The Last Days of Night(67)

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.