by Bill Blowers
He received weekly letters from his mother keeping him abreast of town gossip and the latest antics of his sister Djouka, a very bright girl in her own right. As all mothers do, she closed her letters with the stern admonition that he get enough sleep and dress warmly. Occasionally there would be an added page from his father. Viko was not quite as faithful with his return letters, maybe one a month, but he did try. Juliet made certain to place letters to Viko on his pillow, as she knew of the happiness he felt as he read each one. He always brought them to her to read, or to relate some amusing story from home.
Viko dragged his tired body into the house, said a quick hello to Juliet and Aleks, and went to his room to catch a few moments’ rest before supper. He found a letter waiting for him. A few minutes later, Juliet and Aleks heard Viko cry out in pain. Fearing he had hurt himself, they rushed to his room and found him holding the letter in his hands and shaking his head.
“No, this can’t be.” Viko held out the letter for them to see, unable to speak, his eyes pleading for help.
The letter was from Djouka. It was very short, just a few words printed painfully by a young hand. A bad man stabbed Papa. He is dead. Momma is very sick, please come home.
Juliet pulled Viko into her arms and held him as his tears flowed. After a few minutes of letting his grief pour out, Viko stood erect, patted Juliet on the back, and wiped the tears from his face.
“I must pack for home now. Aleks, would you be kind enough to speak to Heinrich for me? I will do my best to get back here soon, but right now my family needs me.”
Aleks agreed.
Viko turned to Juliet. “You have been my second mother. I’m going to miss you. I promise I will write as soon as I can. I would like to leave most of my things here until I get back.”
“Of course, Viko, we’ll be waiting for your return, hopefully soon. Our prayers will be with you. Pack what you need, and let me make you something to eat while you travel.”
Aleks made arrangements for a carriage to take Viko to the train station, and a few hours later Juliet, Lilet, and Aleks bid him a tearful goodbye as he stepped into the carriage. Little did they know it was the last time they would see him. The death of his father put his life on a new course, one that would take him to a country far away and change him and the world in ways he could not begin to imagine.
Juliet was troubled. After his initial shock at the news of his father’s death, Viko had behaved in a calm, almost detached manner. She knew Viko as an expressive and volatile young man, not one who could easily flip from an extreme emotional shock to a quiet air of detached determination. He reacted to painful experiences with open crying and tears. During times of joy, he would get as excited as a baby with a new toy, and whenever he learned of some new scientific principle he would babble on about it for hours. However, today he had just learned his father was murdered, and after only a few minutes of shock he was composed and determined. This was not the Viko Juliet had come to know as a surrogate son.
She had just witnessed the further emergence of another side of Viko, one that surfaced during periods of extreme stress or emotional upheaval. She talked about this with Aleks, who had come to appreciate her finely tuned awareness of Viko’s moods and unusual behavior. They agreed that Viko was a most unusual person, brilliant beyond measure, but increasingly unpredictable. Juliet knew there was more to this young man, and it troubled her.
CHAPTER 18
Death Enters Viko’s Life
Viko’s father, Branko Gracac, was an honest, hardworking businessman, a military veteran, a good husband, and a stern but loving father to Viko and his sister. Such was his reputation that he had easily won elections to the positions of mayor and town judge. When a criminal came before Branko for a hearing, he could be sure of a fair hearing, but if found guilty he received punishment so severe that committing a crime in the future was inconceivable. Organized to a fault, Branko found little difficulty in operating a very profitable and well-regarded tavern, as well as performing his civic duties as mayor and judge.
Branko walked around the village every morning greeting the villagers, talking to the housewives as they swept off their stoops, saying hello to his fellow shop owners, and stopping to swap the latest gossip and smoke his pipe over morning coffee at the pastry shop.
And so it was on this Tuesday spring morning in 1895, as he enjoyed his coffee and shared a joke with his chief constable, that a young boy came running into the shop hysterical, crying and pleading.
“Please help me, help my mother! He’s hurting her. He has a knife. He’s going to kill her.”
The constable asked the boy to calm down and tell them what happened.
“A man came from the woods—he has a knife—momma is screaming for help, please come now.”
Branko and the constable jumped up and followed the boy, running as fast as they could to keep up. As they got close to the house, they could hear the screams from the woman. “No, no don’t. Oh God, please stop. I have no money, please stop.”
Branko raced on ahead, his heart pounding as his military training took over in full measure. He and the boy crashed through the door of the house to see the woman bleeding from a slash across her face and a disheveled, filthy man holding a hunting knife.
The killer looked up with crazed eyes and grabbed the woman, pulling her in front of him with the knife to her throat, threatening to kill her if Branko took a step closer. He reeked of strong spirits and filth.
Branko thought only of saving the woman.
He lunged forward, reached for the man’s arm, and pulled it away from the woman’s throat, and with his other hand he grabbed the woman’s wrist and pulled her roughly away from the would-be killer. Branko turned to see that she was okay and in that instant lost control of the killer, who raised the knife and plunged it into Branko’s neck, severing his carotid artery. The small room exploded with the roar of a pistol as the constable, just seconds behind, fired two bullets into the killer’s chest and turned to help Branko.
Branko was holding his neck. Blood spurted out between his fingers as his heart raced from exertion and adrenalin. The constable pressed a towel to his neck in an attempt to stem the flow of blood, but the wound was too serious, the bleeding too profuse, and Branko’s life ebbed away in a pool of bright crimson as the constable held him.
Marta Bako, the woman Branko saved, stood for a moment in stunned silence and then let out a mournful cry.
Viko’s father had been murdered five days earlier. His mother was in severe shock. As he began the long trip home, he didn’t know that he would never see the university again.
The town was draped with black banners; wreaths hung on doors, the mourning for his father everywhere. With heavy heart, Viko walked slowly to his house. His mother did not rush to greet him as she had always done. He went to the kitchen and found Djouka, just sixteen, sitting at the table with tears in her eyes. She ran to him, threw her arms around his neck, and sobbed. Viko felt the tears in his own eyes begin to form, and the two stood there holding each other, letting their grief pour out.
With Christina was the woman his father had saved, Marta Bako, pledging to stay by her side until she regained her strength. Christina was sleeping and heavily sedated. The town doctor had served in the army and was accustomed to horrible crimes and death, but he had never seen a wife so affected by the death of her husband. Part of her heart died with him. Not as a heart that pumps blood, but as the center of life-giving energy. For the next three weeks, she refused to eat, wouldn’t get out of bed, and hardly acknowledged the presence of her son or daughter.
Christina’s refusal of food was not done out of not wanting to eat—she simply didn’t need to. Life was worthless, a barren plain without the man she loved. Her beautiful black hair became streaked with gray overnight. Her skin, once as smooth as that of a woman ten years younger, was wrinkled and lined with grief.
Three weeks later, to the day and time of her husband’s death, Christina’
s life slipped from her, and for the first time since that tragic day she appeared at peace.
Christina’s reaction to her husband’s murder bore a striking resemblance to the reaction her own mother had when faced with the death, many years earlier, of her beloved son Dane. She became withdrawn, lost interest in her other children, especially Nikola, and died a young woman.
Viko and Djouka, hand in hand, watched as their aging grandfather, Milutin Tesla, repeated the final words and blessings over their mother, just weeks after intoning the same Scripture verses over the coffin that held their father.
After the burial, sitting side by side, they barely heard the words of friends, neighbors, and townspeople as they offered their sympathies and went on their ways. In front of Viko and Djouka, in side by side graves, lay the bodies of their mother and father—parents who just a few weeks earlier had been vibrant, very much alive, and looking forward to a long and comfortable life.
The woman Branko had saved, Marta Bako, stood by them. Despite her own meager subsistence, she gave freely of her time and comfort, especially to Djouka, who needed closeness and understanding as she blossomed into womanhood.
Viko, fighting depression and sadness, went to his father’s tavern each day. He knew the day-to-day business well enough. For a while, the restaurant continued on as it had before, but without Branko’s voice of authority, Viko was lost and confused. His future as a scientist was in serious doubt. How could he ever complete his studies with the responsibility of a sister to care for?
A few weeks later, two men approached him, claiming Branko borrowed heavily from them to start the tavern. Viko, with little experience of money handling, went to the town’s banker inquiring if they were right. Not knowing that the banker was part of the fraud, and with no sense of the law, Viko was forced to sign a paper stating that the assets of the tavern belonged to them.
With no choice left, he accepted a job working for the charlatans who took the family tavern from him.
He dragged himself to work each day, performing the menial tasks of a janitor and dishwasher as the new “owners” of the tavern sat back, smirking and taking money that was rightfully his. His dreams, his future, the promise that had been in his hands at the university had evaporated before his eyes. His depression returned and became intense, but unlike before, it was giving him strength to fight back at the injustice of a God who could let this happen.
CHAPTER 19
Salvation
In early 1895, Nikola Tesla made one of his frequent trips to Europe. He was scheduled to give lectures for electrical engineers in England and France regarding his AC power developments. In planning the trip, Tesla included a few side trips: to call on his sister Christina in Salonia, to spend time in his hometown of Gospic, and to travel to Prague to visit his nephew Viko at the University.
It had been seventeen years since Tesla had been home to see his father or visit his sisters. Christina had been faithful in her promise to write often, and Nikola looked forward each month to her letters and the news, especially of the latest antics of Viko, who was sounding more and more like a shadow of Nikola’s younger self.
He completed his work in France and boarded a train that would take him to Salonia and Christina’s home—not realizing the tragic news that was waiting for him upon his arrival.
Meanwhile, Viko struggled to get through each day. The loss of his parents, the indifference and coldness of the town, and the loss of his future combined to produce a profound despair that consumed him. His life and its once great promise was dying a death of its own. His education had come to an end, and without money to proceed or someone to care for Djouka, he saw only a future as a waiter in a tavern that no longer belonged to his family.
On a Friday morning at the break of dawn, Viko trudged to the tavern to open the doors and clean for the coming day. As he wiped down the counters, he found a letter addressed to his father and postmarked in Paris. Judging from the date, it had been there for weeks and had been overlooked, shoved under the discarded wrappings from a wine delivery.
The letter was from his uncle Nikola, who was lecturing in Europe and planning a trip to visit family before his return to America. Nikola apparently didn’t know that Branko had been murdered months earlier. No one had taken the time to let him know. According to the letter, Nikola would be arriving on Monday, just three days away! For the first time in weeks, Viko smiled. The sun began to shine for him once again. For the rest of the day and through the weekend Viko bounced through his work.
Shortly after noon on Monday, Nikola Tesla arrived. Viko and Djouka spent the afternoon relating the story of their parents’ deaths. Together with Djouka and Viko, Nikola visited the gravesite and wept openly as he recalled the wonderful times he and his older sister had spent together. Christina had been like a mother to him, and her passing was as profound to him as the loss of his mother had been.
This changed everything for Tesla. Urgent business in Salonia would use up what little time he had left before he had to return to America. The story that these men could so easily take away the tavern from his sister’s family was not at all credible to his keen sense of honesty and understanding of lawful procedures. Tesla’s anger at the townspeople energized and intensified his natural beliefs in fairness for all.
He engaged a local attorney who quickly discovered that the tavern had been taken from his niece and nephew by fraud. The local authorities arrested the two men and the banker. The ownership of the tavern was returned to the rightful heirs, Viko and Djouka Gracac, and Tesla arranged for Marta Bako to manage it.
But what about the care of Viko and Djouka? Tesla knew he couldn’t leave them as they were, virtual orphans in an indifferent village. He felt that his younger sister Milka would take in and care for Djouka, and he was willing to provide funds to send Viko back to the University of Prague.
With both of her parents gone, Djouka wanted to leave Salonia. Moving to Gospic and living with her aunt Milka was kind of exciting. She was ready to go.
But Viko had other ideas for himself. Would Uncle Nik take him to America and let him work with him? In Viko’s mind, there was no greater educator than Nikola Tesla. No one had his uncle’s mind. Where else could a student like Viko learn from a master? Working for Tesla in America would let him do real work on new inventions in this age of constantly evolving electrical miracles.
Nikola was hesitant. He didn’t have the time to care for a young man and also carry out his important work. But Viko was insistent. He would work for nothing! He would sleep on the floor! He would sweep the floor! He had great original ideas himself, and he could help Uncle Nik in a way that no ordinary worker could.
Ultimately, Nikola acquiesced and agreed to take Viko to America with him. He canceled his plans to lecture at the University of Prague. He sent an apologetic letter to the chancellor citing urgent family business and made the necessary travel arrangements so that Viko could accompany him home. Viko was ecstatic.
While Nikola spent his nights in Salonia working on a new idea for electrical generation, Viko was at his side every moment. Nikola learned firsthand of Viko’s drive, his intelligence, and his ability to think clearly through the most complex issues. He began to accept that this young man could be the asset he needed back in America, the missing link that could help him see his work come to fruition. And there was another important reason to bring Viko home with him: he could be trusted with Tesla’s trade secrets, he was blood.
After a brief visit to Gospic and a tearful goodbye to Djouka, Nikola and Viko traveled to Paris where Nikola gave two lectures on his rotating magnetic field motors, extolling their efficiency and predicting that these motors, dubbed induction motors, would ultimately relieve mankind of backbreaking work. Viko was fascinated. He sat there in awe of his uncle. He had heard about him, of course, and his family often talked about his marvelous discoveries. But here he was, in the flesh, and Viko actually understood the concepts that his uncle could so clearly des
cribe.
Viko believed in fate. Was this why his father was so cruelly murdered and his mother died of grief? Was it his destiny to work beside his uncle, making the world a better place? Was his family taken from him so that he, like his bachelor uncle, could work unencumbered to create the marvels that seemed to pour out of this age of discovery?
Both Nikola and Viko came from a family background of priests who preached the Word of God, who had guided others through a world of suffering, pain, and questioning. Was the life of scientific discovery not the same? Showing others that so much is possible, that life can be so much better, and that mankind can be lifted up to new levels of dignity? More time could be devoted to arts, science, and leisure, and less to the demeaning drudgery of work that reduces men to little more than trained animals, wearing a yoke, draining the life force from their exhausted bodies.
Viko had matured ten years in the span of a few months. A man emerged where once stood a youthful, exuberant university student. An irreversible change had occurred. The treatment he had endured after his father’s death had erased any pretense he may have had about the integrity and trustworthiness of others. He was no longer a naïve young man but one controlled by something new, something hard, and unfortunately something darker.
He took a silent vow of loyalty to follow and support his uncle Nikola, setting aside his own life for that of this eminent genius.
BOOK 4
CHAPTER 20
Viko in America
Viko’s first year in America rushed by so fast he barely had time to sit down and take in one new thing before the next began. He felt like he was constantly on the carousel at Coney Island. Gone was the naiveté of youth, replaced with the hardened reality of life. There were those who had shown him tremendous friendship and caring, Juliet and Aleks, Professor Lippmann, and of course Marta Bako, the woman his father had saved. They would not be forgotten, and he promised himself to somehow, at some time, return in some small measure the kindness they had unselfishly given him.