The Kingdom of Ohio

by Matthew Flaming

  Although she has spent days imagining the difficulties involved in reaching this place, her passage through the Waldorf and into the inventor’s suite had been almost disappointingly easy. In the grand lobby of the hotel, surrounded by potted palms and rich Oriental rugs, it had taken nearly all of her courage to approach the dullest-looking of the uniformed bellhops. But despite her ragged appearance, with the note she had forged on a scrap of Tesla’s letterhead scavenged from a dustbin behind the hotel, a few murmured words of French and her best impression of royal hau teur, the bellhop was persuaded. He showed her to this room, unlocked the door, and, with a lascivious wink, departed, leaving her alone to survey the space.

  Wandering through the immaculate luxury of the suite, she tried to imagine its occupant. The rooms felt ghostly and unused, the only signs of habitation a stack of letters on the nightstand, a row of identically laundered suits hanging in the closet, and a clinically clean razor beside the bathroom sink.

  Briefly, she let her hands run over each of these things, trying to conjure the presence of the man she remembered, or at least—an inward twinge—imagined that she remembered. The dark sheen of his hair, his sharply Roman profile and gaunt cheeks, his eyes that never rested for longer than an instant on any one thing. But despite her efforts, the trace of Tesla’s life here eluded her.

  The paranoid thought occurred to her that she might be in the wrong suite altogether. She crossed back to the bedroom and inspected the stack of letters, discovering that they were indeed addressed to the inventor. Her eyes fell on the date written at the top of one page—January 15, 1901—and she felt a wave of nausea. Another reminder of the impossibility of her situation, of the rational conclusion she still struggled to avoid: that she had simply lost her mind.

  But Tesla was the one person who might be able to explain everything, she reminded herself. And if he cannot answer . . . a possibility too terrible to contemplate.

  She closed her eyes, remembering an evening, years ago, when she had walked with the inventor along the manicured garden paths outside her father’s mansion. In total, Tesla had spent less than six months in Ohio, under the patronage of Louis Toledo, and while there kept largely to himself and his own experiments. Even so, that time still seemed like a magical interlude to her, a blossoming of scientific possibilities she had previously hardly imagined.

  On that evening, it had been sunset and overhead the sky glowed with surreal perfection. They had walked side by side, she in her blue working dress, he tall and angular in his black suit. In the dying light, the roses lining the path were shaded from deepest red to rust, the sunset a vast cliff of orange clouds towering miles high above the gardens and lake.

  She looked up at the shadowy planes of his face and wished, for a moment, that she had some way of photographing this: that some film existed which could capture these colors. In theory, she thought, it should be possible to develop a color-sensitive film; it would simply be a matter of layering different gelatins, each responsive to a different spectrum. And maybe, she mused, someday . . .

  “See how the setting sun with reddish glow, the green-embosomed hamlet fires,” Tesla murmured, his English formal and faintly accented.

  “What did you say?” She turned to him.

  “Ah, nothing. Only a line from a poem that suddenly came to me.”

  She nodded and they walked on in silence, along the garden path.

  “And when will we reveal,” she asked at length, “what we have been building in that basement?”

  “What you have been building,” he corrected. “I have only lent a few ideas. You know my real research lies elsewhere.” Tesla gestured sweepingly. “What we have worked on together may conquer distance, but the adversary I wish to defeat is time itself.”

  “Of course.” She smiled at him and then looked away, thankful for the concealment of dusk. So strange, she thought, the choices of the heart. That it should be this man, with his arrogance and melancholy moods, who affected her so. A response that she had carefully hidden from both her father, who would never approve of the match, and from Tesla himself, because if he knew, she reflected, it would all be over in an instant. I would cease to be a peer and become only another woman to be avoided.

  With an effort, she pushed these thoughts away and turned her attention to the progress they had made over the last few weeks. The moments of almost godlike exaltation when, after struggling for days with a problem, the solution became clear in a flash of simple, blinding rightness. The feeling was an addiction, and like her mentor she found herself more and more forgetting to sleep and eat, forgetting the world in its pursuit. Sometimes she was almost frightened by what was happening to her—but at the same time, she realized, nothing could have induced her to give it up.

  “In any case,” Tesla continued, “the device should not be made public until you have proven that it works. That is, if it ever does.”

  “Then you are still skeptical?”

  The inventor shrugged. “Whatever my opinions may be, hearing the whispers of Washington, I fear your research may be interrupted.” He stopped, turning toward her. “Although I pray it does not come to that.” Tesla’s forehead creased briefly and, despite herself, she felt a small surge of happiness.

  She tried to match his tone. “I am grateful for your concern.”

  For a moment they stood awkwardly facing each other—then he nodded and stepped away.

  “It is late. Good night, mademoiselle. Sleep well.”

  “Good night, Mr. Tesla.” A small, unnamed hope collapsed inside her.

  As always, that night they had not embraced, or even touched. The inventor continued down the garden path, and after a moment she had turned and started to walk in the opposite direction, back toward the mansion.

  Now, in the stillness of Tesla’s overheated room at the Waldorf, she remembered this—and then her heart skipped a beat at the sound of footsteps approaching in the corridor outside. Trying to remain calm, she slipped behind the heavy curtain to wait, trying not to breathe.

  TESLA OPENS THE DOOR and cautiously steps through. In the hallway, he’d heard, or imagined, a rustling sound inside—but the room seems undisturbed and empty. The overstuffed armchair and couch of the sitting room, the cold fireplace and cut-crystal ashtray on the end table, appear untouched. Only—the inventor sniffs delicately—the smell is wrong: a whiff of something like an alleyway.

  For a moment, Tesla considers leaving to get help, then reminds himself that he has ways of dealing with intruders. Locking the door behind him, he crosses into the bedroom and his fastidious gaze lights upon the nightstand, where a stack of letters stands slightly askew. He starts toward the dressing room, and then another rustle, nearby, prompts him to wheel as she half falls out from her hiding place.

  They stare at each other. Taking in her ragged dress and tangled hair, the feverish pallor of her features, Tesla takes a step backward. For her part, she abruptly wants to cry. She struggles to control herself, searching for a flicker of recognition on his face.

  Finally, after what seems like hours, she forces herself to speak. “It’s me.”

  He stares at her silently.

  “I almost died waiting,” she says. “Thank God you are here.” He takes another step away. His mind is racing. His first thought is that she might be a spy, sent by Edison or Marconi or another competitor. But this is something else, he decides. Some wretched woman who has decided that she is in love with him, most likely. He has been the recipient of such advances before and, if anything, this disturbs him more than the idea of industrial espionage.

  “What do you want?” Tesla demands. Avoiding sudden movements, he backs up to put half a room between them. “Who let you in?”

  “I tricked the porter—and I do apologize. Only, I had to see you, I—” The words tumble out in a rush. She finds herself laughing, near hysterical with relief. Soon everything will be answered, she thinks, it will all be over. “I am being watched, you see.”
/>   “Who sent you?” The inventor scowls at her.

  “Do you really not recognize me?” Her voice cracks. “How is this possible, how—” She shakes her head, initial giddiness suddenly replaced by despair.

  A madwoman, Tesla thinks with an inward shudder. He imagines the contagion of her sickness swarming invisibly through the air toward him. Fumbling behind his back, he pretends to search through his pockets for a handkerchief. While his hands are out of sight he reaches inside his left sleeve and nudges a lever connected to the device concealed near his wrist. A small nozzle swings out to rest beside his thumb. He shakes his head. “Should I? Because I do not.”

  “Then tell me about this,” she says, raising a piece of paper. It is a sketch of the machine from his dreams, he sees with disbelief.

  “Where did you get that?” Shocked, he takes a step toward her. The stench of her proximity makes his head swim. “Tell me, where? It was not in this room.”

  “Nikola, please.” She stares, silently pleading, opening her arms to him. Gritting his teeth, he reaches out as if to meet her embrace. Then, when she is only a step away, he flicks his thumb over the lever.

  Her eyes go wide as the device attached to his wrist ejects a mist of chloroform in her face. She coughs, chokes, and tries to stumble away, but it’s already too late. Her body goes limp, collapsing into the inventor’s arms, and then—as he steps hastily away—to the floor.

  Tesla stands there for a moment, regarding her motionless shape. At the sight of her face, he experiences an odd tug of almost recollection: as if he has seen her somewhere before—although where, he cannot place. But this is impossible; his memory has always been perfect. Shrugging the sensation away, he goes into the washroom to throw out his soiled gloves and repeatedly wash his hands.

  WHEN HE IS satisfied that the last traces of her touch have been cleansed away, Tesla straightens his collar and steps back into the sitting room. As he slides a cigarette out of the slim silver case in his pocket, lights it, and exhales twin streams of smoke through his nostrils, he is annoyed to discover that his hands are shaking. He crosses to the desk and lifts the telephone receiver, but before Tesla can ask the operator to be connected with the police there is a knock at the door. For an instant the inventor hesitates, trying to calculate how long the effects of the chloroform will last. Long enough, he decides. He replaces the receiver in its cradle and pulls the bedroom door closed, concealing the girl’s motionless figure, then straightens his jacket and crosses to admit his visitor.

  The man that Tesla lets into his chambers is nondescript, of average height with brown hair, wearing a rumpled brown suit. A miserable specimen, Tesla thinks, but this is one reason he was picked for his present role. Smith is his name, or at least the name that he has chosen to use.

  “Good morning,” Tesla says. “Would you care for a drink?”

  “Gin and tonic, if you don’t mind.” Smith sinks, uninvited, onto the couch.

  Frowning at this obvious weakness, the inventor goes to the liquor cabinet and efficiently constructs the cocktail.

  “So,” he says, handing the other man his drink and stubbing out his cigarette. “We have some business to discuss.”

  Smith nods. “The work continues. They’re digging six days a week now—the first level is almost complete.”

  Through the tall windows behind the couch the sun is shining in Tesla’s face, making Smith appear as a glowing silhouette, clothed in light. Something about this image disturbs him. Omen. Harbinger— these words come to the inventor’s mind unbidden—the figure of a man consumed by brilliance—but it’s just nerves, he reminds himself, the aftereffects of the woman’s unexpected appearance. He crosses to the window and tugs the curtains closed, then sits across from his visitor. “And have they found anything?”

  “Some old plumbing, that’s all. But there’s this—” Smith removes a small notebook from his coat pocket and tears out a page, sliding it across the table to the inventor. Tesla glances at the scrap, instantly committing it to memory, and then tucks it into his pocket.

  “This is the complete plan?”

  Smith nods and gulps his drink. “That’s it—no doubt about it.”

  “It’s as I expected, then.” Tesla steeples his fingers and crosses his legs, trying to interject a conversational tone into the encounter. He hates all this deceit and spying—not for moral reasons but for aesthetic ones: because he should be above requiring such tools, because it entails working with individuals whose language and manners are ugly. “It’s typical of Edison, don’t you think? The approach of brute force.”

  The other man shrugs. The round lenses of his glasses glint with stray reflections, turning his face into an eyeless expanse of pasty skin. “Whatever you say.”

  “Tell me, what is his mood like these days? Does he seem anxious to you? Confident? Satisfied?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. Don’t see him much, personally—there’s a dozen managing assistants above me. Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m your man.” He gestures with his notebook. “This was only finalized yesterday.” Smith drains his glass and sets the empty tumbler on the table, eyeing it regretfully.

  “I understand.” Tesla sighs and massages his temples for a moment, then freezes as he hears a faint movement behind the closed door. He sits very still, listening—but there is only silence. With an effort, he forces his attention back to the man in front of him. “There is no need to stoke my enthusiasm, Mr. Smith. Your work has been entirely adequate.”

  “Well, good. But there’s a small problem.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Well . . .” Smith pauses and eyes the inventor’s elegant figure before continuing. “This is getting dangerous for me. Risky. Security’s been tightened around the lab.”

  “And therefore you want more money,” Tesla concludes. “Has it ever occurred to you, Mr. Smith, that the work I am performing—that we are performing—is a service to all mankind? Some persons, in your place, would consider material renumera tion to be beside the point.”

  Smith laughs a short, unpleasant laugh. “Speak for yourself, Professor.”

  For a moment, Tesla considers speaking his mind—or better yet, simply throwing out this gluttonous oaf—but an instant later remembers himself. At this point, time is too much of the essence for a replacement to be found. Withdrawing an envelope from his pocket, he hands it to the other man with his fingertips.

  “Next time, there will be something extra for you—provided that the information you have given me today is accurate.”

  “It is.” Smith pockets the envelope, visibly restraining himself from examining its contents. “By the way,” he asks, trying and failing to sound indifferent, “exactly what are you looking for down there?”

  “That,” Tesla says coldly, “is not your concern. All you need do is inform me if anything unusual is found in the tunnels, or shows up at the lab.” The inventor rises to his feet. The other man does the same.

  “Give my regards to the boys at Menlo Park.” Tesla does not offer his hand.

  Forcing a smile, Smith nods and the inventor ushers him out. When he is gone, Tesla picks up the telephone and informs the concierge that the police are needed in his rooms. Then he settles back in his chair again, closes his eyes, and thinks about the past and the future.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE BRIDGE

  YESTERDAY WAS MY BIRTHDAY—NOT THAT THE EVENT HOLDS MUCH significance anymore. For the last decade, each turning of the calendar has meant the same thing: a steady progression from old to older.28 In the afternoon, carrying my stack of frozen dinners home from the supermarket, I passed a vacant lot where a new apartment building is being built. A group of shirtless construction workers were resting in the shade outside, laughing and talking. I smiled and nodded at them; they fell silent, staring stonily back at me. For a moment I felt hurt by their reaction. Then I caught my reflection in a shop window and remembered why. From where they sat, in a private world of y
outhful camaraderie, I was an unwelcome intruder from the wrong end of life: a reminder of still-distant mortality.

  As I shuffled away, I realized that I could hardly blame them. Some mornings nowadays, after the forgetting of dreams, the gray-haired ghost in the mirror is an unpleasant shock even to me.

  Of course, the most significant ways I’ve changed over the years since our time together go far deeper than the simple brutalities of old age. Rather, they are the result of hours spent studying history, of the shelves of books read and community college courses endured, alterations measured not in wrinkles or infirmity but in the drift of despair and hope, conviction and disbelief.

  Still, despite all this, I can’t shake my unfashionable, old man’s notion that the self is something more constant than postmodern thinkers claim. That, despite all the ways in which we change over time, and the passage of memory into forgetting, somewhere, in each of us, some essential thing remains the same.

  For me, more than anything else it’s a certain sense of bewilderment that has always been the common thread of my days. This feeling of surprise at the strangeness of the world, of not quite fitting in. That sensation was most acute, I think, when I arrived in Los Angeles three decades ago. During those first months even the most ordinary things (passing cars, the sheen of a plastic fork, my own shocked face in a mirror) would leave me stunned with wonder and despair.

  Now my bags are packed and I’m making preparations to leave this city. And that old feeling of disorientation is back, stronger than ever.

  In part, this is a result of the unexpected news that I’m a millionaire. During the last ten years, apparently, the little retail space where the antiques store is located has gained enough value that I thought the real estate agent had lost her mind when she told me what I could expect to get. The problem (already a point of tension between us) is that I’m not interested in being rich. At this point in life, wealth seems more like a burden than a blessing.