Wonder of the Worlds

by Sesh Heri

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  and I touched its tongue of flame to the edge of Paige’s letter. The paper blackened and curled away. I held out the burning scrap until it was consumed, and then dropped the remaining corner into an ashtray on Rogers’ desk.

  Since that day I have had no contact with James W. Paige. He later sold his interest in the typesetter to the Mergenthaler-Linotype Company for a pittance, and I heard that he tried to promote a pneumatic tire invention, but had no success with it. After that, Paige seemed to drop off the face of the earth. There were rumors that he had been seen walking in the slums of Chicago, some- where along Halstad Street. At this time I do not know if he is alive or dead.

  I was a guest in Henry Roger’s home at 26 E. 57th St. for the next several days. Rogers untangled my finances and planned a way for me to earn back all that I had lost. I would have to work harder than I ever had before in my life. I would have to write another book and it was clear that I would have to return to the lecture platform, but where and how often was uncertain. We sat down with pencil and paper and figured the numbers. It soon became apparent that no usual lecture tour would answer; I would have to lecture at home and abroad to even begin to pay off all my debts. It was finally decided that I would have to circumnavigate the globe.

  My wife and I had been prepared to turn over everything we had to the creditors, everything from the copyrights on my books to our house in Hart- ford. But now Rogers said, “No,” and he stood firm. He pointed out that my wife was the preferred creditor, for she was owed sixty-five thousand dollars by the Webster firm. Therefore, as Rogers reasoned it, the Hartford house and the copyrights would go to her. Rogers was even more intractable about the copyrights than he was the house. My books were not selling well at that time and I could find no publisher interested in continuing their publication. I thought it would be a smart thing to shove all those (to me) useless copy- rights into the hands of the creditors. But no, Rogers insisted that would be a gigantic blunder. Wait a couple of years, he said, and the popularity of Mark Twain would rebound with the rest of the American economy. Rogers’ insights were amazing; they proved to be true and saved my family and me from a life of poverty. Rogers not only saved us sound, but showed the way for me to repay all the creditors one hundred cents on the dollar, which I did by 1898.

  One morning while I was staying with the Rogers family that spring of 1895, I came down to breakfast later than usual. Rogers had already left for the office, and the rest of the family was out of the house as well. The Rogers’ butler served me breakfast, and then brought me the Newspaper. I opened it up, and there on the front page was the following headline:

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  “TESLA LABOR ATORY BURNS TO GROUND”

  My eyes raced over the text of the article. It said that Tesla’s laboratory caught fire about two a.m. in the morning. Before firemen could reach it to put it out, the entire five-story building collapsed f loor upon f loor in a heap of rubble. I lay down the paper, pushed my breakfast plate aside, and rose from the table. “Something wrong, Mr. Clemens?” the butler asked. “Yes,” I said. “Very wrong. I’m going out. Please call me a cab.”

  I went to the foyer while the butler rung up the cab company on the telephone. I got my coat and hat out of the closet, put them on, lit up a cigar, and began pacing the hall. The butler came around the corner and said, “They said they’re sending a driver straight over.”

  “Good,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “Anything else I can do for you?” the butler asked. “No,” I said. “I’ll just wait here for the cab.” “Yes, sir,” the butler said, and he turned and went back to the dining room. I kept pacing back and forth until the front bell rang.

  “That’s the cab,” I called to the butler, and opened the door. The driver stood there with his hat in hand. “Do you have any baggage, sir?” the driver asked. “No baggage,” I said. “I want you to take me to 35 South Fifth Avenue.” “Down around there where the fire was this morning?” the driver asked. “That’s right. You get me down there fast and you’ll get a tip that you won’t be able to spend in one place.”

  We ran down the steps, I jumped into the cab, and the driver lit upon his perch on top of the hansom. I saw the reins shake and the horses broke into a gallop, turned on to Fifth Avenue and headed south through the city. When we got down there to the site of Tesla’s laboratory my heart went into my throat. Where a big five-story building once stood was now nothing but a smoky expanse of sky! Down at ground level was a great heap of twisted iron beams and broken and blackened timber and brick. A grayish band of smoke rose from the heap and stretched itself out over lower Manhattan and the East River. A crowd had gathered about on the street and firemen kept them at a distance with a cordon of rope. I approached the crowd and spied Kolman Czito standing by the rope, staring helplessly at the smoking ruin. “Czito!” I cried.

  Czito turned and blinked.

  “Mr. Clemens!” he said. “He’s gone and no one can find him.” “Who? Tesla?”

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  Czito nodded, “He was here this morning, but he left about an hour ago with a man in a carriage.” “Well,” I said, “I wouldn’t be concerned about Tesla. He’ll turn up. How did this happen? Somebody left the gas pipe open?” “No,” Czito said. “No one left the gas open. Mr. Tesla closes the laboratory every night. And you know he doesn’t make mistakes of that kind.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I know. But—you fellows weren’t working on anything that could explode in there, were you?” “That’s what the fire marshal asked. No, nothing. This was not a result of our work. It was not an accident.” “Who did it?”

  “I believe my speculations are no better than yours.” “Here’s a telephone number where I can be reached. I’m staying at Henry Rogers’ residence up on 57th Street.” I wrote out the number on a card and handed it to Czito, and said, “When Mr. Tesla shows up, have him call me.” Czito nodded and took the card. “Here is my telephone number,” Czito said, handing me his card. I took it, and said, “You say he left in a carriage.” “Yes, it was strange.”

  “Strange? How?”

  Czito shook his head. “I know most of Mr. Tesla’s friends. I never saw the man that Mr. Tesla left with.” “What did he look like?”

  “I didn’t get a good look at him. He was just a man, just an ordinary fellow. Only—” “What?”

  “He was wearing an opera hat. That was a little strange. Most people don’t wear opera hats in the morning nowadays.” “An opera hat? You mean, a tall, silk hat?” “Yes. Yes, I believe it was silk. Why?” “No reason. But… Say, did you notice anything about the carriage they left in?”

  “The carriage? No. Not really. It was just a carriage, I suppose.” “Did it have a brass plate on its door?” “I didn’t notice. Why?”

  “It’s not important. You have Tesla telephone me, soon as he can, all right?” Czito nodded, and I turned and got back into the cab that had been waiting for me at the curb.

  The next day I received a telephone call from Czito. Tesla still had not shown up. I told Czito not to worry, that I had to go up to Hartford on

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  business, but would be back in a few days, and, by then, Tesla would surely have shown up. I just wished I had believed what I was saying. I had a bad feeling about Tesla, a very bad feeling, but what was there for me to do? I had no idea where to begin to start looking for him. When I returned from Hartford a few days later, there were no messages waiting for me at Rogers’ residence. I immediately called Kolman Czito at his home, and he told me that Tesla was still missing. It was now two weeks since he disappeared. Czito and the police were beginning to believe that Tesla had been murdered, but this belief had been kept out of the Newspapers.

  I next called the Chief of Police for New York City. He insisted that he had absolutely no information concerning the whereabouts of Tesla. The report from the fire department determined that the fire which had destroyed Tesla’s laboratory had been accidental, cause unkn
own. “Cause unknown!” I shouted over the telephone. “If the cause is unknown, how in the hell can they know it was accidental?” “I’m just reading the report they gave me,” the Chief of Police said. “Damn it! What’s going on here? Do you think I am a fool? Who the hell is behind all this?”

  There was a silence over the telephone and then I heard the Chief of Police let out a long sigh. He said, “I don’t think you really want to know who the hell is behind all this.” “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” “Why don’t you ask your friend, Henry Rogers, if you’re so curious.” “Don’t you try your insinuations on me, goddamn it! If you’re saying Rogers had something to do with this, say it, or keep your mouth shut!”

  “Guess I’ll keep my mouth shut,” the Chief of Police sneered, and then loudly clicked the telephone down on his end. I pulled the receiver away from my ear and hung it up on the pedestal. I then picked up the receiver again, intending to call the mayor, but stopped. I decided I would speak to no one further until I talked to Rogers. I got my hat and coat and went out for a walk through the city going straight down Fifth Avenue. When I reached the Waldorf Astoria, I hailed a cab and took it south, heading for the Standard Oil Building on lower Broadway. Before we got down there, I called up to the driver and told him to let me out. I got out of the cab somewhere on lower Broadway, paid the driver, and headed on down the sidewalk, walking toward the Standard Oil Building. As I walked, I tried to form in my mind the words I would say to Rogers. How would I begin the conversation? Could I begin?

  As I walked along pondering these things, a light mist of rain began to fall. I looked down at the sidewalk, noticing how the cement was turning dark from the mist. Then I heard footsteps behind me, and they seemed to be echoes of my own footsteps. I walked a little faster. The footsteps behind me kept pace

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  with mine. I walked a little slower. The footsteps behind me fell upon the pavement a little slower. I could stand it no longer. I looked around. The echo- like footsteps were those of a man walking behind me. He wore a “slicker,” an India-rubber rain-cape with a hood over his head. In the rainy gloom I could see only a beard inside the hood, but no face. I turned forward and quickened my pace. “Mark!” I stopped, and then turned around slowly. The hooded man approached and looked down at me. It was Tesla!

  “Keep walking,” Tesla said quietly. “Ahead of me a few steps.”

  I turned around and started walking slowly. After a moment, I said, “Every- one thinks you’re dead.” “Not everyone.”

  “Why did you disappear?”

  “Turn left and go into the restaurant. Get a table in the back.”

  I did as Tesla said and went into the little restaurant. I took off my hat and asked the waiter for a table in the back. He led me to a little room partitioned from the front of the restaurant by a screen, handed me a menu, and went away. Shortly Tesla appeared from around the side of the screen and removed his hood and cloak. He had a growth of beard, but other than that he looked to be his usual self. He sat across the table from me. “It is not necessary to order anything,” Tesla said. “The proprietor will let us talk here.”

  “You look all right,” I said.

  “I am intolerably filthy. But that will come to an end tomorrow. I haven’t returned to my hotel room since the fire.” “You had Czito worried. You had me worried.” “I regret that. But my disappearance was necessary.” “Why? Why was it necessary?” “I had to disappear for one reason only: to keep from getting killed.”

  With that disturbing statement, Tesla began to recount how he learned that his laboratory had been destroyed and all that had followed. Breaking his usual routine, Tesla had knocked off work early on the evening preceding the fire, had dined at Delmonicos, and then had retired to his rooms at the Hotel Gerlach. Around 10:00 A.M. the next morning, Tesla arrived in the neighborhood of his laboratory and found it a smoking ruin. His other employees, some fifteen in number, had arrived earlier, but none of them, including Kolman Czito, could bear to call Tesla to tell him the awful News. Tesla staggered around the edges of the rubble with tears in his eyes trying to see if anything could be salvaged. A Newspaper reporter from The New York Times followed behind Tesla, trying to interview him. Tesla climbed into the

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  smoking ruins of the building and the reporter decided at that point that he had gathered enough facts to write his story. Two firemen went in after Tesla to drag him back out of the collapsed building. The firemen got him back out on to the street and Tesla sat down on the curb and stared down at the pave- ment. Everything he had was gone, all his equipment and everything from his World’s Fair exhibit. None of it was insured.

  While Tesla sat there on the curb trying to absorb this disaster, he gradu- ally took notice of a shadow which fell upon the pavement only a few inches from his feet. At first he ignored it. The shadow did not move. In another minute or so Tesla realized that it was the shadow of someone’s hat. Another minute passed and Tesla noted that the shadow had not moved, not by so much as one-quarter of one inch, no, not so much as by one sixteenth of one inch. Tesla looked up. It was the man in the silk hat—the man whom Tesla had encountered in Paris years ago. He was standing perfectly still looking down upon Tesla as if he had been standing there waiting since the beginning of time and could go on standing there waiting patiently and serenely until that day far into the future when time itself decided to end. Tesla’s eyes slowly took in the whole height and breadth of the man in the silk hat. The man was dressed exactly as he had been in Paris years ago. In fact, the man appeared to be exactly the same as he was when Tesla had last seen him. Not only was his apparel un- changed, but his face had not aged one instant. It seemed to Tesla that the man in the silk hat was not a part of time as Tesla understood it. “May I offer my condolences,” the man in the silk hat said. Tesla inclined his head. The man in the silk hat looked at the smoking ruins, and said, “’And they said, Go to, let us build a city and a tower. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.’ Would you care to accompany me, Mr. Tesla?”

  Tesla looked up beyond the ropes and the barricades set up by the fire department and saw a carriage waiting across the street. It was the same car- riage that had carried the man in the silk hat away into the streets of Paris. Like the man, the carriage, too, remained unchanged. The brass plate with the number “44” was still mounted upon its door. “I…” Tesla found he could not speak. He shook his head. “Come,” the man in the silk hat said, extending his hand. “Come with me.” Tesla rose to his feet and looked at the man in the silk hat. “Is all this your doing?” Tesla asked. “Yes, Mr. Tesla,” the man in the silk hat said, “you know it is.”

  Tesla stood looking at the man in the silk hat, feeling a mounting, suddenly uncontrollable rage.

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  “Your heart lies in one of the pans of the balance, Mr. Tesla,” the man in the silk hat said, “and what may we find to fill the wants of the other? My own destruction? And that would accomplish—what? Ah, you see the point. My destruction would weigh more than your heart. You would have to place some- thing in the pan along with your heart if you would tip and level the balance. And what could be of such a weight that it would level the pans and leave neither wanting? Perhaps your soul? Are you prepared to place your soul beside your heart in the pan of the balance? Come, Mr. Tesla. Come with me. Come let us see if you and I can level the pans of the balance.” The man in the silk hat held his right hand out to Tesla and swept his left hand up and back toward the waiting carriage. Tesla looked back at his ruined laboratory, and then turned and walked with the man in the silk hat across the street. The man in the silk hat opened the door of the carriage, put his foot upon its step, and went up through the door. Tesla remained standing outside on the street. “Please, Mr. Tesla,” the man in the silk hat said from inside, “we have much to discuss.”

  Tesla got into the ca
rriage and sat across from the man in the silk hat who closed the door. The carriage started off up the street. “There has been much discussion concerning you of late,” the man in the silk hat said. “Much discussion here in the city—and elsewhere. Some of us in the Order believe that you have failed us and that your time has passed. And some of our operatives here in New York and in London believe that the best way to bring your time to an end is with your death. And some of those now seek to act upon their belief before the Order has made its final determination. While there would be consequences to such unauthorized advances, it is pos- sible that your life could be in real danger, hence my warning to you now. It is best that you go into hiding until passions cool in certain quarters.” Tesla sat looking at the man in the silk hat who seemed so quiet and serene. Finally Tesla asked, “Why? Why have you destroyed my laboratory?” “Why?” the man in the silk hat asked in return. “You know the answer to that, Mr. Tesla, only you are afraid to face it. We have destroyed your labora- tory because the things you were doing in it overstepped the bounds estab- lished by the Order of the Flaming Sword, the Order which has monitored your work, supported your work, secretly protected and promoted your work at every turn, the Order which nurtured your growth and development from your infancy until now, the Order which arranged for your birth, the Order which gave you your very life—the Order which has the power to take your life away from you now.” “You are a monstrous liar,” Tesla said. “You and your people have had nothing to do with my work. I have done it all myself.”