In the Matter of Nikola Tesla

by Anthony Flacco

  None of the workers moved. The Manager stole a glance at his men, but quickly looked away. He had no way to tell what any of them were thinking so he remained in place, arms folded.

  Nikola giggled again. The Manager began to shift his weight back and forth, but still he kept quiet. A moment later Nikola moved around to the front of the dynamo and came back into everyone’s view.

  The workers watched him climb all over the machine, studying each section. His moving lips produced no sound, but his intense stare methodically took in everything about the ruined system.

  He finished his inspection, brushing his hands with a white kerchief, then took a deep breath and let out a long, slow exhale. Finally he took a couple of steps back, still keeping his eyes fixed on the dynamo. He paused, contemplating the huge machine.

  And giggled a third time.

  This one was so forceful that mucus flew out his nose when he tried to stifle it, and he wound up making a sound that was a cross between a cough and a sneeze. He clapped his hand over his mouth and threw a guilty glance toward the Manager, but the large man was so aghast that the expression on his face completely overcame Nikola, who exploded into laughter. He was only able to stop by faking a coughing fit.

  There was another moment of silence.

  Still none of the workers moved.

  The Manager only stared.

  Nikola quickly recovered himself, turned to the workers with an apologetic shrug and spoke to them in French, “Gentlemen, I am sorry. Please forgive me. It’s just that—”

  He stepped closer to the dynamo. “Look over here, for example.” His voice took on a tone someone might use to describe the work of an adorable child. “All of the wiring in here is of a gauge too light for the current! You see? And oh! Oh! Over here! Look, look, look! Capacitors of this size? Who decided that? Why, the entire contraption works out of phase with itself!” He turned passionately toward the workers. “Do you see? You see, don’t you? Gentlemen—this machine is one hundred percent reliable, provided that it was specifically engineered to break down!” Nikola finished with a happy laugh.

  He stopped a moment later when he noticed there was no other sound in the warehouse, no other movement. All of the burly men were staring at him as if he had just relieved himself on their floor.

  He inhaled sharply and continued, “Of course that is not the case. No! Not the case at all. No. For us, this is merely an opportunity to, ah…” He swallowed hard and went on. “I could demonstrate, if perhaps someone would be kind enough to loan me their toolbox?”

  The workers glared. No one moved.

  Nikola carefully stepped up to the biggest factory worker. The man outsized all of the others, but his placid expression and dull eyes caused Nikola to guess that he was the safest choice. As soon Nikola he got close enough to the man, he gently reached down toward a large toolbox sitting at the worker’s feet, keeping his eyes on the man’s face while he gingerly picked up the box and then took several steps backward toward the burned-out dynamo. He made sure to be well out of reach before he turned his back and faced the huge machine again.

  He stopped himself, held up his hand and gestured for a moment’s patience from the men, then turned away and hunched over slightly, clenching all of his muscles. A few seconds later he straightened up again and turned back to them, moving with deliberate care. He staunchly avoided any further expression of humor while he made his demonstration adjustments.

  Manager Baudelaire and all of the workers kept their eyes riveted on Nikola. Not one of them had moved or reacted to Nikola’s eccentric behavior in any way. After spending their lives in provinces where ethnic and political struggles were a persistent fact of life, the men had each mastered the craft of masking his thoughts. Even if Nikola had studied their faces, none of the men would have had any trouble in preventing him from reading them.

  However, all trace of Manager Baudelaire’s little smirk was gone.

  Chapter Nine

  Autumn

  Paris

  Late at night in the following autumn, Nikola sat in his darkened apartment on the Boulevard St. Michel and stretched his senses to the utmost, trying to reach through the walls and somehow determine if a storm was approaching.

  The air inside was so moist and heavy that his nightshirt was damp throughout, and his hair hung in his face. He ignored the discomfort and continued his endeavor with the concentration of a musician working on a difficult piece.

  There were no other indications of rain but for the damp air. The potential for thunder was poor; at that time of year there was rarely enough energy in the storm clouds to generate lightning—thick sleet was just as likely to fall. Nevertheless he kept his windows closed and curtains drawn, trying to force the rest of his perceptions to sharpen until they could detect a faraway storm’s electrical energy. He wondered if it might come via a faint tingling sensation, like a cat feeling a breeze across its whiskers.

  By the time he arrived back at his apartment that evening, his usual eruptions of imagery had been suppressed for several hours. The longer he held them back, the more pressure they built up. He arrived through the door feeling like he was holding back the world’s biggest sneeze.

  His skin prickled with a growing sense of anticipation. In the back of his mind lurked the hope that it meant he would be getting a much overdue visit from Karina. Such a thing didn’t seem like too much to ask, but so far the place she occupied in his heart had remained empty and silent all through his stay in Paris. With his frustration building, he sometimes fumed that she left him bare of her company without explanation.

  A floorboard creaked behind him. Nikola spun in the direction of the sound, eager for the sight of her.

  Nothing.

  With that, the pressure exploded and the mental sneeze blasted through his brain. A geyser of imagery spewed into him with overwhelming force. By this time, Nikola’s prime exercise of the evening was completely lost to him and he had no idea whether an electrical storm was approaching or not.

  * * *

  Early winter was on the scene by the time Manager Baudelaire found himself standing in front of the same dynamo that twenty-eight-year-old Nikola Tesla had faced on his first day in Paris. This was the machine no one could fix. What was there to fix? It was a ruined hulk. Nobody could have fixed it with anything short of witchcraft or pacts with the Devil. Manager Baudelaire needed no further proof of trickery afoot.

  He left Nikola to suffer politely in the background while he performed a grim and protracted inspection. Maurice Baudelaire was not so easily impressed with such shallow affectations as the big machine’s restored metal surfaces. The Manager-of-the-Works hardly considered himself some tulip-brained schoolgirl with moist panties for this upstart from Budapest. Would he piss himself at the sight of the giant ruined dynamo running under full power with a low, steady hum? Oh no. He did not marvel upon noting that all the working components had either been retooled or replaced, or that after two solid weeks of continuous operation, it was still running smoothly.

  Baudelaire knew for a fact it had been running without interruption because he had a team of three employees watching the place around the clock. That left the inspection itself as a footnote, a formality. Manager Baudelaire had already walked into the room that day already knowing nothing remained for the Continental Edison Company to do but move the refurbished generator into one of the city’s newer power stations. He also knew there was nothing forcing him to reveal this to Nikola before he had the chance to toy with him about it.

  Some measure of payback was compulsory. Baudelaire nearly ground his teeth smooth while he read from the field report, knowing a copy would be sent to The Man over in the land of the Puritan assholes—the young upstart had also fixed several other big generators during his few months of tenure. So far, not one had failed. This was unusual, since they routinely burned out under full load.

  So, Baudelaire mused, this Tesla fellow thinks that his
one little repair assignment is to be the extent of his initiation here? He sensed an opportunity to issue a far more interesting and humorous challenge. All that remained for him to do was inform Tesla that he was being sent on a temporary assignment to Strasbourg. There, Continental Edison had just constructed a power generating system for the new railway system being built by Kaiser Wilhelm I, only to have the gargantuan thing short out and blow a hole through one of the depot walls. The Kaiser had informed Continental Edison that he refused to pay for the job until the system was put into good working order. He sent the message through his administrative staff in Strasbourg (or “Strasburg,” Baudelaire reminded himself, as the Royal Anus prefers it to be spelled). Why, the spelling issue alone was merely one more sign that of the two, Baudelaire was the unappreciated superior being.

  “Royalty.” Baudelaire grumbled under it his breath. He harbored a whiff of nostalgia for the days when France had a stroke of the guillotine for every imperial head.

  So, he concluded, why not let the upstart try his genius out on the situation? Oh yes. Let us see how far Mr. Nikola Tesla’s fabled brain takes him in dealing with the vagaries of a Royal court!

  Manager Baudelaire decided that Tesla would be on the train for Strasbourg by the end of the day. He took a deep breath; that was it then.

  He extended his arm upward and snapped his fingers for the upstart to join him, having already concluded that the best way to deal with an intellect as sharp as this one is to hit hard and fast. Don’t give him an instant to think.

  A moment later Nikolas stood at Baudelaire’s side wearing an eager expression.

  “Nikola,” Manager Baudelaire began.

  “Yes, Monsieur Baudelaire?”

  “Manager Baudelaire.”

  “Yes, ah, Manager Baudelaire?”

  “This repair work of yours.”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t think it presented much of a challenge to you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I am not a tool user myself. Clearly, I overestimated the difficulty of the task.”

  “…Sir, this machine has not only been repaired, but I have also corrected half a dozen blatant design flaws. Any one of them would have prevented it from ever working for more than a few hours without burning up.”

  “Funny, it looks just about the same to me.”

  “Sir, if I may take you through the job, point by point—”

  “No need for that. It runs. Good work. Thank you.”

  “Every one of the dynamos had to be rebuilt, as you know, not just repaired! And now all of them are working without a problem!”

  “Yes, yes. No one is belittling your, ah, repair work, Nikola, but after all, repairs are really just a matter of having access to good tools and plenty of cheap labor, eh?”

  “No. No sir. If I may say so. Not at all. The very architecture of each individual system had to be addressed!”

  Manager Baudelaire grinned. “’Addressed’? Well, that is just fine, Nikola. Now I am ‘addressing’ you! If you want to earn a hefty bonus, you are going to have to show Continental Edison that you can be a genuine problem-solver for the company! Can you do that?”

  “A bonus?”

  “Only if you can solve our current dilemma, my friend. Relax. I am positive it will be nothing for a talent such as you. Did I say ‘nothing’? No, no, I trust that for you, it will be less than nothing!”

  Nikola’s face clouded. “Can anything be less than nothing?”

  Baudelaire laughed out loud. “He asks if anything can be less than nothing!” He slapped Nikola on the back. “Well, it can today!” He threw one arm over Nikola’s shoulders like an understanding mentor.

  “Get on this afternoon’s train up to Strasbourg. Report to the administrative offices for the Kaiser first thing tomorrow morning. Himself is in Berlin, but they say he’s going to visit again soon, so I’ll wire them to expect you. Before he returns from Berlin, you have to ‘address the architecture’ of the dynamo we designed to light the railway station there. It appears that the godforsaken thing does nothing except spark its own gaps and blow out the Kaiser’s railway station walls.”

  Nikola gasped with delight. “You will—you will allow me to represent this company to the Emperor of the Prussian Empire?”

  “Allow? Oh. Yes. But here’s the challenge: you have to keep the old man on our side. If he returns before you are finished, you must somehow prevent him from getting impatient while you complete the repairs. Have you ever had anything to do with royalty? They have no use for patience, Nikola. None at all. Nevertheless, you must keep him content so that you have time to do the job right, in order to be certain it doesn’t fail this time. So! Your challenge will not be as a mere tool user, my friend. This time your true challenge is political! Your success or failure at this project may well determine whether or not the Kaiser helps us gain further acceptance on an international scale! That is why it is worth a 5,000 franc bonus for a job well done.” He paused, then decided to add, “—on top of your regular salary, of course.”

  Nikola was so overwhelmed with excitement that he had to squint his eyes and clench his muscles just to keep the images in his mind’s eye from spewing all over and rendering him hopelessly confused.

  Manager Baudelaire could barely believe his eyes when he saw Tesla turn away from him. A rush of panic hit him. After all of the promises, was this fool still too smart to be tempted into accepting an impossible assignment? Would he actually turn down the job? Baudelaire had no intention of allowing that to happen.

  “Nikola,” he smiled. “Let me finish. We are also going to raise your salary by ten percent while you do the job. Use the extra money to travel about the city and soak up history. Medieval city, you know. All the way back to the seventh century. Try the fois gras; they’re famous for it.”

  But the upstart’s eyes were not even focused on him; they darted back and forth, barely even glancing at Baudelaire in the process! Christ on a hobbling beggar’s crutch, the man doesn’t even show interest in a raise! How can that be? Is it the amount? Is it not enough?

  “And of course,” Baudelaire continued, “in addition to your raise, we will pay your living expenses—reasonable living expenses—while you are in Strasbourg.”

  “Mm? Oh. I see. Is there just the one dynamo and distribution system? Perhaps all they need to do is to employ non-conductive baffles at the contact points between the commutator and the armature. Then there would be no need for me at all.”

  Manager Baudelaire stared for a moment. Tesla had just offered to tell them how to fix the problem themselves, in spite of the alternate prospect of a bonus and a raise. That was how unimpressed he was by Baudelaire’s offer! It took another moment for the manager to find his voice.

  “Well, Monsieur Tesla, why spoil the suspense? The job might be impossible for anyone else, but there can be no doubt that it will be easy for you!”

  Baudelaire nearly screamed in frustration; this idiot was still showing no interest! None! All right for that, then; it was time to deploy heavy artillery.

  “Oh yes, you will have full access to the repair shop, of course. You know, the experimental lab.”

  “An electrical laboratory?”

  This time Baudelaire saw Tesla’s eyes almost come into focus. So, somebody was awake over there after all, eh? The Manager marveled; this upstart was turning out to be a negotiator of far more skill than he had predicted. All right then, it was time to pour it on full and be certain this recurring Tesla problem was taken care of, once and for all.

  “Of course! Use the lab! After all, you have to have somewhere to try out your new parts for the system. To make sure they work. Correct?”

  “Actually, I do all of that in my head before I build a single piece of anything.”

  Baudelaire suddenly looked like the neck of his shirt was two sizes too small. He stared at Nikola for several long seconds. The only movement that came from hi
m was the slight heaving of his chest, and the only sound was the wheeze of air through his ample nostrils.

  “Oh. You are saying, then…” Baudelaire’s voice broke, “…you are unimpressed with my offer?”

  “Unimpressed?”

  “Because you didn’t let me finish. You really should allow a person to complete a thought, Nikola! When they speak! Let them finish! You know, what they are… trying…” He sighed. “Anyway, you may even use the lab for your own fiddling around. As long as you go in after hours. On your own time.”

  Aha! The upstart’s eyes lit up like fanned coals! Manager Baudelaire felt a rush of excitement—now he had him! Even though this Tesla’s negotiating style had proven more subtle than expected, Baudelaire had hooked the fool by simply being canny enough to throw in some free lab time, a nice raise, and a fat bonus.

  Years of practice at shuffling employees out of his office had polished his skill at the task, so it only took a few seconds to get Monsieur Upstart Tesla moving out the door and happily on his way to professional annihilation. The routine was pro forma. Once Tesla was gone, Baudelaire could barely even remember the actual bon voyages or even that odd formal bow that Tesla seemed to prefer to an honest handshake.

  That was it, then. By the time Monsieur Tesla finished scandalizing the Royal staffers with his eccentric behavior, the inevitable failure of this doomed mission would already have him in its grasp. Baudelaire knew the Prussian situation was already hopeless. There would be nothing more for the “genius” to do but to accept the blame for Continental Edison’s engineering calamity and keep Manager Baudelaire’s reputation clear. It was nearly a fait accompli, reason enough for extra champagne with dinner.

  Still, in the aftermath of his amusing little scheme, Baudelaire found himself lacking any sense of fulfillment. Once again there had been precious little challenge from the opposition. Shit on a stick! Where is the difficulty needed for an enjoyable victory? Baudelaire wondered, is my search for a worthy rival doomed to disappointment such as this? In that ongoing conversation of blades which was the contest of wills between himself and Nikola Tesla, Manager Maurice Baudelaire was the clear winner, yet somehow his level of satisfaction amounted to nothing. Nothing at all.