Stoker's Manuscript (23 page)

With that he walked swiftly and silently toward the door.

“Thank you,” I said.

He looked at me, then spat on the floor and left.

J
ust before sunrise, Luc met me in my room, and with a new, more rigid, comportment, escorted me down to the waiting carriage at the front door. My overnight bags in tow, I climbed aboard and took a seat and watched Arthur mouth last-minute instructions to Luc at the door before releasing him to join me.

I looked to the east just as the dawn’s first rays illuminated the castle walls, and as we pulled away from Castel Bran I loosely quoted the poet of Luc’s namesake: “At dawn, when the ashes of night are gone, taken by the wind to the west . . .” I offered to let him finish the verse, but his face showed a stolid indifference.

From Bran we traveled by bus to
and then by train through Bucharest and on to Serbia, where we took a taxi to the Excelsior Hotel. The next morning, we walked from there to the Tesla Museum at Krunska 51 in central Belgrade. Luc briefed me on the rules I was to obey under his watch—mainly no side trips or changes of plans. I was to meet him at the appointed time to break for lunch and he said he’d return promptly at the museum’s closing hour. Relieved that I would be working alone, I promised there would be no deviation.

I stood outside the museum and said a silent prayer that what I sought was within its walls. Built in 1929 as a residence in a villa style of arched windows and entryways, with two stories plus a partial underground basement, the building since had been converted to a small, single-themed museum housing only articles of legacy from the prolific inventor.

I arrived just before opening and was greeted by a doleful-looking attendant who let me in early to browse the open displays. The public viewing portion occupied the main floor, a counterclockwise tour of seven themed areas wrapping a central enclosed stairway and ending back at the entrance foyer. The top floor served as offices, and the basement as archive storage.

I stepped into the first area, a classically designed room of hardwood plank floors and twelve-foot ceilings. Indirect lighting added an elegant touch, with large life-size photos of Nikola Tesla and his family, some friends, and scenes from his place of birth used as wallpaper. I was struck by the intensity of Tesla’s look, the inventor’s face pointed with the usual Slavic features and a direct stare, as if the cameraman had just posed a challenge.

In the second room a dozen glass curio cabinets held his personal objects, such as a black hat and traveling bag, tickets to events, invitations and evidence that his social life was as active as his scientific one. Tesla was a man married to greatness, but he bickered with her instruction, and the two remained asymptotic. Correspondence decorated the walls, letters from such luminaries as Mark Twain, George Westinghouse, and Lord Tennyson. A dozen or more small inventions rested in the cases.

At the far corner of the first floor, in the third room, rested Tesla’s ashes in a golden spherical urn hoisted on a marble pedestal. And at the tour’s completion, near the museum’s entrance, his death mask stared back at his unfinished work from inside a glass case.

The curator, a man of few words and fewer smiles, pointed toward the stairwell, where I descended past a locked interior door and into the large archive room. Immediately the air temp and humidity told me this was not the proper place to store valuable documents, nor were the contents cataloged or secured in weather-safe containers. The concrete floors spelled moisture. A quick look at the basement windows shook me with the realization that one small flood through the street-level windows would destroy more than a hundred thousand irreplaceable documents. Above the windows were mounted surveillance cameras.

In broken English the attendant asked if I knew which documents I sought.

“Laboratory notes and personal journals from the 1890s, including notes taken by assistants.”

“We try best to organize by dates,” he said, pointing toward the middle stacks. “Most volumes come from last two decades of that century . . . seem to be in these.”

“Thank you. I’ll return the boxes back precisely.”

He left with a nod and resumed his duties upstairs, and I paused to look around. Finding myself again in the bowels of a museum, much like the Rosenbach, alone this time, a sense of urgency pushed me toward a strategy of how best to search systematically. Though I wished to inspect each document, there was insufficient time, and turning to the process of elimination I listed what I was not looking for—drawings, accolades, legal correspondence, and anything written in the twentieth century. Things written personally by Tesla were likely not pertinent, except as it established the relationship between the inventor and his assistant, Gheorghe.

More specifically, I was searching for the lost epilogue and any notes attached to it.

I had already seen the southpaw handwriting of the assistant, as well as Abraham Stoker’s, so at least I knew the size and shape of the needle I sought in this haystack. As the attendant had purported, the stacks were loosely arranged by decade, so I began by lifting a box from the nearest stack and carried it to a large working table. The contents of the box had that unmistakable chemical smell of paper’s acidic composting that, if not protected against air’s natural assault, would first discolor, then adhere, and finally lose its absorbency and disintegrate.

The first batch included correspondence between Tesla and the U.S. War Department in the Woodrow Wilson era, in which he proposed to build remote-controlled submarines and demonstrate them in the Hudson River. The same box also held similar proposals from the Taft Administration.

Wrong century and subject, as it turned out. To mark what I’d already viewed and rejected, I noted contents on a yellow pad and placed the manifests inside the boxes, scribing the outsides of boxes with small numbers denoting the years covered. Three hours into my task, I had reviewed an entire row of boxes before taking a break. The work was heavy and dusty, but my heart ached for the fate that most certainly awaited these decaying documents, for although they saw the end of the last century, they would not see another. I mentioned this to the curator as the day ended, and he commented that it was a matter of resource priority and his government had a long list above it.

How offensive, I thought, to lose treasures that belong to the ages because of budget casualties. The very idea of an archive is to preserve, not to set in motion the process of decay.

Ending the day, I was confident that by the week’s end I could inspect and mark every box. Unfortunately, that first day had yielded nothing on the topic I sought.

As I left the museum, Luc was waiting for me across the street. He did not say much and did not appear to be fielding questions on his day’s activity. He did, however, seem to sense that I needed to do something more than just return to my hotel room, and we detoured toward Pionirski Park for a lengthy walk. Ours was a brisk pace among the strolling couples and lounging seniors who enjoyed the summery warmth that brought the gardens and trees into full bloom. As sunset approached, we headed back to the Excelsior Hotel for a late and mostly silent dinner.

Luc mostly pushed his food around his plate with his fork before asking, “Making any progress?”

I shrugged. “I won’t know until I find something.”

“Look.” Luc pointed his fork in my direction. “I have to check in with the Master every couple days. Give me something to report.”

“It’s a mess down there.”

“That’s all you got?” he said, shaking his head. “Let me help you then. Maybe it will help us both. What are you working on?”

I could not divulge my assignment.

“Barkeley,” he said, continuing to point his fork in my direction, “I know what you’re working on. I just don’t know how Tesla ties into it, except the time frames overlap.”

I thought about how to say something without saying anything. Of course Tesla had nothing to do with the novel or its creatures, but his assistant, Gheorghe, obviously knew that the famous inventor’s research papers would be archived after his death. It must have seemed a safe way to hide them without destroying them.

“You’re right,” I told Luc. “The connection is the time frame. Tesla’s electrical company had a contract to convert Bram Stoker’s theater from gas to electrical lighting. They archived correspondence grouped roughly by decade. I’m going through every piece of paper and note during the 1890s.”

“But why? You think some of Stoker’s documents got mixed up with Tesla’s during that time?”

I shrugged.

I knew this was the tricky part of answering, because I had to tell him something that could be verified, but also tell him something to keep the leash long. “No. I think some documents were
taken
so they would not get published in the book. And whoever did it replaced it with something that would instigate conflict within the family.”

“Well, that certainly did happen,” Luc said.

“Possibly with the idea to see who surfaces.”

“Interesting conjecture, but that last part I won’t put in my report.” His look suggested he was pleased with my response. Then he asked, “So what do you think you’ll find?”

“Whatever is hidden in there is meant to be found, so I suspect it will point to actual events and where they took place.”

“Thank you,” Luc said, “that’s better. Some form of that I can report. Let me know if I can add anything by tomorrow night.”

Dinner ended, and I promised Luc I would stay the entire night in my room.

On my third day in the basement of the Tesla Museum, returning from a midday break, I opened a box in a new row and found what turned out to be the introductory correspondence sent by the inventor’s assistant, Sonia’s husband.

21 April, 1892

Belgrade

Dear Mr. Tesla,

We first met ten years ago at the power station in Strasbourg when you came under the employ of the local authority to repair the damage caused by an explosion. I am the man you entrusted to be your laborer. We again met in Paris in 1889. Since those days I have given great preponderance of thought to your Alternating Current theories and agree that this will be the practical solution to the limitations imposed by Mr. Edison’s systems.

I am not a learned man of letters, but as you might recall, I do give complete attention to my tasks, and by my measured observance of distance degradation from the source, I estimate Mr. Edison will need to place generating stations at two-mile intervals, and not ten miles as posited by his proposals. On the basis of the latter, the local officials are proceeding with plans to install commercial power sources throughout the city at ten-mile intervals, and most certainly will have exhausted the city’s coffers before realizing their failure.

I speak German, English, and of course my native Romanian. If I can be of service to you either here on the Continent or in the States, I will be your most faithful assistant.

I shall present myself to you upon your lecture visit this June to Belgrade, where I hope you will allow sufficient time to discuss your alternatives with the city officials.

Sincerely,

Gheorghe Antonescu

I sensed my blood pressure surge at finally connecting physical evidence to that which I had only spoken of with Sonia. I wished she were there at the moment to hold it.