“Like the strength of steam,” said Tesla. “From where does water come? It does not. It is. Then men learned to heat it. And to direct the clouds of air that flew up above the hot water…” He clapped his hands. “There you have it! Power.”
Paul watched the ladies turn to each other and smile while the men shared approving looks. They all strove to indicate both that they were impressed by what Tesla was saying and that they understood it.
As Tesla continued to speak, Paul noticed that he kept his body carefully removed from the others. He swayed stiffly to avoid the well-coiffed hair dangling precariously from the women. His various insanities read, to the assembled, as fascinating eccentricities.
White turned to the crowd with a wink. You don’t hear this every day, he seemed to be saying to his friends. Tesla was the party’s resident curio.
“Your friend seems less like a guest,” said Agnes quietly, “and more like the entertainment.”
Of all the roles he had imagined that Tesla might play, that of court jester to Manhattan’s artistic royalty had never been among them.
“He loves a good novelty, Stanford,” Agnes continued. “He was dragging around a Chinese magician, last I was here. Sleight of hand for the slight of mind. This is the first time I’ve seen him make a show of a scientist, though.”
Tesla, still monologuing colorfully on the nature of electricity, finally caught sight of Paul. He stopped in his speech. “Mr. Paul Cravath,” said Tesla. His eyebrows rose in wonder.
The crowd, confused, turned to see to whom Tesla was speaking. Their confusion was in no way ameliorated when they realized it was Paul.
Stanford White spoke before Paul could. “Does Mr. Tesla have a friend?”
“He does,” answered Agnes. “This is Mr. Paul Cravath. He’s my lawyer.”
White regarded Agnes warily.
“Might we give the old boys a minute to talk?” suggested Agnes.
“Only,” said White, “if you’ll honor us with a song.”
Agnes smiled. “If you’re very lucky, perhaps.” She drew White back into the crowd, tactfully giving Paul his chance.
“What is it that you are doing here, Mr. Paul Cravath?” said Tesla after Paul had sidled up to him.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.” Remembering the inventor’s dislike of physical contact, Paul held his palms inches away, guiding by gesture rather than by touch. He led Tesla to a spot where they could speak without being overheard. “We should talk.”
Tesla’s tone grew light. “Oh! Indeed. If you will come tomorrow night, there are magnificent things to be seen.”
“Come where?” asked Paul.
“To my new laboratory.” Tesla grinned at Paul’s evident surprise. “You do not think that I have in idleness been passing these days.”
“You’ve invented something new?” Paul tried to imagine what Tesla, left to his own devices, might have devised. But such things were quite literally beyond Paul’s imagination.
Tesla leaned in to whisper his next words.
“It is a wireless telephone.”
Paul stared dumbly. Telephones had existed for only a decade; almost no one owned one, on account of their tremendous cost. Paul himself had never used one. Who would want a wireless one? What would a “wireless telephone” even be?
Tesla laughed a high cackle. Paul’s disbelief seemed to thrill him. He named an address on Grand Street. “Come tomorrow evening,” he whispered, “and I will show you something that so few men ever can claim to be seeing. That is: something that they have never seen before.” He handed Paul a plain card on which was written no name, but simply the Grand Street address.
Before Paul could ask for a clarification, he was distracted by a sound from across the party. A song rose high above the din and rested gently in the air on its own sweet plaintiveness. The voice was forceful but tender, a bright twinkle through the smoke-darkened room.
Paul couldn’t see the singer, but he didn’t need to. He knew in an instant that it could come from only one person, and that her reputation had been well deserved.
Agnes hadn’t brought one of her arias to the Players’—instead she sang “Where Did You Get That Hat?,” a ditty that had found itself unexpectedly in vogue that summer. Only she’d slowed the tempo, singing it with a strangely mournful air. She’d somehow made the song both more amusing and at the same time oddly haunting.
Even Tesla was transfixed. The inventor abruptly passed Paul by, moving toward the source of the song. Tesla’s shoulder grazed Paul’s as he walked, yet he didn’t seem to notice a contact that would typically horrify him. Paul followed until they came to a knot of partygoers surrounding Agnes, who was just letting go of the song’s final notes.
Paul tried to catch Agnes’s eye amid the applause. She really was something.
As the applause dwindled, Stanford White had clearly had enough singing for one night.
“What a delight!” he bellowed. “Mr. Tesla, was not this performance electrifying?” Amid the laughter, he began plying Tesla with more questions about this electricity business. The crowd enveloped Tesla. Paul could see only his head poking out above the smoky dinner jackets and pearl-laden necklines.
Paul watched at the outskirts of the circle for a few minutes as Tesla spoke. He heard the petty giggles of the revelers, the snickering at Tesla’s impenetrable accent and impossible syntax. The genius had become their pet. Their strange new toy.
But Paul knew that someone as singular as Nikola Tesla would be left to wither in the cold when a change in season called these revelers to some other well-appointed magic. Not even Tesla would be immune to the passing of their whims.
It was then that Paul, for the very first time, felt something like kinship with Tesla. They were both cogs in the machines of their betters. They both served as their functionaries. At least Tesla was a genius. How would a merely smart person like Paul survive these people?
Or had he become, in the past year, one of them? He was using Tesla too. The only difference was that while they were conniving for a laugh, Paul was conniving for a leg up. He strained to preserve a sense of his own moral superiority.
It was time to leave. He slunk through the party in search of Agnes. He finally located her in an alcove on the floor below, deep in conversation with a man Paul did not recognize. He turned away, leaving her to frolic in the gardens into which at least one of them had been planted.
The breeze outside felt cleansing. He hoped that if it blew hard enough, it might wash off the smell of cigars and perfume.
He stood on the street for a moment, taking in the sight of Gramercy Park. The yellow gaslight painted the fruit trees in wide smudges of color. Was that the New York that he aspired to? Was that the show to which winning his case would afford a ticket? Paul felt as if he’d been the victim of some sort of trick. Proud as he was of his accomplishments, he was prouder still of his ambitions. If the world inside that building was not what he should aspire to, then what on earth was?
“I don’t think you liked the party.” Paul turned to see Agnes coming down the steps behind him. She reached into her purse, removing a polished silver case. She lit herself a thin cigarette without offering one to Paul.
He wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t smoke.
“Perhaps it wasn’t the party,” she continued. “Perhaps it was the guests.”
“They’re horrid.” He blurted it out suddenly, without intending to. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Just too much champagne. Thank you ever so much for bringing me.”
Agnes puffed a plume of smoke into the night.
“Stop being polite,” she said. “I get quite enough of that at home. Did you get what you needed from your odd friend?”
Her bluntness was bracing.
“They’re going to devour him,” Paul said. “He’s too na?ve. Too innocent. And they are wolves, batting a piece of meat between their paws.”