The Tesla Legacy

by Rebecca Cantrell

  Joe’s mouth went dry, and he croaked, “Thanks.”

  The funeral was about to begin, and he wasn’t there. He was in some hotel room, alone with his dog.

  “I can’t see anyone from out here,” she said. “I’m going to walk into the cemetery and see what’s going on.”

  Joe nodded, then remembered she wasn’t looking at him. “OK.”

  He took a long sip of Coke and cleared his throat.

  She panned her phone from side to side to show brick walls and a faraway strip of bright green grass. “I don’t know how they’ll feel about me filming once I get in the cemetery, so I’m going to put you in my front pocket to be discreet.”

  The view dropped a foot, dipped behind white fabric, then settled.

  “I feel short,” Joe said.

  “If you think I’m taping this thing to the side of my head, you’ve got another think coming.”

  Joe smiled, grateful he could. “I’ll go on mute now.”

  He didn’t want any hotel noises beaming out into the cemetery during the service.

  “Gotcha, boss.” The phone wiggled as if she had nodded. She started forward, and the green grass neared. That must be the cemetery itself.

  A guy wearing a black suit and a professional mourner’s face hurried up to her. “Are you here for the Smith funeral?”

  Smith funeral? His father’s last name was Tesla.

  “I’m here for Mr. George Tesla. Am I in the right place?” Vivian asked.

  “Of course. Mr. Tesla is descended from the Smiths, so he will be buried in their crypt. It dates back to 1836.” He gestured to a white plaque resting on grass in front of a stone block wall. “So few families have kept up the tradition. It’s an honor to be able to lay someone to rest here today.”

  As Vivian moved closer, Joe saw the name SMITH engraved on the marble plaque. But his father wasn’t a SMITH. He was descended from Nikola Tesla. The Teslas had lived in Croatia, not New York. Nikola Tesla himself hadn’t immigrated to the United States until 1884 (cyan, purple, purple, green). This couldn’t be the right place. Maybe his father was a Smith on his mother’s side, although Joe was pretty sure his grandmother’s maiden name was Morris.

  He wanted to ask Vivian to double check, but he didn’t want to make his presence known and maybe get her kicked out. She turned in a slow, unobtrusive circle, clearly trying to show him the full scene. Two older men in black suits stood near the plaque. They must be his father’s chess club—professors who had visited his father in the home. One had removed his suit coat and hung it over his arm, but the other seemed more concerned with propriety than comfort, even on such a hot day.

  From his father’s emails, Joe knew more than he wanted to about both men. One was a brilliant mathematician who had never achieved the recognition Joe’s father thought he deserved. The other one might have had an affair with Joe’s mother, or at least his father had hinted at it. In a movie, one of them would have murdered his father, but they hadn’t.

  Ever wary, Joe had asked his lawyer, Mr. Rossi, to hire a medical examiner to review the autopsy performed on his father’s body. The second doctor concurred that his father had died of a heart attack. He was eighty-two years old and had suffered two previous heart attacks. The medical examiner had tested his father’s tissues for poisons, and every test that had come back so far was negative. He was an old man who had died of natural causes, like the original report said. Joe was still glad he’d double checked.

  The camera moved past the professors to settle on a woman who had just arrived. She held a simple black box and wore a black dress, a wide-brimmed black hat, and a dotted veil that looked like something Marlene Dietrich would have worn. Even though his mother hadn’t performed for decades, she walked with the graceful step of a young dancer, each movement elegant and choreographed. She looked the part of the grieving widow, even though she had divorced Joe’s father twenty years before.

  Vivian must have recognized her, because she kept the camera pointed there. His mother looked from side to side, as if searching for someone in the small group of mourners. Her veil fluttered in the breeze.

  Guilt rose up in Joe. She was looking for him, her only child. She expected him to be at his father’s funeral, and he wasn’t. The man she had raised wouldn’t have shamed her by missing such an important event. He would have paid his respects. But he hadn’t.

  She pulled the simple black box closer to her chest. The box’s ebony surface gleamed in the sun. That box contained his father’s ashes. Joe swallowed the lump in his throat. After he’d received the phone call from his mother telling him that his father was dead, he’d arranged the funeral and picked out the box to hold his father’s ashes, but he hadn’t really accepted that the man was dead until he saw the box in his mother’s arms.

  Edison dropped his warm head in Joe’s lap. He stroked the dog’s ears, and Edison wagged his tail—one solid thump (cyan). Joe took a careful breath, held it, and let it out. His father was gone. There would be no reconciliation for them now. Joe had had very good reasons to cut his father out of his life, but looking at the black box made it all so very final.

  A man took his mother’s arm. He looked about fifty, ten or so years younger than she, and handsome in a craggy thirties movie star way. Vivian caught the man’s solicitous face in profile, and Joe was struck by how much the man looked like a younger version of his father.

  Joe had no doubt this man and his mother were romantically involved. Men had always flocked to his mother.

  The camera stayed on her as she stepped across the grass. The chess players watched her advance, both smiling a greeting as if they knew her. Had his mother and father stayed in touch till the end, so much so that she knew his friends?

  They’d separated when Joe was ten, and he and his mother had moved around with the circus while his father returned to New York, teaching statistics at New York University, and forgetting Christmases and Joe’s birthdays.

  Vivian moved the camera to show a priest walking behind his mother. The man looked fresh out of missionary school. His fresh-scrubbed face was pink, and his priest’s collar looked too tight. He clutched a Bible and marched with the determined steps of an African explorer about to set off into the jungle. Joe bet it was his first funeral.

  The priest nodded to his mother, then to Vivian, as did the chess club, even though they didn’t know who Vivian was. Joe’s mother, however, gave her such a knowing glance that he inched back in his flimsy hotel chair. His mother pressed two (blue) fingers to her lips and dropped them to her side. That was the secret “I love you” sign she and Joe had invented when he was a kid. He hadn’t seen it in years, but he instinctively made it back, even though she couldn’t see him.

  The priest lined his mother, her paramour, and the retired professors in front of the wall. Vivian fell in last. A giant arrangement of flowers Joe had selected online stood on an easel next to his mother like a proxy for her son. It wasn’t enough, of course—she needed a flesh-and-blood son to hold her hand—but it was the best he could do right now.

  Words were intoned, but Vivian’s microphone picked up mostly wind and the faint drone of traffic. It didn’t matter anyway. The priest hadn’t known his father, so what could he say that Joe needed to hear?

  He closed his eyes and prayed for his father. He prayed death had brought his father peace from the demons that had haunted him. He hadn’t been an easy man, and there must have been reasons.

  But even now Joe couldn’t forgive him everything. The demons that his father had set upon Joe would be with him always. As they say, we carry the dead with us.

  When he opened his eyes again, the priest had finished. His mother lifted the urn to hip height and slid it into an empty niche in the stone wall. Her lips moved as if she whispered something, but he couldn’t make out the words. He turned the volume up to full, but heard only the murmur of traffic and the slamming of a faraway door.

  Chapter 5

  Vivian hated funera
ls. She’d attended plenty back in the service, and they’d never offered her comfort or closure. They made her angry that everyone was boxed up in the same generic ritual, just like their bodies were boxed up in wooden caskets. When she died, she wanted to have her ashes scattered out the back of an airplane. Then the mourners could parachute after and go have a beer when they landed—adrenaline and alcohol would be a good send-off.

  If her mother outlived her, though, Vivian knew she’d insist on this kind of awkward service, where everyone felt compelled to make up something nice, maybe toss in a joke, and cry. At Vivian’s funeral, Lucy would feel guilty because she let her big sister fall off some indoor climbing wall and die and sad because she’d inherited Vivian’s shoes. Vivian’s shoes were too boring for Lucy. She suppressed a smile.

  A couple of guys from the funeral home lifted the stone block into place, and that was it. Nobody but the priest gave a eulogy, which was weird. It looked like it was over.

  One more thing she had to do, although Tesla hadn’t told her to, and probably didn’t want her to. Whatever. It was the right thing to do.

  She walked over to Mrs. Tesla and held out her hand. “My name is Vivian Torres. I’m here on behalf of your son.”

  The woman shook her hand. She wore silk gloves, like a movie star, but her tiny hand was surprisingly strong.

  “Thank you for coming.” Mrs. Tesla waved her hand at the phone in her pocket. “And thank you, too, Joe.”

  “Would you like to speak to him, ma’am?” Vivian fished the phone out of her pocket. Tesla would probably be furious he was being ambushed like this, but the least he could do was talk to his mother. She needed him, and he probably needed her, too.

  Mrs. Tesla took the phone and turned away. Speaking in a low voice, she walked a few steps to the wall. Her finger traced the S in SMITH on the plaque.

  Her good-looking older escort made a move to follow her, but Vivian intervened. “Had you known George Tesla long, Mr.…?”

  “Hugh Hollingberry.” He shook his head. “I never met the man, but my fiancée was married to him once, many years ago.”

  Fiancée? Knowing how rich Joe Tesla was, an alarm bell went off in her head. Mrs. Tesla seemed as if she could take care of herself, but even the toughest of women might have a blind spot about men. “I didn’t realize you were engaged to Mrs. Tesla.”

  “Two years ago,” he said, which took him out of suspicion. Joe Tesla had been crazy rich for less than a year. “She humors me. How did you know the deceased?”

  “I’m a…friend of his son’s.” That made it sound like she was sleeping with him, but she couldn’t say she’d been hired to cover the funeral, even if his mom would probably tell the man anyway.

  “The mysterious software genius.” Hollingberry glanced over at Mrs. Tesla. “I’ve yet to meet him. What’s he like?”

  “Mysterious.” She softened her non-answer with a smile. “How’d you meet Mrs. Tesla?”

  He pointed to a looped ribbon that looked like the pink ones she’d seen for breast cancer, but this one was denim blue. “I met her at a charity event I sponsored to raise funds and awareness for rare genetic diseases.”

  Vivian hadn’t expected that answer. She’d Google him later, but she doubted this guy was after Mrs. Tesla’s money. He sounded as if he had money of his own. “A pretty good cause.”

  “I think so.” His blue eyes lit up, and he spoke with a passion that reminded her of Tesla. “My sister died from a rare genetic disease, and I realized how few resources are devoted to them. But these diseases can have profound effects not just on those who suffer from them, but also on our understanding of genetics as a whole. I believe these conditions hold the secrets to understanding many of the body’s processes, like aging, metabolism, mental illness, how—”

  Mrs. Tesla had returned. “There now, Holly, no need to bore the young woman.”

  “It sounds fascinating,” Vivian countered.

  Hollingberry took Mrs. Tesla’s arm. “Are we ready to go home, my dear?”

  Mrs. Tesla handed Vivian her phone and thanked her, then the two walked across the grass, through the passageway, and turned left at the street. Vivian decided she liked them both.

  She looked at the phone in her hand. She was still connected to Tesla. She popped the phone into her pocket and turned so he could see the wall where his father was entombed and the two old guys who seemed to be the only other mourners. The priest and the two men from the funeral home waited as if they had all the time in the world, although they, more than most, had to know that wasn’t true.

  Deciding Tesla might want to learn more about those mourners, she headed toward them. The cemetery was a beautiful place—an island of green and peace in the middle of Manhattan. She hoped that came through on the phone and gave Tesla some comfort.

  “Hello.” The taller of the two was Indian, with thick black hair, a good-looking face, and large brown eyes. “I’m Professor Patel, and this is Professor Egger.”

  Vivian felt like she was back in school. “Vivian Torres.”

  The bald man with the crazy beard held out his hand for a shake. He, too, wore a black suit, but had paired it with an egg-yolk-yellow bow tie that looked jarring at a funeral. He’d taken off his jacket earlier, but he’d put it back on for the service. “I’m Professor Egger, but you can call me Eggy. Everyone else does.”

  Well, that explained the tie. An inside joke.

  “Please tell us you are a mysterious beauty who helped to ease George’s last hours.” Patel smiled. “Give some old men hope.”

  “I’m a colleague of his son’s,” she said. “I never met Professor Tesla, Senior.”

  Egger looked as if he held back a smile. “Ah, Professor Tesla.”

  He stressed the last name in a way that piqued her interest. “He didn’t like being a Tesla?”

  “To the contrary, he loved being a Tesla very much.” Egger straightened his bow tie.

  “He wasn’t, of course.” Patel had a slight Indian accent.

  “Wasn’t what?” Vivian wished she’d turned the phone off. She had a feeling Joe wouldn’t want to hear whatever was coming.

  “In America, you can change your name to whatever you want.” Egger fussed with his yellow tie again. “I could be George Washington if I wanted to.”

  Chapter 6

  People swirled around Joe, heading for the doors, the tracks, the shops. Everyone was in transit to somewhere else. He was as stuck here as the clock or the light fixtures.

  He sighed. He’d get back outside again someday. For now, he was waiting to meet his mother for dinner. They’d set the time and place when he talked to her at the funeral, but he’d kept his phone out of its Faraday cage since in case she changed the plans.

  His phone rang, and he glanced at the screen, expecting to see a picture of his mother, but it was Celeste. A picture of her from the days when they dated in college flashed across the screen. Her smile still gave him butterflies.

  He couldn’t talk to her here. Her voice was hard to hear under the best conditions.

  With Edison at his heels, he scooted across the concourse to the Biltmore Room, also known as the Kissing Room. Originally, passengers met in this room to travel to the luxurious Biltmore Hotel. Later, it became a meeting place for families waiting for incoming troops—a place to kiss them hello. These days the room was usually deserted, but the station had plans to restore it into a new hub. For now, it was the only quiet place in the concourse.

  He sat down next to an abandoned shoeshine stand. He liked the Biltmore Room, not just because he cherished the quiet, but also because it was a time capsule—from its old-fashioned signs to the slate board with the arrival and departure times of long-forgotten trains printed in dusty chalk.

  He called Celeste back and listened to the faraway ringing. Edison sat next to him, attentive and on duty.

  “Hello!” said Celeste in her now-breathy voice. She had good days and bad days since she’d been diagnosed with AL
S, but even the good days weren’t that good anymore. Still, she sounded stronger than yesterday.

  “Greetings,” he answered.

  “Are you home?” she asked. “Haunting the old boards?”

  “I can’t go down right now. They’re inspecting the elevator, so I can plummet to my death with the proper inspection certificate in front of me.”

  “That elevator is perfectly safe! It hasn’t killed anyone in over a hundred years.”

  “Makes it due. Those ancient cables will snap. Game over.”

  “I think that’s only happened one time. The Empire State Building, in 1945 when a B-25 bomber crashed into it and damaged the cables. How likely is that to happen underground?” A quick wheeze told him she’d spoken too long.

  “Have to be prepared for every eventuality.” His sentences always got shorter when she was out of breath, as if he could make hers shorter, too.

  “Including the final one. How was the funeral?”

  “Lightly attended. And I found out my father, and by extension me, isn’t descended from the great Tesla at all.”

  “All those years of ‘do better, you’re a Tesla’ have come to naught?” She didn’t sound as shocked as he felt.

  “My father’s last name was Smith. I looked it up online, and I think I might be descended from Tesla’s pigeon keeper.”

  Tinkles of laughter came down the phone line, followed by coughs.

  Joe glanced over at a sign that read eppie’s shoeshine & repair. The little man on the sign was poised to drive a nail into a giant shoe to fix it. If only it would be so easy to fix Celeste.

  “What the hell did you say to her?” That wasn’t Celeste. It was her brother, Leandro. Joe and Leandro had been friends for years, but he’d become distant since Joe moved into the family house underneath Grand Central, taking possession of the place Leandro used for annual parties.

  “Is Celeste all right?” Joe asked. She gasped out something in the background. He felt guilty for making Celeste waste her breath on him. She had so little to spare. Doctors still had no idea if her ALS would kill her in a matter of months, or if she might linger for years, like Stephen Hawking. They did know that she would never get better.