The Invention of Everything Else (22 page)

I take a moment to catch my breath. The sky is gathering gray. Again I listen to our footsteps. "President Cleveland threw the switch on opening day, one switch for ninety-six thousand six hundred and twenty light bulbs. It didn't matter that the buildings were made out of plaster of Paris and hemp. Didn't matter in the least that none of it would last. Charles Ferris's first magic wheel and—"

"Really?"

"Yes, the first Ferris wheel. The first zipper, soda, sewing machine, bicycles." I stop speaking to catch some breath, but she won't have it.

"What else?"

"Oh, some silly things. A knight built from prunes, a map of the United States made entirely out of cheese, and another, a Canadian cheddar, weighing eleven tons. And some magnificent things." I make my list slowly as if ticking off the fair's wonders on my fingers. "There was a Hawaiian volcano set to erupt on schedule. A moving sidewalk. Pocahontas's necklace. German oompah bands. Viennese sausages, Turkish mosques. Taffy. Food from every country. A monkey boy. Eight greenhouses. A thirty-five-foot tower of California oranges, a full-scale ocean liner. And I had built one hundred and twenty-seven dynamos to power the fair, all the machines and exhibits, even Edison's tower of light bulbs, which proved to run on AC just fine."

"Shows him" she says.

"Yes," I agree as we cross Herald Square.

She uses one arm and a shoulder to block me from the leftover holiday crowds still milling in the city. I am relieved to be in her capable hands. I tilt my neck up and watch as the buildings grow in height while we approach the city's center, the thickening forest of skyscrapers.

When we're safely across Seventh Avenue, I continue. "Each one of them, all twenty-five million, wanted electricity in their own homes when the fair was over, so George and I got to work. We harnessed Niagara Falls," I tell her, pursing my lips together because that is another history, one I haven't got the breath for. "End of story," I say. "More or less, America electrified."

Some old stories still interest me. Some, this one, feel arthritic, a version of a story that has been told so many times it's been dulled by all the greasy hands that touched it. The wind catches Louisa's cape and blows it out behind her. I stop walking to see what the wind can do. There is a story that interests me.

She watches me for a moment and then pulls at my arm. Our walk continues.

I take one deep breath. "After Niagara, I needed more room than New York could offer. I needed to be away from people. New York seemed, I suppose, too dangerous, too enticing. You see—" For a moment I think to explain what transpired between me and the Johnsons, how I almost lost my heart. But I stop myself. I bite my tongue. What
did
transpire between me and the Johnsons? It would be nearly impossible to piece such subtle emotions back together again, the mysteries of friendship, the veins of heartache.

"And so in 1899 I left for a new laboratory. Colorado Springs, Colorado."

"Colorado," she confirms. "I've never been."

"Well, it's lovely if a bit muddy. My very first day there I stepped from my carriage and fell immediately into a rut deep enough to lose a small child in. I sank at a frightening pace, and when I tried to rescue myself I found that the clay of Colorado had taken a firm hold of my right shoe. With a great belch from the boulevard, I pulled forward, leaving my oxfords behind, entering the Hotel Alta Vista without the benefit of footwear. I mean to tell you, it was perfect.

"I'd secured a prairie for my use and the first thing I did was build a barn with a retractable roof. It was due east of the Deaf and Blind School, a location that seemed somehow appropriate."

"What were you working on there?" she asks.

The question makes me smile. I take a few steps without answering. "Lightning."

"Lightning?" She has some surprise in her voice. "I wasn't aware that it needed to be invented."

"Well, do you know anyone else who has made lightning?"

"No."

"I didn't think so."

"Except Mother Nature," she quickly adds.

"Yes, well, besides her."

"Tell me."

We pass through a covey of seven or eight nuns; their black habits, their simple winter coats give them away. "It was as if an invisible cavalry broke loose," I tell her. "The Earth trembled. I felt it shake. I called out to Czito, my assistant, 'I'm ready! Close the switch!' And he did. And the sphere of copper that extended high above my laboratory roof collected the charge Czito sent it until the overflow caught the attention of the Earth's ionosphere. Imagine it, Louisa. A bolt of absolutely beautiful lightning shot skyward from the lab and continued to stream, cutting magnificent angles of light."

"Sounds dangerous."

"It was. Horribly," I assure her. "I had taken the precaution of adding six inches of cork to the soles of my shoes and so I was able to safely watch the bolt, but my hair got swept up by so much electricity. It stood straight on end. My skin puckered. The bolt arced across the sky. I raised my hands up. The lightning swooned and I along with it
until, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. I was furious. 'No! No! Czito! No!' I yelled as I had never yelled at poor Czito before. 'I told you, keep the switch closed!' And towering in my cork heels I swatted the poor fellow away from the mechanism." I turn to look at Louisa. "It was only then that I noticed. The switch was still closed."

"What had happened?"

"The telephone began to ring immediately. I answered. 'What in God's name are you doing up there?' Yes, they were angry. 'We've got dynamos on fire down here and the entire city's been plunged into total darkness.' My, did they carry on. You see, it was the power company on the line."

"Aha. So the other day at the hotel was not the first time you've thrown hundreds of people into a blackout."

"Oh, heavens, no. Certainly not."

"You had made lightning?"

"Yes. And I thought if I could make lightning, perhaps I could control the weather, help the farmers."

"That's very clever of you."

"Clever but incorrect. Lightning does not trigger rain. It's a bit more complicated than that."

"Ah," she says. "But still, you made lightning. You are the only person I know who's ever done that."

The memory of the bolt, so close to me, gives me a bit of strength. I continue talking. "It was soon after that that I began having communications with Mars, and here is where my trouble began."

"Mars?" She spits the word, laughing, as if the planet had caught in her throat.

"Decidedly."

We reach Sixth Avenue. From here it is only eight short blocks up to the park.

"Mars?"

"At first I thought I'd like to talk to Paris, but Paris seemed so dull when compared with Mars. I'd already been to Paris. So every night I aimed my transmitter up to the sky. The nights were so still in Colorado. No interference. I'd send messages up to the red planet."

"What did you say to them?"

I can tell by the tone of her voice that her belief is slipping some. Everyone draws the line at Mars, everyone except me. "I sent them a pattern that I imagined would be recognizable as such, recognizable as communication, even to a Martian. I'd broadcast the pattern all night long and then curl up with my receiver, waiting for a reply. They were wonderful nights, Louisa, clear and cold. I was in a dream, and so when an answer came back, I can't say that I was at all surprised."

"An answer?"

"Yes."

"You spoke with the Martians?"

"Communicated. I could hardly call simple, repeated patterns 'speaking.'"

"You communicated with Mars?"

"Yes," I tell her, and though she smiles, I do not. The memory has its tarnish.

"What did the Martians say?"

"It wasn't that sort of communication. It was more understated."

"Understated," she repeats.

"Yes. Delicate. Hard to understand."

"Oh, I see," she says.

I look down to the sidewalk. My hands and ears are now really feeling the cold. The headlines read
TESLA GONE TOO FAR AND INVENTOR CONVERSES WITH THE MARTIANS?
The headline's question mark bore down on me. Once considered a dashing bachelor, a genius, I quickly became a question mark, a running joke, a mad scientist in the press. I should have known that understated communication with an alien planet was too delicate a concept for the media to comprehend.

"One must be careful what one hears," I warn her.

"But how can one help what one hears?" she asks.

"I suppose you can't. I only mean be careful what you tell people you hear. Very little charity is shown toward people who hear things that others don't."

Louisa stops walking suddenly. She leans in closer, catching my arm tighter. I am forced to straighten up some, back and away from her. "Mr. Tesla," she says very slowly. Her breath is on my cheek. "I heard something."

"What?"

"A woman speaking," she says, whispering as if it were a confession. Louisa's eyes are wide open, drawing a field of white below her pupils. We stare.

"The device?" I ask.

She nods yes.

I lift a hand to my chin, something to help me think clearly. "Who was it?"

"I was going to ask you that," she says.

"Well, what did she say to you?"

"It was something absurd, like those small phrases you bring back from your dreams, the ones that never make any sense. I can't remember."

I'm not sure what to say, and so I begin walking again. "A woman?"

"Yes," she says. "But perhaps it was just someone out in the hallway."

"Perhaps," I agree, though I can see her studying my reaction. I smile so that she knows exactly what I think of her woman-in-the-hall theory.

"Why did you leave Colorado?"

"What has that got to do with it?"

She sighs. "It's just a theory I have about the voice I heard."

"Who?"

"First tell me why you left."

"I've often asked myself the same question. The time I spent in Colorado was the purest year of invention. Something about the snow, perhaps, and the loneliness. It was frozen perfection out on my prairie."

"I know why you came back to New York."

"Oh, really? Tell."

"Because of her."

"Katharine?."

"Yes."

"Louisa, you are incurable." I look at her sideways. "Though you are right about one thing. When they are rounding down the story of my life, that is probably what they'll say. 'He returned to New York for love.' But let me assure you, I didn't come back because of Katharine."

"Didn't you love her?"

"She was the wife of my best friend."

Louisa chews at her lip. "That doesn't answer my question."

"Love is not as necessary as humans seem to imagine. It is a distraction to thought, and I've always found thought to be far more rewarding than love. Love destroys. Thought creates."

"Love can create as well."

"Really?" I tease her again. "What does the young Louisa know of love?"

"Plenty."

"Really?"

She hesitates before providing her evidence. "My father is still in love with my mother."

"Exactly what I mean. You say your father is in love with your mother. But why don't you say 'My parents are in love with each other'? Because love is uneven. There is no science to it, no formula. One party loves more than the other. Pain ensues."

"No."

"No?"

"I said my father is in love with my mother because my mother has been dead for over twenty years."

I turn to face her. "Exactly the problem with love, Louisa. Exactly. Loved ones die on us all the time."

We walk on with this resolution ticking in the air. The park is coming into view up ahead. I think of my bird and how she'll view the horrible hypocrisies I've just committed against love. I'm anxious for a new topic of conversation. "Now, I have a question for you" I say.

"You do?"

"It's only fair."

"All right," she agrees, nodding her head seriously.

"You snoop through all the rooms you clean, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Why?" She's surprised. "Wouldn't you?"

"No. The thought of touching other people's belongings makes me anxious. And I suppose I'm just not interested. But you must have found some wonderful things over the years."

"No one's room has been as wonderful as yours."

"Ah. That's why mine warranted a repeat visit?"

"Yes."

"Is everyone else really so boring?"

"It's not that they're boring, but they're not like you."

"Not many people are anymore," I say.

As we enter Bryant Park, I crane my neck. What if she is not here? How does a person begin to find one particular pigeon in all of New York City? I know so little about how she spends her time away from me. Where she flocks, all that she sees.

"Why Bryant Park?" Louisa asks. "There are lots of parks, lots of pigeons closer to the New Yorker."

"Yes," I say, distracted by the prospect of seeing my bird. I scan the skies overhead. "There are."

We are standing at the southwest entrance.

"That's where my father works," Louisa tells me, pointing through the park to the library.

I look. "He's a librarian?"

"No. He's the night watchman."

"Even better. He gets to wander through the stacks by himself then, all alone?"

"Alone except for the times I've gone with him."

"Lucky you. That must be where you get your aptitude for snooping."

"I think so," she says, smiling.

We enter the park. "Could you deposit me on that bench there? See the man with the very large nose?"

"No. Oh. The bust, you mean?"

"Yes. Drop me off there, and then, if you would, take those nuts down to the fountain. That's their favorite place for a meal. And thank you, Louisa. Thank you very much."

She leads me to a bench near Goethe and eases me onto the seat. "Thank you" I say again. She turns to walk off, but before she can, I stop her. "Louisa, the voice you heard, could it have been your mother's?"

"I don't know. I've never met my mother."