopping it. He came in ready to fight but that body took him down. It always does.
DNZ: And his words – was he talkative?
MB: Son, get out of here, I already told you. He was shutting down. The party was ending. The lights were tungsten. What’s so wrong about letting the past go? You can’t get everything out of everything. Do you understand? What’s the title of this piece? What’d your boss tell you to come here about?
DNZ: Well, you’re very… advanced in age—
MB: If you came to insult me, I’ll just as soon knock you in the jaw myself…
(Marlette Blumbfeld made a move to her shoe, still seated, as a threat of corporal punishment.)
DNZ: Again, truly. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… inflame you. She told me to write an anniversary commemoration. It’s coming up. Almost seventy years.
MB: Good-ness. Boss is a woman and wanted to drum up shame against me? Why does that sting? I’m sorry your rag sent you here. Have a good day.
DNZ: Excuse me?
MB: Apologies to you and yours that your gossip zine sent you to sticky, sucky South Florida to flap gums with an octogenarian. Toodaloo.
DNZ: We are not a gossip magazine. We are a newspaper. We do real news. Journalism.
MB: Right.
DNZ: We do.
MB: Okay. Blame. Blame. Blame. What’s the matter about a few words from a smart man’s noggin, anyway?
DNZ: It could have been scientific insight.
MB: Ernt! Wrong answer. It could’ve been something about love – that’s the greatest thing he ever said.
DNZ: He was the first to develop the theories of quantum mechanics. The law of relativity.
MB: We are not our work, despite what some try to convince us of. “Love is a better teacher than duty.” Your generation. You’ve been blindly obedient. You think someone’s last words actually mean something. You think something is to be learned and gained and hurdled and discovered. You’re not gonna be a million-aire, okay? You probably like Machiavelli or Pinker.
DNZ: I do not understand…
MB: If you don’t mind, I’d like to be done. This is nothing but an exercise in bullying a caregiver. You know what I did for Albert? I injected him with sedatives and painkillers so that he could pass without suffering. Did you come here to thank me for that?
DNZ: Well–
MBL: I didn’t think so. I’m sorry you had to come all the way down here just to get thrown out but you can find your target on South Beach, not some old woman’s home. There’s plenty of gullible people who hate themselves there– bye now.
DNZ: Again, I– I didn’t intend this. Can I ask one more question?
MB: No.
(The interviewer gets up and moves toward the door.)
DNZ: What do you think he said? I know you do not speak German and I know he spoke German, but you know all the circumstances. What he was dying from. The kind of medication he was on. Who was in and out of his room. What he had said leading up to his final moments. If you had to guess? What do you think he meant to say? In translation.
MB: I think he asked for his mother. All little boys, no matter how big they grow, usually ask for their mothers when the time comes. It doesn’t matter if their wives and their daughters are surrounding them. They want mom. Him too.
DNZ: Thank you for this.
MB: Don’t go bragging about it. Tell your boss I’m ashamed of her.
DNZ: I won’t.
MB: If you let a hot draft in I’ll never forgive you. Good flight home, huh?
DNZ: Yes.
(End of transcript.)
And so this interview, for concerns about anti-semitism, assisted suicide and potentially anti-german sentiment, understandably, never published. There was too much tension and not enough story. Marlette Blumfeld passed away the following year and left her scrubs, which sat at the bottom of a moving box in her attic, to The New Times in Berlin. They were postmarked two weeks after her death and headed to Europe wherein they remained unclaimed as the newspaper had been bought by a subsidiary of The Sun in England and disbanded.