The Last Days of Night(47)

There was a lesson in all this, Paul thought. America was a place in which the powerful and the popular were doomed to an uneasy alliance. Money, even as old as New York’s, was something. But it was no longer quite enough. The fashionable flexed the real strength that made the American muscle bulge. Fashion was popularity. Popularity was people. And it was to the people’s ever-shifting tastes that even the wealthiest of this young nation sought to appeal. What’s the use in being rich if not a soul admires you for it?

Paul was greeted by the manager of the house, a tall man in a dinner jacket who kept watch over the scattered maids dusting and polishing the ornate fixtures that dotted the walls. As it was morning, the lamps along the corridors were off. But Paul could make out their shape from where he stood. The lamps were electric. And they were Edison’s.

Paul explained to the house manager that he was looking for Miss Huntington. It was only after he assured the suspicious manager that he wasn’t some devoted fan in search of an autograph, but rather the prima donna’s personal attorney, that the man deigned to accept Paul’s card.

He soon reappeared, leading Paul into the cavernous theater at the center of the opera house. Their footsteps echoed beneath the domed ceiling. The sensation was eerie. Four thousand empty seats swept across the long floor and up the rear wall. Paul turned to peek at the five tiers of empty boxes that hung from the sides.

To think of the scenes that took place nightly between those chairs. The backstabbing, the social climbing, the bitter family feuds played out at every intermission. The drama among the audience was famously more intense than what was performed upon the stage. Empty in the quiet morning, the house seemed pregnant with the promise of the night’s warfare.

The manager led Paul up onto the stage, past the curtains, and finally down a flight of rear stairs to a door on which the name AGNES HUNTINGTON shone in gold lettering. It would not have shocked Paul if it turned out to have been etched in genuine gold.

The manager knocked twice on the door and then announced Paul’s name. It occurred to Paul that he had met two very different Agnes Huntingtons, between her mother’s house and the Players’ Club. Would he find a third at the Metropolitan Opera?

“They’re waiting for you,” the manager said before turning away.

Paul stood for a moment, taking a breath.

“They?”

But the manager was already gone.

The door opened with a creak and Paul found the radiant face of Agnes Huntington before him. Her attire was informal, a tastefully casual black dress that extended to the ankles and down her arms, with just a slight touch of white frill at the wrists. She wasn’t wearing shoes.

“Mr. Cravath,” she said as she ushered him into the dressing room. An enormous mirror covered one wall, lit up by a panel of Edison’s bulbs along the edges. The mirror made the room look twice as big as it was. A desk for makeup rested below the mirror, next to which stood a costume rack. The row of hanging clothes was full of bright reds and blues, more saturated and luminous than Paul had ever seen. The light bulbs brought out the deep colors in the silk fabrics.

Beside the dresses were two wooden chairs and a decorated daybed, on which perched a very tall man who was rocking back and forth in his seat, mumbling to himself.

“You already know Mr. Tesla,” said Agnes as she shut the door behind them.





Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.

—STEVE JOBS



IN AGNES’S TELLING, Nikola Tesla had appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House early that morning. He had approached her as she’d arrived at the stage door. It had taken her a moment to recognize him as Paul’s curious quarry from the Players’ Club. But Tesla had recognized her easily, as if he’d been seeking her out. He had addressed her by name, even though he was filthy and clearly unwell. He was unable to say more than a few words. She’d had to employ the house manager in escorting him to her private dressing room.

There sat the prodigal inventor on the opera star’s daybed. Paul was reminded of Tesla’s taste for Delmonico’s. Strange how this unaccountable man found himself so often in the lap of luxury.

It was only as Paul approached that he could see just how shaken Tesla was. He seemed unaware of Paul’s presence, mumbling under his breath. Paul strained to make out words among the sputtered noises and half syllables.

“Nikola? Can you hear me?”

“He doesn’t answer. But whatever questions you might have for him, I can promise I’ve got more to ask you.”

Tesla’s eyes were open, but they were fixed on a faraway point, as if the dressing room wall were a distant horizon. Paul realized that Tesla was wearing the same suit that Paul had last seen him in. The cloth was filthy. Tesla’s cotton shirt had once been white, but was now yellow-brown from unspeakable stains. He reeked of pavement, sweat, and horseshit.

It seemed to Paul as if the fence that typically separated Tesla from the outside world had risen and thickened into a full rampart. Normally, one could at least lob a few conversational balls over the wall. But now, nothing landed on the other side. Whatever derangement had overcome him, it had completely severed any ties between the man and the world around him. If Tesla’s consciousness was in there—if, as Paul’s father would believe, Tesla’s soul was present somewhere inside his skull—it was now the sole citizen of an embargoed kingdom.