The Last Days of Night, page 21
Edison leaned back in his chair before he loosed his final words.
“You’re welcome.”
Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open.
—ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
IT CAME AS little surprise when, two months later, a New York federal court ruled against the Westinghouse Electric Company in the central light-bulb suit. Paul had been prepared for this defeat since Edison’s deposition. The argument Edison had made to Paul was repeated by Lowrey in court. It was undeniably effective.
Thomas Edison had not patented the perfect light bulb, agreed the judge. He’d patented the field of light bulbs. That he’d later improved on his design, and that Westinghouse had potentially improved on it even further, was beside the point. Westinghouse’s bulbs infringed on Edison’s patent, even if Edison’s exact patent was for a device that didn’t work as intended. Paul’s strategy had been to narrow the scope of Edison’s patent to a nonexistent, nonfunctioning device; in response, Edison had succeeded in broadening the scope of his patent to include practically anything that lit up.
In court, Hughes had done almost all the arguing for the Westinghouse side. Carter had supplied the gaps. Paul had barely gotten a word on the record. He wanted to attribute the loss to his partners’ stodgy techniques. But he knew in his heart that it wasn’t their fault. Edison’s genius extended not only to science, but apparently to litigation as well.
Spring had sprinkled Manhattan with bunchberry, violet, and rose mallow as Paul and his partners drearily descended the steps of the lower Manhattan courthouse. They would appeal. Paul had already begun to prepare the paperwork. The New York court would not be the end of Edison v. Westinghouse. The federal court of appeals would be next. And if that failed…there were higher courts still, and Paul could only hope to fall from ever-taller heights.
To further blacken Paul’s mood, the light-bulb suit was not even the only battle he lost that month. Paul also found himself on the wrong side of the New York State Legislature in Albany. The electrical chair was approved for use by the people’s elected representatives. Now Paul would have to take this battle to the courts as well, arguing that this state law was invalid on constitutional grounds. Electrocution, Paul would argue, constituted the very definition of “cruel and unusual punishment” forbidden by the Constitution.
He would have to make this argument quickly, because soon enough some New Yorker was bound to be sentenced to death by Westinghouse’s alternating current.
Paul’s failures did not end there. He was soon summoned to the Huntingtons’ sitting room.
He could hear Tesla pacing the floor above them. He had barely visited the house since his mortifying conversation with Fannie. His work had given him ample excuses, so his evening visits had grown infrequent and brief. Surely Fannie had told Agnes about their attorney’s unfortunate offer. He could not bear to be alone with Agnes, for fear that she might bring it up. His best hope was for his infatuation to be forgotten by all involved. No doubt outings with Mr. Henry Jayne would be enough to occupy Agnes’s attention.
Sitting across from Paul in her typical finery, Agnes wore the same uncracked Mona Lisa look that she wore whenever her mother was present. At one point Paul had imagined he understood some of what lay behind that smile. Now he was certain that he did not.
“Since my daughter’s interview,” said Fannie, “which you so helpfully arranged, we’ve heard no more from that vile Mr. Foster. You have, we believe, succeeded. We are quite grateful.” Paul looked to Agnes for reaction. He found none.
“Thank you,” he replied. “It has been my pleasure, I assure you.”
“I’m sure you’ll understand, then, when I suggest that your friend upstairs should therefore take his leave of this house.”
Paul had expected this from Fannie eventually. But now? “Mr. Tesla has nowhere else to go,” he said. “If I could depend on your hospitality just a little longer…”
“We cannot have him here any longer. I trust you to understand.”
Agnes turned away. This was not her plan, he could tell that much. Nor was it her wish. But she wasn’t prepared to go against her mother.
Fannie went on. “The thrust of the matter is that we’re having some people for dinner in four days’ time. Thursday evening. The Jayne family.” Paul thought he saw the hint of a smile as she spoke. “We haven’t been able to receive guests since Mr. Tesla took up residence here. I’d ask you to see to it that he’s departed by then. I wish it could be helped.”
If the parents of Henry La Barre Jayne were visiting the Huntingtons’ considerably more humble home for dinner, then they were vetting Agnes. Agnes must have done quite well in the courtship thus far. And so the real subject of their visit would be Fannie. She was the one up for judgment. A potential marriage into a family of fortune and stature could not be allowed to be jeopardized by the presence of Nikola Tesla.
“I understand” was all that Paul could say in response.
“We are very sorry about this,” said Agnes. This was the first she’d spoken since Paul had arrived. “I’m so very sorry.”
“I will see that my friend is removed from your hospitality by Thursday,” said Paul. He rose to his feet, buttoning his black jacket in what he hoped appeared to be a gesture of professionalism. “Your patience has been appreciated. And I hope that I might continue to represent you.”
He had started for the doorway when Agnes spoke again. “Where will you take him?”
Paul had no immediate answer to her question. Could any other corner of New York be safe from Edison’s grasp? He could check Tesla into a mountain sanitarium somewhere…except that sanitariums required nurses and groundskeepers and window cleaners.
What Paul needed to do was to remove Tesla to a place where money could not reach. A place where Edison’s connections would do him no good. A place where the lights still flickered from melting wicks.
“Miss Huntington,” said Paul as he arrived upon an unpleasant solution, “have no fear. Mr. Tesla will be perfectly safe. I’ve another place I can keep him.”
I believe it is worthwhile trying to discover more about the world, even if this only teaches us how little we know. It might do us good to remember from time to time that, while differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.
—KARL POPPER
AGNES INSISTED THAT she accompany Paul and Tesla to Nashville. The forcefulness of her demand came as a surprise, both to Paul and to Fannie. Paul knew that Agnes had come to care greatly for Tesla. He’d spent too many nights with them in the attic room to doubt that. But he had not realized just how much of a fight she would put up to remain alongside him.
Paul would not have thought that Agnes could ever convince her mother to acquiesce to the trip. Yet somehow she did. Whatever backstage dramas went on in the Huntington house, the two women’s negotiations were hidden from him. Whatever Agnes said to her mother was unknown. Whatever Fannie would extract in return was unimaginable. But ultimately Fannie relented. Dinner with the Jaynes was postponed for a week and an understudy given a chance to shine at the Met. All so that Agnes could make certain that Tesla arrived safely in Tennessee.
Had Fannie softened her grip? Or had Agnes hardened her rebellion? Perhaps the warm thoughts of a Jayne courtship had relaxed Fannie’s worry. Perhaps Agnes had grown bolder in her demands for a life outside a polished glass case.
The journey to Nashville took two separate railroad lines and a transfer through Cincinnati. The travelers employed three first-class sleeping quarters. Agnes consumed herself with practicalities. Seats, meals, tickets, departure times. Tesla was quiet and rarely left the sleeping car. This had been his first journey outside in months, and it clearly overwhelmed him. That first night, Paul heard Agnes sing him to sleep through the wall of the car. He realized that he had only ever heard her sing before at the Players’ Club. Tesla had evidently become a frequent private audience. As Paul turned his ear to the wall and strained to better hear the sound, he knew that Tesla was a lucky man.
Paul spent much of the trip worried about how Agnes would react to Nashville. He imagined that she would recoil from the Cravaths’ humble three-story. He couldn’t even fathom what she’d make of his father. But during their meals together, she mostly discussed Tesla. The slow process of his recovery, a recent update from her alienist. She left little doubt as to on whose behalf she had undertaken this journey.
Paul’s offer of a Sunday walk went unmentioned over the two-day trip. So did the name Henry Jayne. She was kind enough not to rub it in Paul’s face. He was appreciative. Between the crowd in the dining car and the time spent caring for Tesla, they were rarely alone. He had blessedly little opportunity to further embarrass himself in front of his client. He enjoyed her company so much that he was almost able to forget that this was likely the last time he ever would.
It was dawn when a terrific scream of brakes announced the arrival of the Louisville Railroad’s Train No. 5 at the Nashville depot. The conductors roused yawning passengers from their seats. Paul hopped the single step from the train onto the platform. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the golden Tennessee light, the bloom of a late-spring day that was just promising to begin.
Behind him, Agnes led Tesla out into the sunshine. She looked bleary-eyed; he was awake, if typically catatonic.
As Paul exited the station, he could see a familiar figure standing tall beneath the willows.
“My son,” said Erastus Cravath, extending his hand.
A firm handshake was Erastus’s preferred greeting. It always had been.
Paul turned to introduce his companions, but his father beat him to the punch.
“And you,” said Erastus, “must be Miss Huntington.” He bowed politely. She returned the gesture with unpretentious grace.
“Your son has told me so much about you, sir. It’s an honor to finally meet you.”
“Oh, my dear, you mustn’t listen to too much of what Paul tells you. He does so like to exaggerate.”
“Father,” interrupted Paul, “this is Nikola Tesla.”
“My, you’re tall. And it’s a great pleasure to make your acquaintance as well.” He extended a hand, but the inventor merely stared off into the distance. He seemed largely unaware that there were human beings around him. Or that one of them, Paul’s father, was attempting to say hello.
“You are unwell, my friend,” he said. “I understand. Let us see if we cannot get you better.”
He gestured to Big Annie, the family horse that Paul had named in his childhood. She was tied to a post beside the family’s carriage, which was older than she was.
Paul and his father didn’t speak much during the hour-long ride back to the house. Instead, Paul pointed out various sights to his guests. Though Paul had been born in Ohio, the family had moved to Nashville when he was five. His sister, Bessie, had been born soon thereafter. Bessie was off and married now to a respectable husband in Clarksville. She wrote to him occasionally. He didn’t always have the time to respond.
Nashville had grown since Paul had last ridden up the Cumberland River. The noisy docks now teemed with young workingmen, a generation of laborers who’d been able to trade farm tools for barrel lifts.
Erastus and Ruth Cravath lived in a three-story farmhouse northwest of the town center. It was quite a hike from the university, but Paul’s mother appreciated the separation from her husband’s working life. The Cravaths had selected the farmhouse for its spiritual simplicity, not its practical comforts. They had never made any proper attempt at farming. They kept no livestock in the adjacent barn, save their few horses for transportation. They grew no crops. With Paul in New York and Erastus traveling so much to raise funds, there was no one around the house that could be counted upon for field labor. The barren acres surrounding the house stretched to the horizon.
The slanted wooden roof had worn since Paul had last laid eyes on it. The whole house seemed to have fallen into a state of comfortable dishabille. Neither Erastus nor Ruth would demand thicker windows or sturdier front steps until one of those parts had completely broken. In Paul’s childhood, no one wanted for anything they truly needed, but no one had anything they might merely want.
The house was the color of Tennessee dirt.
“Hello, Mother,” Paul said as he pushed open the squeaky screen door. “I’m home.”
Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.
—STEVE JOBS
IT TOOK A long day for Paul and Agnes to explain their rather unique predicament to Erastus and Ruth Cravath. In letters, Paul had described the basic events of the past eighteen months: Tesla, Westinghouse, Edison. He’d told them about his difficulties in court and the looming disaster surrounding the electrical chair. None of this information was new. But the fact that Paul and Agnes had conspired to house Tesla in secret, to keep him safe from Edison without even Westinghouse knowing…this was not a fit subject for a letter home. Ruth and the reverend both took it well. They seemed more concerned for Tesla’s safety than anything else. Erastus’s faith prized nothing so much as a man in need.
Ruth suggested that Tesla might take the bedroom that had belonged to Bessie. It hadn’t yet been cleared of her childhood detritus. But Erastus hoped that Tesla wouldn’t mind the clutter.
“It’s a kind thing you’re doing,” said Agnes to Ruth.
Ruth shrugged. “It’s a kind thing you’ve already done.”
“He might be here for…a little while,” said Paul.
“It would be our pleasure, my son,” said Erastus. He turned to Tesla, who sat straight-backed on the sofa. “Would you like me to show you to your room?”
Tesla stared straight ahead, his eyes fixed on a point midway up the white wall. The activity of the past days seemed to have caused his recovery to regress.
“The universe wears coats. The universe wears shirts. The universe shall be unbuttoned.”
Everyone stared at Tesla for a moment. “We’ll get him well,” said Ruth.
—
Later that night, after his parents had retired to bed, Paul came out onto the back porch to find Agnes sneaking a cigarette. It startled him for a moment to see her there, on the porch of his childhood home. The moon lit her curly hair better than any light bulb ever could.
“Miss Huntington,” he whispered.
She looked as if she’d been caught committing a crime.
“Sorry. I know your father hates smoke.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
He sat next to her on the porch. The old wood creaked under his weight. “I know how much you’ve done for Nikola. Thank you.”
“Ah. Well.” She took an inhale. “It’s not as if he has anyone else.”
She gazed out at the night sky. She puffed a plume of smoke into the air and watched it disintegrate between the stars. A colony of crickets hummed from the faraway weeds.
“Have you ever met someone so alone?” she said suddenly.
“He’s the emperor of his own private kingdom.”
“He’s its only inhabitant.”
“Yes.”
“So that makes him its slave as well.”
She seemed reflective. Almost philosophical. She’d been that way since they’d arrived. He wasn’t sure what had brought about the change in her demeanor. On previous occasions on which Paul had seen Agnes delivered from her mother’s peering gaze, she’d been fiery and playful. Now she was wistful.
All Paul’s worries on the train about how she would take to Nashville had proved unnecessary. She’d made herself very much at home. She’d been friendly with his parents. She’d insisted on helping Ruth make up Tesla’s bed. Agnes settled into what had once been Paul’s childhood bedroom like a long-lost cousin.
She took another puff of her fading cigarette. “Nikola Tesla arrived in Manhattan with, what, a few nickels in his pocket? He was homeless. He had no job, no connections, no family or friends to rely on. Do you know what he had?” She gestured to her skull. “His mind. It was his very otherworldliness that made him what he is. He did not become the most famous inventor this side of Thomas Edison by playing the game so well—he did it by refusing to play at all. And as someone who’s played awfully well myself, I respect him for it. I’d very much like to live in a world that doesn’t see people like him eaten alive.”
“And Henry La Barre Jayne?” asked Paul. “Would he agree?”
He’d never said the name aloud to her before. His voice sounded petulant, even to himself.
“You apparently have a lot of opinions about someone you know nothing about.”
“That was mean.”
“It was.”
Paul had avoided this conversation for two days on the train. He’d avoided it many times in New York. But the intimacy of having Agnes in his parents’ house made him feel unable to preserve such polite silence any longer.
“I’ve spent my life coming in second place to men with last names like Jayne. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.”
“Second place?”
Paul searched her face. Her mother had apparently not told her about his invitation to a Sunday walk among the flowers. Was this a generous act on Fannie’s part? It had saved Paul some measure of embarrassment, without his knowing. Yet he no longer had anything to lose by honesty.
