In 1948, Mileva Einstein notes that the dark is approaching and that she hopes to learn if time is truly relative.

The narrative flashes back to October 1896 in Switzerland. Mileva summons her father’s positive affirmation to help overcome her nervousness at entering a classroom of men. As a woman and a Serbian immigrant, Mileva battles sexism and xenophobia to study physics and mathematics. She has a substantial limp and walks proudly to her seat in the classroom of men. The other students try to avoid looking at her, except for one young man who smiles at her. The professor, Heinrich Martin Weber, tells the man—Albert Einstein—to pay attention.

Mileva’s father helped her move to Zürich from their home in Croatia. He worked hard to become a landowner there and made sure that his children were well educated and could speak German, the language of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Mileva moves to Zürich to attend the Polytechnic, a university that trains students to become math or science teachers; it is one of the few universities that admits women. Mileva moves into Engelbrecht Pension, a women’s rooming house.