by Terry, Mark
“Then those shall be the departments you should hope I avoid, sir. Good day.”
The little man nearly fell over backward and only managed to steady himself with a hand on a nearby display. He knocked over a beautiful porcelain doll with long dark hair. He didn’t even notice it had fallen.
After he left, the two women behind the glove counter let out a long breath.
Wedderburn winked at them. “Box up a dozen for me,” he paused, then continued, “and distribute them amongst yourselves.” He tipped his hat and smiled at Allefra as he walked past, catching her eye. She stood silently, but her eyes locked with his and she nodded.
Interlude 7
Monday, February 22, 1892, 5:36 p.m.
Gare d’Orsay Railway Station, Paris
Two walls of the burnt ruins of the Palais d'Orsay still stood while work to replace it went on in its shadows. The Louvre and the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur sat looming over the site. The structure covered over an acre of property, with metal girders climbing twenty feet in the air. Giant cables wrapped up thick steel braces and connected huge light fixtures hanging above.
Several men in top hats congregated around the draped structure off to the left of the worksite. One of the men waved to a workman pointing at some of the ropes and tying the tarp in place when Tesla arrived on the property.
“Don’t touch! Touch nothing!” Tesla shouted, waving his arms.
A gray-haired bookkeeper with a notepad came running. “I told them, sir. I told them you would be ready, but they insisted on having a look. And you weren’t here!”
Tesla laid a hand on the nervous man’s shoulder. “Is all right, Mr. Dexter. Am here now.”
One of the top hats tugged on a rope. Another tried to lift some of the tarp aside to get a look underneath.
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Please. Is delicate equipment!” Tesla said, mopping his brow and hurriedly stuffing the handkerchief back in his jacket. “As I explained to gentlemen, mercury gas is a mad hatter if not handled proper. Equipment is very delicate.”
“How can it be safe to show at the exposition this evening?” another top hat asked.
“Sir, I will make presentation. Whole experiment to show how your new rail terminal, built here, will be first electrified rail terminal in world.”
He stepped back and placed both hands flat on his chest. “I, Nikola Tesla, will show them is possible. With alternating current from power plant I constructed at Edison factory, I will light up whole city in safe, comforting electric light.”
He motioned overhead. “Support beams in place. In hours, my workmen will have panels secured. By nightfall, ready to make first demonstration!” He tapped his temple. “It all works.”
Stepping out of earshot, Tesla leaned in to the bookkeeper and whispered, “Get workmen!”
Interlude 8
Monday, February 22, 1892, 6:16 p.m.
Along the Quai de Conti, Paris
I can hardly contain my excitement this evening. The driving angst which has consumed me for these many months is extinguished. I wished to see her for breakfast, but she insisted that her aunt had required her assistance in restocking. I told her of my love of literature—Maria Monk, Catherine Beecher, and Charles Sheldon—and she laughed and laid a hand on my cheek.
Neither the beggar nor the tramp nary approached or made eye contact. He looked up at the ancient church, mysterious and a little sinister. The wheel window in the north transept caught the glow of the sun. Henry VI of England crowned himself King of France. Only a scant dozen years earlier, rioters set Notre Dame afire, which it resisted successfully, before being occupied by soldiers.
I have finally found a human being in which I can lay my dreams and my passions, someone with whom I can engage. Not just in happy tolerance, but in a fresh breeze of common spirit. She has awoken that which I did not believe existed any longer. Imagine all the exotic locations, the oceans to explore, the civilizations to encounter, all anew. Wedderburn sighed. I am no longer adrift.
She appeared in an evening dress that looked much like designs of Charles Frederick Worth in some of the nicer window shops downtown, but he could see she had taken the idea and had the dress tailored to her tastes. Unlike the chemise dresses gaining in popularity which suggested a body shaped flat in the front and the back, she had the some of the seams taken in and added a separate bodice which accentuated her feminine physique.
An original. I like that.
They strolled arm-in-arm slowly along the Seine looking towards the Louvre. He conjured no illusions to impress her. Everything they discussed seemed so real. No torturing the brain for stories of adventure or spectral horrors. He shared his doubts, his dreams, and his sincerest wishes. They passed a particularly rowdy night spot, and she bemoaned the state of Paris and the bal masque—the low life that were consumed by the drinkable drug. The night life spilled out of the restaurant’s doors and onto the street. A couple of inebriated women began doing something called the Can-Can. Wedderburn and Allefra crossed the street and moved on.
Rich aristocrats with their names on reserved lists, the working class in silken shirts and every now and again, the flashing of a lantern in a carriage, all proceeded with little discernment from the pair. He prepared himself to ask her if she would be busy the next day, perhaps the next month and the next year as well, when she looked up into the dusky sky.
“What quiet and cold stars! Why are they there?” Allefra stared up.
He thought for a moment about recounting to her his knowledge of astronomy and physics from his wide travels in the East, from Samarkand to Cordoba. Then he decided he did not want her to think he felt the need to impress. He desired her company, not her approval. Strange feelings for a man who had not only sought the world over for enlightenment and truth, but had relegated his few conversations to kings and philosophers.
“Mankind has always asked that question. It is a question never to be solved. Better to ask, why are we here?”
She looked at him approvingly. Then she raised a hand and brushed something off his shoulder. Her touch, if only brief and tangential, made his ears warm. He forgot what to ask her.
They were coming upon the ruins of the Palais d'Orsay and noticed a crowd waiting with apparent keenness. They were on the other side of the Seine, opposite the Louvre. He had intended to walk her amongst its brilliant architecture, but she gave a half-step pause, and he smiled in acknowledgement of her wish to inquire at the scene. He braced her arm a bit firmer into his. As they made the half-turn towards the gathering, he used the moment to glance to his left. A carriage and driver shadowed him silently about a hundred yards back.
As they neared, a cloth which had hovered over a dozen feet high pulled down and crumpled to the dusty wooden floor, revealing a machine of some kind. Levers and light panels were abundant, and thick cables ran from its base up into the rafters.
A tall, gaunt man in a wrinkled suit climbed onto a stack of crates.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Ladies and gentlemen! My name is Nikola Tesla. You are about to witness the first demonstration of Continental Edison’s latest achievement. The Gare d’Orsay will become the world’s first electrified urban rail terminal!”
A smattering of applause greeted the announcement. The tall gangly man took out a pocket watch and looked to the west. Wedderburn noticed too. The last vestiges of daylight disappeared behind the horizon and it had, in the last moments, become fully night.
Tesla leapt down from the crates and strode over to the console of the machine. Waving back a group of onlookers crowding too close, he turned a few dials. A low hum began in the machine and the crowd took a subconscious step back. Four workmen pushed out two tall, thin contraptions.
“Capacitors. Perfectly safe,” Tesla said, smiling.
One half of the machine looked like a small silo with thick bands of copper cables draped to the floor and extending to the base of the second half of the machine. This thick, steel base had a giant sphere wi
th metal rods protruding through it at a dozen different angles.
Tesla stepped between the two machines and motioned for the crowd to take one more step back. He turned and nodded to two men at each side of the machine. The men shifted their levers. At Tesla’s nod, one man jerked up and the other man shoved down, and a sharp whine emanated from the framework.
At that moment, a spark erupted between the capacitors. Several people fled into the darkness for safety.
Wedderburn physically felt the suspense rise in Allefra. His arm wrapped around her. To his surprise, she gave not the slightest motion to move. In fact, she leaned closer.
“Ladies and gentlemen, nothing for to fear.” Tesla walked between the capacitors, the blue bolts of electricity danced above his head. “I am demonstrating simple elements of high-voltage and high frequency currents. Perfectly safe.”
At the periphery, Wedderburn noticed the gas lamps going out—workmen slowly extinguishing them, one by one.
“Now that I have excited your dreams, quenched your fears,” Tesla inhaled deeply, “let me demonstrate ultimate product of alternating current!” Another switch and the entire area became bathed in brilliant illumination.
Allefra took several steps forward, her eyes looking up at the wonderful light. Wedderburn took a couple steps back upon a burst of sparks and a frightened shout. Holding his hands against the glare, Wedderburn could see a workman running across the metal beams above towards the sizzling source. The man slipped and dangled in the air twenty feet up. The beam gave way with an almost inaudible crack and he tumbled to the ground, landing with the crunch of soft celery. The entire light panel swayed. Wedderburn couldn’t see Allefra through the blinding light.
The sparks caught the tarp on fire, and timbers of the light array caught fire. The crowd moved back, but Allefra stood still, staring up as the light panel broke free and fell on her, pinning her beneath the rubble.
The burst of energy and the brilliant explosion of light had started and ended in an instant. Portions of the surrounding construction, disturbed by the blast, toppled in and around the collapsed exhibit. Sparks lit the wooden platform.
Wedderburn rose from the tangled wreckage, his coat aflame, but he had only one concern. Allefra. He leaned over her and with his bare hands, gripped the red hot metal. He gave a terrific heave, but couldn’t move the collapsed frame from her body.
Flames leapt higher all around. Wedderburn leaned down closer, gripped the metal and gave another great heave. The metal flexed, then gave at the welded joint. Finally he pried away the main rod that lay across Allefra’s back and tossed it aside. He brought her body—eyes open, lifeless—to cradle in his arms.
The flames licked at his hands. He slapped at the fire as it singed her bodice. Another spark landed on her skirt and he smacked that away. He looked around, searching for something, unaware of the flesh starting to bubble on his face.
Interlude 9
Sunday, March 12, 1893, 7:15 a.m.
211 Main Street, West Orange,
New Jersey
Thomas Edison hurried across his invention factory, between the laboratory unit and the studio, a mousy secretary with brown curls at his elbow and an accountant in tow. The studio served as Edison’s movie lot, a small building he had built on a circular track. It moved several feet west to line up at a proper angle with the afternoon sun.
The little accountant had a pair of glasses parked at the end of his nose and two pencils behind his right ear. Edison stood an average height and weight, with piercing eyes which distracted from a broad forehead. His pace quickened as he hopped up the stairs of the moving studio and stepped inside. Mr. Hargrave, the accountant, jumped up on the stepladder and held a hand out to help the secretary climb on as the door shut behind.
Inside, a blonde stagehand watched through the open roof until the sun came in at the proper angle. He raised his loud hailer and let out, “Whoop!” The studio stopped moving on the tracks. The stagehand, satisfied, turned to rush off to another duty and nearly collided with Edison.
“Sorry, sir.” He moved aside and into the shadows.
Edison stopped and looked around. “The Vitascope! Who is working on the Vitascope?” he boomed. No answer.
“Dickson!” he shouted to the ceiling.
The accountant came up behind Edison. “These expenses are extraordinary, sir. Are you certain this is the kind of money you want to spend?”
“Dickson!” Edison bellowed, looking at the accountant with irritation. “Hargrave, we have got to keep the people entertained. They demand more and more subjects out of our invention. One scantily clad adventuress is not going to keep the Kinetoscopes selling, is it?” He shouted again, “DICKSON!”
“Here, Al,” Dickson said softly.
Edison turned to his left. Around them, several workmen were constructing something and were moving in chairs, tarp, and rope.
W.K.L. Dickson wore a bow tie and a wide brimmed straw hat. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and he had a bead of sweat on his forehead. He moved on the balls of his feet with nervous energy, smiling under his horseshoe moustache.
“Where are we with the Vitascope project, Dickson?”
“Well, sir, I have prepared the first batch of celluloid film for the process. I settled on thirty-five millimeter stock from Eastman for the applicability.”
“When are we going to be able to test it?” Edison asked as he looked through the lens again.
“Well, we should be finished shooting our next film this week. Then we will have an opportunity to test it.”
Edison moved across the floor towards a Kinetoscope machine. “I don’t know about this, Dickson. The Kinetoscopes are very profitable machines for us. One machine for every viewer, gentlemen. Not a hundred viewers for every machine.” He shook his head. “I say they never sell.”
At the mention of this, the accountant stepped forward. “But, Mr. Edison, we’ve had dozens of orders since word leaked out. Our customers can generate a lot more profit themselves with such a machine.”
Edison turned, agitated and surprised. “What did you say?”
The little man pulled back, blinking. “We already have dozens of orders, sir.”
Edison threw up his hands. “We haven’t even made it work, yet!”
Dickson looked at the accountant and gave a back-off gesture with his hands then turned to the inventor.
“Yes, sir,” Dickson replied in his Manchester drawl, “but several competitors have already begun work on a motion picture camera for shows that can be played on a screen or a wall. The Edison name is so legitimate that people are already buying buildings to turn into theaters.”
As work progressed, what looked like a boxing ring took shape in the center of the room. Edison glanced over intermittently, but said nothing about the construction.
“Well, let’s see how it goes. Your careers are riding on this, gentlemen. Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent.” He stopped, turned back and pointed at the secretary. “And tell Mina I will be home for dinner. I don’t want that woman mad at me again.”
Edison got behind the Kinetograph and watched as workmen put the last elements into place. The boxing ring had two high-back, wooden chairs in each corner. At least five men were hanging on the ropes around the edges of the square. Not a typical boxing ring and not a typical boxing match, simply an historic Edison Film.
Two men in boxing shorts and gloves stepped into the ring. They looked at Edison expectantly.
“Glenroy Brothers Film,” he barked as he began cranking the Kinetograph. The two boxers looked at each other, confused. Edison frowned.
“I want to see some action! ACTION!” he hollered.
The two boxers began comically hitting each other. They bounced around the ring madly, throwing wild punches that swung for air as much as the other man. Then they actually started lifting their arms over their heads and bringing them madly down on each other’s shoulders. The so-called referee ste
pped in and separated them. Then they went at it again, as comically as before. Edison continued to film.
“One of you get knocked down!” he shouted. One of the boxers took a wild shot for the other’s head, barely connected, and the boxer hunched, and then fell to the ground.
Edison smiled broadly. “All right, that’s enough. Wrap it up.” He handed the camera over to the stagehand with the loud hailer. “Print it,” Edison shouted, and headed for the exit door.
Outside, the accountant handed Edison a list of expenses to sign off on. Edison signed one after another as the men crossed the backlot of his compound. That is when he met thirty-seven year old Ida Tarbell, a woman born of a need for social and economic justice.
Interlude 10
Sunday, March 12, 1893, 9:23 a.m.
211 Main Street, West Orange,
New Jersey
Ida Minerva Tarbell had been born in western Pennsylvania and graduated as the only woman in the 1880 class of Allegheny College where she earned A.B. and M.A. degrees. She worked briefly in Paris, and upon returning in 1893, McClure Magazine hired her. She became one of America’s first investigative reporters.
Ida Tarbell represented more than just pioneering. As a woman of remarkable independence and presence of mind, research and reason drove Ida to reject many beliefs of the suffragettes of the day. A relentless pursuit of the facts, and fairness in presenting them, marked all her writing. Believing that women brought compassion to politics, she did an in-depth study of Madame Roland to confirm this belief. Instead, she found that Madame Roland had behaved in the French Revolution just as the men had. In fact, more heads had rolled.
She had labeled herself a pantheist, melding her views of religion and the modern world. She had contempt for shiftlessness, kept regular hours, studied whether she liked it or not and never gave up. She fought for civil rights as a strong proponent against urban blight, unsafe factories, and dubious business dealings.