In the Matter of Nikola Tesla

by Anthony Flacco

  “Oh. Well! Without hesitation, it was at the end of my very first day as a riverboat pilot.” Twain took a sip and sighed at the memory. “Just as I stepped ashore, this extraordinary young beauty came strolling by, with her aged auntie.”

  “Auntie?”

  “Auntie, mother. Point is, I knew they saw me, in my Captain’s hat, and I wanted nothing more in this world than to meet this stunning creature. At that moment I could feel, for the first time, that I had the power of words and images that would reassure the older lady while beguiling the younger.”

  Nikola laughed out loud, enthralled.

  Twain continued, “Of course, by experience I also knew that I would become hopelessly tongue-tied in the close presence of such beauty, and so I just watched her pass, with her auntie.”

  “It was her auntie, then. Not her mother.”

  “She even glanced back. I was too shy to smile! Can you imagine? What a waste. At that moment, that very instant, I realized that I would come to no good in this life. Lie, steal,” he took another sip, “write novels. A shameless activity, to be sure. I just love the idea of being a freelance writer. My lance is free, bound by no flag, servant to no royalty.”

  “I understand! Yes. Mine too.”

  * * *

  Unseen hands poured kerosene all over the floors of the darkened lab, the walls, the equipment. A flaming match fell into one of the puddles and a greasy blast of orange and red boiled upward. It rolled across the ceiling and throughout the room.

  * * *

  Nikola was feeling loosened by the wine. “Mr. Twain, surely you realize that your work has an element of magic to it. I truly believe that.”

  Twain raised his glass in salute. “Thank you. My magic is powerless to return my daughter from the dead, but thank you. I may despise my isolation but I do love well-phrased flattery. Your isolation, however, appears to be something you’ve chosen.”

  * * *

  All three floors of the South Fifth Street laboratory—Nikola’s creative home for six highly productive years—were fully engulfed in flame within a matter of minutes. The searing heat soon began to eat deep into the supporting timbers, which began to give way, one by one.

  * * *

  Nikola nodded. “Most of my isolation is necessary to my work. But there is someone. It’s fair to say she sets me on fire with inspiration. The difficulty is that when I accept her creative gifts, it seems to attract disasters. They then destroy the very work she made possible. Some sort of a curse. A man doubts his sanity when that happens… And so for a long time now, I only work. Perhaps if I am to live up to my destiny, I must do without female companionship, the responsibilities of marriage, children. Do you agree?”

  Twain threw back his head and laughed a full belly laugh for the first time that evening. It took him awhile to recover his voice. Even then all he said was, “Well now, Mr. Tesla. Perhaps you’re not as smart as people say.”

  Nikola asked what he meant by that, but the author didn’t seem to want to discuss it any further. He urged Nikola to relax and have another cognac while announcing his intention to do the same.

  * * *

  The entire laboratory building was fully engulfed and ablaze against the black sky by the time the fire company set to work. All they could do was save the neighboring buildings while the roof and the floors of the lab collapsed into each other and the iron and copper machinery inside the laboratory melted down to piles of slag.

  * * *

  Nikola realized that if he was ever going to dare the Big Question that he craved to ask this renowned author, a man he so greatly admired, this would be the time. “Mr. Clemens, when I first read your work, I thought perhaps you also—” he stopped, took a deep breath. “Mr. Clemens, could there be such a thing as a muse? I mean, have you got, ah…”

  Twain appeared to need a moment to grasp the idea. “Have I got a muse?”

  “Yes!! Yes. Or anything one might, one might call…”

  “A muse.”

  “Well. Yes.”

  Twain let out a long sigh, rubbing his eyes. “Mr. Tesla, everyone—or I should say, everyone in that tiny slice of today’s civilization who can and does read—where was I? Yes. Everyone is aware that you have successfully designed magical machinery that will soon harness the energy of Niagara Falls. Astounding feat! There is even cause to believe that you will provide the world with free electrical power. And yet, your major point of concern is a question like this? Are you not essentially trying to determine how many angels can dance on the brim of your grandmother’s hat?”

  “No, I am referring to an unseen, conscious entity! One whose sole purpose in this world is to inspire.” He dropped his voice and whispered intently, “Sir, I need to know. I must know!”

  Twain leveled a penetrating gaze at Nikola. He held it there while he sipped his drink. He sipped again. Finally he turned toward the stars and stroked his moustache a few times before he replied, “I can only take it that your intention is to goad me, sir,” he took a puff on his cigar, “until I am forced to reach over and slap the backside of your head.”

  Nikola stared at him for a moment, absorbing the reply, then lifted his glass and quietly sipped his drink.

  * * *

  Shortly after sunrise the next morning, Fritz Lowenstein stood with a group of lab assistants at the site of the South Fifth Street lab building. All of them wore gray faces and expressions of shock while vapors from the smoldering remains wafted all around them. Lowenstein was beside himself, speechless with horror. He turned to a recently hired young assistant, a young cub in his early twenties named George Scherff. Scherff somehow managed to look even more badly shaken than Lowenstein. And in Lowenstein’s stunned state he spoke to Scherff as if they were intimate friends.

  “God in Heaven!” Lowenstein’s voice broke. He swallowed and started again. “All of the Company assets were in that lab! And Mr. Tesla plowed every cent of his own fortune back into it as well!”

  Scherff took a stab at the positive side of things. “Yes, but everyone is safe. And with the fire insurance, well, surely Mr. Lowenstein, everything can be rebuilt! Can it not?”

  Lowenstein averted his eyes. It took Scherff a moment to make the connection, then the question tore itself out of him, “The business does have fire insur…” He stopped when Lowenstein dropped his head so far that his chin touched his chest.

  Scherff ventured again, “At least you remembered to insure the equipment? Right? Or the tools? At least the tools?”

  Lowenstein’s anguished reply seemed more like part of an appeal to God than an answer to Scherff. “Mr. Tesla trusted me to handle business matters ever since we met!” He spun to Scherff and fiercely whispered, “And I have been honest! To the last cent!” Then Lowenstein’s face fell, his eyes went dull, and he turned away, shaking his head. A moment later he ventured a final glance at Scherff.

  “But I’ve always been absent-minded about things. Certain things. Always just little things, though. Damned details. Little things.”

  “Little things?” Scherff repeated.

  At that point Lowenstein covered his mouth with one hand and walked away without looking back. He kept walking, even while he took a deep breath and barely spoke aloud, “It’s a curse in my life, that’s what it is. A goddamned curse.”

  George Scherff turned toward the ruined building and studied it in the emerging daylight. Nothing was left but a pile of blackened rubble and the wisps of smoke. His vision was blurry; there had been no time to grab his glasses when Lowenstein pounded on his door that morning before sunrise and yanked him outside, shouting about disaster at the laboratory. Now Scherff had to squint his eyes to make out a vague form before him in the rubble.

  The lanky form was familiar. He moved toward it and soon found himself walking toward his employer, who seemed to be alone there in the smoking ruins. Scherff didn’t mean to intrude, merely to get close enough that his eyes could focus on the de
tails of the wreckage. It felt as if there was some duty to see this, an obligation to look closely and see for himself what had happened here.

  Scherff had worked with the Tesla lab long enough to be aware that this devastation was a loss to the world’s future, more so than the public would ever suspect. When his eyes finally focused, he was within a couple of yards of Mr. Tesla, who was down on his knees sifting ashes next to the charred remains of a piece of apparatus. Scherff stopped in his tracks. The agony inside the inventor was carved into his face. Scherff’s heart was torn by the sight of it.

  The thought that he was looking at the remains of an accidental fire never occurred to George Scherff. Neither did it cross his mind to believe that the perpetrator(s) would ever be found. But now this cruel twist of fate about nonexistent insurance coverage, why, it was almost as if somebody had connections good enough that they could find out in advance if someone else was insured against fire.

  Nikola rose to his feet and shuffled forward a few steps, wandering in shock. The torment of the moment extended beyond the loss of the lab and all of its contents. The rusty blade of it was twisted by the knowledge that for him to have sacrificed years of her presence had been a foolish waste. He had feared allowing her into his consciousness, thinking disaster would follow, but disaster found him anyway. The sacrifice was for nothing.

  It was a cowardly waste, worst of all, he thought. By closing himself off to her in some bid for his own safety, he gave away time they might have had together.

  The burned smell of the ruined laboratory was sharp enough to cut at his nostrils. The effect was like a strong waft of smelling salts. Things once murky became transparent; if disaster was to stalk him whether or not Karina was manifesting in his life, then he wanted the experience of her back again.

  In one changed moment, he accepted her without reservation and without needing to understand her. How much, after all, did he truly understand about his own abilities? And yet he had based his whole life on them.

  Was such an unlikely thing as bringing her back into his life even possible anymore? If it could be done, he swore never to entertain any notion that demonic forces could be behind her. Never again.

  He wondered how he could have feared such a thing. In spite of his father’s raging curses, why had he not seen then what was so clear to him now?

  Another wisp of acrid smoke caught in the back of his throat and set off a racking cough that doubled him over. He became dizzy, and out of the dizziness rose a realization so powerful that it struck him with an explosion of vertigo. He saw with clarity that if his life should end at that instant, and if consciousness truly survived the death of the body, then when he looked back on his existence, his greatest memories would revolve around Karina. It did not matter that he was unable to define her. He was unable to define himself.

  But I shut her out. I closed my heart to her. With that thought, fear struck him again with the suspicion that he had made a terrible mistake, one he might never repair. After this awful day the single ray of light shining on the ruins of his life was that the destruction of his work had also annihilated his reasons to close her off. The destruction was stark proof that avoiding her never advanced his mission, bolstered his work, or even saved him from calamity. After today, there was nothing to be done about the pointless sacrifice but to end it.

  He stumbled a few steps in a small circle, muttering under his breath while he tried to give words to his feelings. The words made no sense and he did not care; he only needed to feel her energy in his life. The words would not come to him but the feelings poured out of his heart. He apologized for failing to understand her and he begged her to return.

  A young woman’s shadow passed across the ground next to him; he glanced up from the wreckage and saw her outline silhouetted by the rising sun. He nearly blurted out her name, but she shifted in the light and he saw that she was not Karina. The young woman who was not Karina scowled at the crazy man among the hot ashes.

  His strength faded again, and he sank to one knee. He was still in that position when another shadow fell over him. This time it was George Scherff, who had seen enough, glasses or not. When he kneeled next to Nikola his breath was ragged.

  “Mr. Tesla?” he spoke softly. “It’s me, George Scherff.”

  Nikola offered a vacant smile and resumed sifting through the ashes, as if in a trance. “George Scherff. I know. Good man. Enthusiastic. George, there must be something we can salvage here.”

  “Mr. Tesla—”

  “Out of all the tools, the equipment. There must be something.”

  “Sir. Mr. Lowenstein can’t bring himself to face you. He knows that this terrible thing has left you completely stranded, sir. Foolish as he was, I’m sure he made an honest mistake.”

  Nikola’s voice was barely audible, “I don’t doubt that.”

  “It’s odd that sometimes the worst things that happen don’t come from our enemies, but from our friends.”

  Nikola burst into an unhappy laugh and squelched it as quickly as he could. “Oh, yes. And I hope you can forgive me, Mr. Scherff.”

  “Why? Whatever for?”

  “You have only been with us for a few weeks, and it’s already over. Everything was taken and there’s nothing to rebuild with. I am forced to send you out to look for work.”

  “Sir, I’ve followed your developments for years. I don’t want to go anywhere else.”

  “Mr. Scherff, we are in the middle of a pile of ashes.”

  “Yes, sir. And I want to stay with you anyway. I know what you’re trying to achieve. I want to be a part of it. I have to. That’s all.”

  Nikola smiled in spite of himself, charmed by Scherff’s youthful enthusiasm. “Thank you kindly, young man. But unless you fancy eating ashes for supper, you will have to do something to earn a living.”

  “I already am, sir! When Fritz hired me, I kept my old night job at the factory.” He grinned sheepishly, “in case you didn’t approve of my work.”

  “You’ve been working all night while you work here every day?”

  “Just these last six weeks. I didn’t know if I could go on such little sleep, but being with you has been so exciting. I’m hardly ever tired.”

  “Even so, your work has been exemplary.”

  Scherff beamed at that. “You see? To hear you say that!”

  “…Well. Small enough consolation now.”

  “I don’t ask for consolation, sir. I want to offer it.”

  Nikola was not sure he heard that right. “You what?”

  Scherff jumped in excitedly, “If you’ll only allow me to stay on with you, help you rebuild. I’ll work for no salary. That’s the thing—I still have my night job!”

  Nikola’s hearing still seemed to be playing tricks on him. “Work for no salary?”

  “I mean it, sir! I’m sure we can find a way to continue. I’ll knock on every door of every financier in New York. I only ask that you promise you’ll let me stay on with you if we can get started again. When we get started again.”

  Nikola’s eyes filled with tears. “Mr. Scherff, you are an outstanding young man. I will make you that promise, but I want one in return.”

  “Name it.”

  “If this schedule begins to take its toll, give me your promise that you will abandon me before you risk losing the job that feeds you.”

  Scherff beamed. “There’s an easy promise to make, because I won’t have to quit! I know we’ll find help from somewhere!”

  Nikola could only gaze at him, speechless. Scherff grasped his arms and helped him to his feet.

  “Come along now, sir. This is no place for you to be.”

  Nikola started to object.

  “No, Mr. Tesla,” Scherff protested, “You go home and rest. I’ll stay here and sift through to see if there’s anything we can salvage.”

  Nikola stared at him, stunned. His lips formed a tiny smile. “That we can salvage.”

&nb
sp; “Yes, sir.” Scherff gently led Nikola out of the smoldering ashes while he signaled one of the men to hail a taxi for the boss.

  The following day the New York Times trumpeted that “The wizard and rival of Thomas A. Edison was completely burned out.”

  The New York Sun labeled the destruction a “misfortune to the whole world” and added, “It is not in any degree an exaggeration to say that the men living at this time who are more important than this young gentleman can be counted on the fingers of one hand, perhaps on the thumb of one hand.”

  Nevertheless, the origin of the fire was never placed under criminal investigation.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Hotel Gerlach

  New York

  George Scherff was determined to avoid disturbing Mr. Tesla until he could bring him news worthy of lifting a broken man’s spirits. He knew how rough things were at the Hotel Gerlach, over near Madison Square Garden; Mr. Tesla was incommunicado and would not even respond to visitors by speaking through the door.

  But George also knew he was the ideal candidate for this challenge. His internal voltage was high and provided hope that he would find someone to pull Mr. Tesla out of this jam. It overrode any hesitation he might have otherwise suffered about such a mission.

  He had to wonder how much money it would require to restart the operation. Certainly not much from some rich fellow’s perspective. George had worked with Mr. Tesla long enough to know that the only challenge to this new mission lay in getting somebody, the right somebody, to just watch the man demonstrate his work. Then if they were smart enough to put together two plus two, they could see here is someone who has to be given working space and plenty of raw materials: sheet metal, copper wire, an array of tools. It was only right. This inventor was actually bringing forth an entirely new branch of scientific exploration and all of its opportunities.

  When Scherff asked himself who would have knowledge of where to go for funding, he realized that Fritz Lowenstein would have plenty of information on who had the money and the inclination toward this new field. First thing the next morning, if Lowenstein was still too badly shaken to offer any personal help, Scherff determined to somehow persuade him to hand over that information, a few names if nothing else. That would be enough for him to approach them himself.