Grasping Mysteries Page 4

  levers, and a wheel set to turn once an hour.

  He puts his hand over his heart

  the way he does when he feels ill,

  which is more and more often.

  Mama touches his wrist, listens,

  the way he holds a watch to his ear,

  hoping to make it work again.

  Forever

  Late one afternoon, the room grows dark.

  The oil in the lamp looks low.

  Mama drapes a mirror with cloth, lights candles,

  wails as she hands the rabbi the prayer shawl

  Papa brought from Poland. She says, He’s gone,

  and opens her arms to the children.

  Sarah looks at the desk covered with tiny hinges,

  brass pins, ridged wheels, and a disc delicately painted

  with digits. She wants to promise Mama she’ll fix

  everything, but she doesn’t know how.

  The Seamstress’s Daughter

  At seven, eight, then nine years old, Sarah

  hurries home from school.

  She minds her little brothers and sister

  while Mama sews shirts and hems sheets to pay the rent.

  She teaches Sarah to cut straight lines of cloth

  and measure circles to make collars for people

  who aren’t rich, but have more money than they do.

  They stitch every day, singing old Hebrew songs.

  Still, there’s never enough food on the table.

  In winter, everyone’s feet are cold.

  Chance

  I’ve boasted to your aunt Marion about how quick

  you are with numbers. Mama unfolds a letter.

  She wants you to come live with them and go to the school

  she runs in London. It’s better than the school in town.

  I promised to help you! Sarah hugs her youngest sister,

  who now can walk but never talks or claps

  when Sarah sings nursery rhymes.

  What about my brothers? Will they come too?

  Girls need better educations than boys, not worse,

  for none of us knows what may happen. I wish

  I learned more than sewing, which doesn’t pay much.

  Mama pulls her close. Sarah hears her heartbeat,

  remembers her father listening to what was hidden inside.

  A Girl’s Education

  LONDON, ENGLAND, 1863

  Uncle Alphonse teaches the students French.

  Aunt Marion shows them how to solve mysteries

  with multiplication. Sarah loves math for its loyalty.

  Numbers may disappear, but new ones take their place.

  She shares a bedroom with two small cousins.

  She teaches them to play leapfrog and climb trees,

  saying, You can go higher, standing ready

  to catch them if they tumble. She sews jackets for their dolls

  from scraps of cloth, stitching pockets smaller than stamps.

  The girls kiss Sarah, roll like puppies near her feet.

  Still, she misses her quiet sister and noisy brothers,

  wishes for a friend her age. Other students swing

  jump ropes, but won’t let her skip under the arcs.

  They wear dresses with elegant trim and tucks,

  make fun of the holes in Sarah’s stockings

  and the way her hair spirals out of her braids.

  Even a teacher complains she should be neater.

  The Haircut

  Back home for Passover, Sarah feels safe

  as a single number at the end of a crowded equation.

  Her shoes pinch, but she won’t tell Mama,

  who already worries

  that the youngest child is not quite right.

  Sarah’s brothers get into mischief and more.

  But when Mama finds her crying, Sarah confides

  that classmates tease that her hair is too big.

  She begs Mama to cut it. Mama combs her fingers tenderly

  through her dark hair, but when Sarah insists,

  opens her sewing scissors. A mistake.

  The cropped hair bounds out more wildly than before.

  The Gray Cat and the Green Chair

  By the time Sarah is thirteen, Aunt Marion has taught

  her all the math she knows. Sarah’s older cousin, Numa,

  now gives her problems. He loans her books

  he studied for his entrance exam to Cambridge University.

  A wick sputters into flame as Sarah lights an oil lamp.

  She bends over a desk, prying open equations

  the way her father took apart pocket watches,

  trying to make what sticks move again. She loves

  how algebra often begins with If, puffs with possibilities,

  twists on then, slides to new certainty.

  But sometimes she feels lost,

  the way she did when Uncle Alphonse spoke

  quickly and entirely in French. She takes

  her paper, pencil, and books to a green armchair,

  taps the cat with her bare feet, finds familiar signs

  that help her fumble toward understanding.

  Wrong answers point ways to right ones.

  Another Chance

  Girls at her aunt’s school turn sixteen, pin back their hair,

  and wear dresses that cover their ankles. Graduation

  means most will pour tea at parties, listening to gentlemen

  while keeping their faces half-hidden with silk fans.

  Sarah works as a governess, then teaches math.

  In the evenings, she sews to earn more money to send home,

  sometimes bringing her needlework while she visits

  new friends. Numa introduced her to Ottilie Blind,

  whose house shines with paintings the family brought

  from Germany. There she meets Barbara Bodichon,

  an artist slightly older than Sarah’s mother,

  who wears bright flowing dresses like those worn

  by goddesses in Renaissance paintings.

  Madame Bodichon talks about her suffragist group.

  Ten years ago we sent a petition to Parliament

  but still haven’t won women’s right to vote.

  We’ll keep fighting, but education is important too.

  We’re starting the first women’s college at Cambridge University.

  My father said I might go. Sarah, you should too.

  Ottilie turns to Madame Bodichon.

  She’s clever at mathematics.

  You forget I’m poor, Sarah says.

  We set aside money for scholarships, Madame Bodichon says.

  We’ve found students who excel in literature and the arts,

  but fewer in mathematics, which some men claim

  as their domain. We must show them

  that we can do just as well there, if not better.

  A New Name

  Sarah tutors her friend in mathematics

  for the college entrance examination.

  Ottilie writes poetry in the margins.

  She asks, Wasn’t your cousin the first

  Jewish student at Cambridge? We’ll be the first girls.

  Numa was first to do math. Sarah takes a breath.

  I’m proud of being Jewish and where I come from,

  but can’t care about ancient tales no one can prove.

  I’ll join my mother for meals on holy days,

  but my faith rests in facts and a better future.

  You’re like a girl in a novel I read. Ottilie raises a book.

  She created her own rules and religion,

  based not on men’s laws but those of the goddess of earth.

  I’m going to call you Hertha.

  I’m no goddess. But the name

  makes her feel strong, so she keeps it.

  No one will call her Sarah again.

  Wondering

  CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND, 1876


  Girton College is part of Cambridge University,

  but somewhat separate and not quite equal.

  Ottilie complains about how closely

  the new students are watched. Some fellows seem to hope

  we’ll fail. It’s mean, but it makes me work harder to show

  them not only I but other young women can thrive.

  One professor complains he can’t teach math

  while watching his language because a lady is in the room,

  Hertha says. Some say math can make women

  go crazy or blind from squinting at small figures.

  Or that too much education can give women

  lung disease or keep us from having babies,

  Ottilie says. But not all gentlemen are so foolish.

  Like that fellow you write the poems about?

  Hertha has no time for romance. She makes hats

  and embroiders drapes to sell

  so she can send money to her mother.

  She works on inventions, such as a paintbrush

  fastened to a watch spring, then strapped on a wrist.

  The wavy lines on paper left by the brush

  can be counted to measure a pulse rate.

  Hertha joins the choral society and starts a fire brigade,

  after convincing the chief that girls aren’t afraid of ladders.

  She forms a math club, which meets in the library.

  One member shows them a gold medal in a glass case

  among historical plaques and portraits. It was given

  to my father’s aunt, who discovered eight comets.

  Hertha looks at the date: 1828. Has any other woman since

  won a medal from the Royal Astronomical Society?

  As Constance Herschel shakes her head, Hertha says,

  I forgot your father is an astronomer.

  My mother aspires too, but as I’m the youngest

  of twelve, you can see she’s been busy at home.

  Hertha looks past the glass case. Could we be the last women

  asked to choose between having a family and science?

  The Gift

  Maybe Hertha spends too much time away from her books.

  When college ends and examination scores come back

  she’s closer to the middle of the class than the top.

  She gives Madame Bodichon a hat she designed and made.

  I’m sorry I didn’t do better, but thank you for your faith.

  Madame Bodichon examines the hat’s velvet trim,

  made with a series of isosceles triangles

  folded over rectangles.

  This is quite a feat of engineering. And your blood pressure

  device helps me keep track of my heartbeat.

  You want to invent things. Curiosity

  will help you more than high grades on tests.

  The Teacher

  Cambridge University insists that diplomas go only to men,

  but with her Girton College mathematics certificate

  in hand, Hertha finds a flat in London.

  She sews her own dresses with straight, elegant lines,

  breathes deeper and walks faster in skirts

  that skim just above her ankles instead of floors.

  Each morning she pins her hair above the back of her neck.

  Strands puff and twist in a dark halo around her head.

  She teaches in a high school, often writing

  her own math problems, telling students, Don’t just stare

  at the problem. Step in Turn around. You can’t know

  if a dress fits until you try it on. And if it doesn’t, try again.

  Nets

  Hertha works on more inventions, including

  a water-pressure gauge and a measuring tool

  for builders and bricklayers. The weight of metals

  in her hands shapes her understanding of hidden math.

  She sews, sees friends, and attends Ottilie’s wedding.

  She helps her move into a new grand home,

  where Ottilie promises Hertha

  she’ll never stop writing poetry.

  And I’ll keep inventing, Hertha says. To find more time,

  she leaves the high school to tutor math.

  Some girls are talented, some unambitious. Some quit.

  Hertha confides to Madame Bodichon

  that she’s having a hard time finding students.

  You might be hired more if you wore your hair

  in a net, she advises.

  Hertha loves the woman who made her studies possible,

  but she won’t risk a slide to hiding parts of herself:

  first her hair, then perhaps her hands, or memories

  of being poor. Each part has made her whole.

  Electricity

  FINSBURY TECHNICAL COLLEGE, LONDON, ENGLAND, 1884

  A new school offers night classes

  in the science behind trades

  such as plumbing, metal welding, and carpentry.

  Hertha enrolls in the electrical engineering course,

  along with two other women and 118 men.

  The school looks to the future, not the past.

  Women weren’t expected, but they’re accepted.

  Builders hasten to add a ladies’ room.

  Hertha likes Professor Will Ayrton’s lectures

  about powerful waves no one can see, but they flash

  through lightning or snap as static in woolen stockings.

  Electricity can create noise, light, heat,

  or make something move, Professor Ayrton says.

  Scientists are perfecting a small microphone that records

  patterns of puffs of air made when someone talks.

  They can be carried on an electric current through long wires,

  The pressure of sound waves shifts a stylus up and down,

  making an imprint of the waves’ frequency and shape.

  The students measure the tension of voltage

  and electric currents that pass between metals

  or meet resistance,

  noting when energy appears or is lost as heat.

  Electricity must complete a circuit, though its flow

  can be interrupted with a switch, stopping sound or light.

  Hertha charts changes in currents.

  Math seems to set forces on paper,

  still as sleeping birds just before they soar.

  New Lights

  After the class ends, the professor asks Hertha

  to call him Will. He wants to know about her patents

  and gives her a paper he wrote about modern geometry

  to critique. As weeks pass,

  they enjoy dinners with friends, including Ottilie

  and her husband, whose children they admire in the nursery.

  One evening they stroll past boys lifting sticks to light

  the gas lamps. Some streets in southern London

  already have the new electric streetlights, Will says.

  Scientists are testing carbon, bamboo, cotton threads,

  platinum, and horsehair as filaments

  to make a glow in the vacuum of a bulb.

  His hair is as dark as hers, though not as curly.

  His high forehead is pale, his eyes gray and gentle.

  Under the cream-colored glow,

  Hertha and Will imagine a brighter night sky.

  Wings

  One Sunday, Will invites Hertha to his house.

  In the parlor, she admires a painting of sheep.

  My wife, may she rest in peace, chose that. Will talks

  about her brief career as a doctor before her death.

  They walk to the kitchen, where he praises his housekeeper,

  says, Women won’t be so housebound once we figure out

  how to use electricity to run machines

  to clean floors and dishes, wash or sew clothes.

  My mother would save much time with a machine

&nb
sp; that makes a needle move quickly, she says. But even

  sewing machines powered by hands and feet cost a lot.

  Electricity must not be just for the rich. Mr. Edison

  is looking for ways to make a good and inexpensive

  lightbulb and bury wires underground

  so the power can go anywhere. That would mean a lot of jobs.

  Many should go to women, she says.

  Anyone nimble with needles can knit electrical wire.

  They talk some more about the possibilities,

  before Will asks, Would you like to see where I work?

  He carries a lantern to the attic. A pine table

  is covered with levers, coils, magnets, beakers, and scales.

  Tacked to the slanted ceiling

  are two prints of swans in flight.

  As Will kisses her neck, she sees the wide wings spread.

  When he asks, Will you marry me?

  Hertha thinks of her mother, almost always

  with a baby in her arms or near her feet,

  children running in or out of the house.

  Hertha has so much to do already. Can she risk

  her life changing? Will gently touches

  her rippling hair. She says, Yes.

  Another Name

  Promising love and equality, the bride and groom

  say vows to each other in Ottilie’s parlor.

  She becomes Hertha Ayrton. Will calls her

  “Beautiful Genius,” then shortens the nickname to B.G.

  She brings bookshelves and pots of geraniums

  to the attic, where she invents and patents tools.

  By looking closely, asking questions, and noticing

  what’s alike in what first seem to have little in common,

  she often finds something new.

  She gives lectures to women on electricity,

  free singing classes to laundry girls, and visits

  Madame Bodichon, who’s ill and housebound.

  Sometimes Hertha opens the door to a poor man

  wearing a tattered coat and thin, battered boots.

  She wraps bread and meat from the icebox in newspaper,

  offers spare socks she buys for such moments

  and keeps in a drawer. One day she shuts the door,

  feels unfamiliar movement inside her,