Authors: Suzanne Weyn
"I'm afraid Mr. Tesla is presently feeling ill and lying down inside. He has his own apartment in the hotel but I'm reluctant to disturb him in his current state."
"Oh, I know who you mean now! Weird Tesla. That nutty inventor pal of Jack's!" Mr. Guggenheim threw an unhappy glance toward the closed bedroom door. For a moment, I thought he would storm in and pull Tesla out.
I bristled, disliking Guggenheim intensely. How dare he call Tesla names!
"May I offer you Colonel Astor's suite down the hall? He is apparently remaining in Newport this night and will not be using it," Mr. Boldt suggested in a conciliatory tone.
"I wish Jack wouldn't insist on being called
Colonel
Astor," Mr. Guggenheim cried. "It's so ridiculous. He donated his yacht and bought himself a brigade of volunteers just so he could have that ludicrous title! It's absurd."
"Colonel Astor served his country with distinction during the Spanish-American War," Mr. Boldt insisted loyally. "Shall I prepare his suite for you?"
"Very well, I suppose," Mr. Guggenheim agreed grudgingly. "I think Jack's suite is bigger than this one, anyway."
"Somewhat larger, yes," Mr. Boldt agreed.
When I turned to check on what Mimi was making of all this, I discovered she'd stepped out into the hall with the young woman who'd come in with Mr. Guggenheim. She was showing Mimi the lacework on the under slip of her dress. They were laughing and appeared to be getting on quite well -- amazingly well, I thought, for two people who'd only just met. When they noticed me watching, they came back into the room.
"Benjamin,
mon chéri"
the young woman said to Mr. Guggenheim in a charming French accent when he returned to the front door, "can we invite these lovely people to our suite to have a bite to eat? The trip here has been
très
dull and I would so love to be
amusée."
"I'm tired and I want to unpack, Ninette," he grumbled.
Ninette pouted prettily. "You sound like an old man," she complained.
Her barb must have hit its mark because Benjamin Guggenheim relented and invited Mimi, Thad, and me to the suite of John Jacob Astor the Fourth.
I caught Mimi's eye and opened my mouth just enough to express my total disbelief. She stifled a grin and nodded. She felt the same as I did:
Could this really be happening?!
***
I
f possible, John Jacob Astor's private suite had even more floor-to-ceiling windows than the one we had just left -- and more crown moldings, and a larger fireplace, and an even more spectacular view of the city. One of the windows was actually a door that opened out onto a terrace of greenery overlooking the city. The furniture was fit for royalty.
A bellhop arrived with an overloaded luggage cart. A strikingly handsome, dark-haired man in his early twenties entered the suite behind him. He handed the bellhop a tip and instructed him to bring the suitcases to the master bedroom.
"Bonjour,
Mr. Giglio," Ninette greeted him.
"Bonjour,
Mrs. Aubart," he responded with a quick, polite bow.
Mimi was trying not to stare, but I caught her looking at him. I could understand why. He reminded me of an actor one might see on stage playing a prince or a knight, broad shouldered and tall.
He departed with the bellhop, but not before noticing Mimi. Their eyes met, and then Mimi looked away shyly.
"You like him, eh?" Ninette whispered to Mimi mischievously when he was gone.
"He's very... handsome," Mimi whispered. "Who is he?"
"Victor Giglio, Benjamin's new valet. Come, Mimi. I will show you the dress I was talking about," Ninette said as she pulled Mimi with her deeper into the suite. "It is the latest from Paris. You are going to adore it!"
Then, as though remembering her manners, she hurried back to Thad and me, scooping two menus from a side table and handing them to us. "Order what you would like for lunch. I will have the lobster. You should, too. Order everything on the menu!"
"Yes, order us a fine lunch," Mr. Guggenheim agreed. "If you'll excuse me, I must go call my broker."
When he disappeared into an office off the main living room, Thad and I were left alone to look at each other and down at the hotel telephone on the table. I burst into incredulous laughter at the sheer fun of it all. "Well, I never expected this," I remarked.
"Me, neither," he agreed, unsmiling. "It's all so... obnoxious."
"Obnoxious? I thought it was kind of... marvelous. We've stumbled into the life of luxury."
"Yeah, for us it's a lark. But don't you think the way these people live is ridiculous?"
Ridiculous? I didn't see anything ridiculous about it. I thought it was all too good to be true.
Thad gestured around the room. "Why do they deserve all this when the rest of us have to struggle? Are they better than us?"
I'd never thought about it before. "Luckier, maybe?" I ventured.
"You bet they're luckier. They're lucky their fathers were born before they were. John Jacob Astor and William Waldorf, his cousin who also owns this place, inherited their money. They didn't work for it."
"They run this hotel," I pointed out.
"They hire guys like Boldt to run it for them."
"What about a man like Thomas Edison who's earned his fortune from his brains?"
Thad waved me off dismissively. "Don't talk to me about Edison. He's a greedy industrialist like the rest of them. If anything, amassing wealth through your own ruthlessness and treachery is even worse than inheriting it."
I recalled how Tesla felt Edison had wronged him. "Tesla's not like that, though," I said.
"And look what it's gotten him. He's constantly on the brink of bankruptcy because he's not out to build a personal fortune. He wants his inventions to serve the people. He wants to pull energy down from the air and light the
world for free. Do you think guys like Edison and his backers will ever let that happen? Not when they're making fortunes charging people for electricity!"
"You sound so bitter," I remarked.
"I'm sorry," Thad said. "It's not directed at you. I can tell that
you're
not wealthy."
I was suddenly painfully aware of the plainness of my blue cotton dress and the scuff marks on my well-worn boots. But Thad seemed to think they were superior to the lavishness surrounding us, so I didn't feel as bad as I might have otherwise.
"It's just that I see what Tesla's up against every step of the way. These rich guys won't let him succeed in his work," Thad went on. "The only reason he gets anywhere at all is because he finds wealthy backers who hope that Tesla is smarter than the other guys -- which he is, by miles -- and that he'll invent something that makes them a fortune. But then Tesla finds ways to produce his inventions inexpensively and they decide there's not enough profit in it, so they withdraw their funding. Even worse -- they trip him up, mess up his work, set fire to his labs."
"Do you really believe that's true?"
"I know it's true!" he exploded. "I've seen inventions work perfectly; then he goes to demonstrate to a crowd and it's all a bust!"
"How do they get away with it?" I asked.
"The police don't bother them because they're rich. Edison or his backers hire thugs who disappear into the back alleys they crawled out of. These rich guys have no ethics. They just love money and don't care that Tesla's the greatest genius of our time."
"But, before, you said he was a nut."
Thad nodded. "He's also a nut... in some ways."
"What ways?"
"He's crazy about germs, always cleaning his silverware, even in restaurants, yet he loves pigeons, which are just flying rats, if you ask me. He loathes women's jewelry, especially pearl earrings. Don't wear any pearls around him or he won't talk to you."
"I don't have any."
"Good. You don't need them."
I wondered what that meant --
You don't need them.
Was it a compliment toward me ... or just an insult to women who bothered with pearls?
"What should I wear, then?" I asked.
"What you have on," he replied. "You look perfect just the way you are."
I felt heat at my temples and turned away. The last thing I wanted was for him to see me blush like some silly schoolgirl. Perfect? Did he really think so?
When Mimi and Ninette returned to the living room, Mimi had put on a gorgeous deep purple dress with a
hobble skirt. "How do you like it?" she asked me, turning with tiny steps required by the ankle-length, narrow skirt. "Ninette says everyone in Paris is wearing this."
"That skirt would drive me insane," I remarked.
Thad chuckled approvingly.
"Why?" Mimi asked.
"You're completely hobbled by it."
"What do you mean?" Mimi asked.
"It cripples you," I offered. "It's no accident that they call it a
hobble
skirt. Hobbled means crippled."
"I see you have not the love of fashion that Mimi and I share," Ninette said lightly, as if my disapproval was unimportant, She draped her arm around Mimi's shoulders as though they were old friends. A pang of possessive jealousy welled up in me. How dare she presume this kind of familiarity with
my
sister?
"Are the lobsters here yet?" Ninette asked.
"We haven't ordered," I admitted. "And I've never used a telephone before, so I'm not really sure how to do it."
"Never used a telephone!" Ninette cried incredulously. "How quaint! Here, I will show you."
She lifted the cone like receiver off its black metal pedestal, but before she could speak into it, Thad raised his hand to stop her. "Come to think of it, we're not really hungry for this rich hotel food," he said. "Jane and I are going to have lunch in a good little restaurant I know of in Chinatown."
I glanced at him in excited surprise. This was news to me.
"Would you ladies care to join us?" he offered halfheartedly.
"No. I have my heart set on the lovely lobsters," Ninette declined.
"Me, neither. I'll stay here with Ninette," Mimi said. Did she know what she was doing when she made this choice?
Was she doing it for me ... or for herself?
***
T
hat afternoon I had my first ride on a train, which ran up- and downtown on an elevated track. The train took us to a part of the city known as Chinatown because the vast majority of its citizens were from China.
Before arriving at the restaurant, Thad and I got off at Fourteenth Street at a place called Union Square. "Come on," Thad said. "There's something here I want to show you."
"What is it?" I asked.
"You'll see. You'll like it."
I hurried behind him down the metal stairs to an open area dominated by a statue of George Washington on horseback. In front of it, a band of five scruffy boys, one with a homemade drum, another with an actual harp, played an off-beat song while the others danced and sang for the coins passersby threw in their rusted pot. I tossed in a few pennies of my own, not because their music was good but because they were so adorable.
It wasn't easy to keep up with Thad's long strides as we crossed the bustling square, but we quickly came to a sort
of theater on the side. A large sign over an arched doorway declared: AUTOMATIC ONE CENT VAUDEVILLE. "What is this?" I asked him.
"It's a nickelodeon, which is a kind of kinetoscope."
"A what?"
"They show short films," he explained. "This is the biggest one in the city."
My hands flew to my mouth with excitement. I'd read about these in the papers. They were like films, only shorter and less expensive.
"Come on," he said, and I followed him in. The place was gigantic, with row upon row of shoulder-high machines lined up along the walls and forming center aisles. Each one of them displayed a placard that told the name of the brief film it played.
"I've never even seen a movie before," I told him excitedly. This was true; although I read all about the movie actors in them and devoured the reviews, I had never actually seen a movie or a nickelodeon.
"Well, now's your chance," he said with a smile. "Tesla believes that someday every home will have its own private nickelodeon."
I hurried off toward a bank of nickelodeon machines on the right but Thad grasped my shoulder firmly. "Not those," he said. "They're not suitable for a young lady."
A second glance made me realize that they were all being used by young men dressed in boater hats with their
suit jackets slung over their shoulders. "Oh, I see," I said, trying to sound worldly wise and knowing.
"There are some good ones over here," he said, directing me to the wall on my left. "This is my favorite," he told me as he dropped a penny in a machine marked: BOATING DISASTER. "Take a look."
A funny little man was taking his rather large girlfriend for a canoe ride on a lake. He had trouble with the oars, turning the canoe in circles at first. Then his girlfriend readjusted her seat and the canoe tilted so that the little man was lifted up along with the canoe's bow. He frantically rowed in the air. Finally, the two of them slid into the lake, looking none too happy.
The film lasted no more than three minutes. "Funny, huh?" Thad said, wanting my reaction.
"It is funny, but I felt sorry for them," I replied, smiling despite my sympathy for the characters.
"Don't. They're only actors," Thad said. "Come on. I'll show you some of my other favorites."
We spent the next half hour working our way down the line of nickelodeon machines, watching film after film. It was such fun!
We came to a film called
Dance of the Ghosts.
Five women in white, hooded, flowing robes did a sort of ballet around a glowing ball in a darkened room.
"Isn't that one crazy?" Thad checked enthusiastically.
"Crazy," I agreed. I didn't dare tell him how much it reminded me of home.
Eventually we got back on the train and took it to Canal Street. It was the most amazing place! Every sign was in Chinese. Vendors sold all manner of exotic clothing, toys, and even baby turtles out on the street. We browsed in small shops that sold exotic carved knickknacks and porcelain curios. We passed a Chinese apothecary with bizarre items such as dried wings and powdered rhino horn displayed in the window. With a little imagination, I could easily believe I was really in China.
We reached an electric neon sign that flashed the name Wo-Hop, and Thad took us down a flight of stairs to a belowground restaurant of plain chairs and tables set with white dishes on white paper tablecloths. Nearly everyone there was Chinese, many more men than women, dressed in traditional Chinese garb.
A small man in a white shirt and black pants ran out to greet Thad. He clearly knew him and was delighted at his arrival.
"Jane, I'd like you to meet Mr. Wang, a friend of my family's. Mr. Wang, meet Jane Oneida Taylor. She's a journalist writing about Tesla."
Mr. Wang shook my hand enthusiastically. "Mr. Tesla a very great man. Very big brain. I am pleased to meet you."
Once we were seated, Thad ordered for us both, speaking Chinese to the waiter. "I hope you don't mind," he said to me when he'd finished. "I think you'll like what I ordered. I never met anyone who didn't."
"Where did you learn to speak Chinese?" I asked. Thad, it seemed, was full of secrets and surprises.
"I was born in China. My parents were missionaries."
"My father was a missionary, too."
While we waited for our food, we had a lively conversation. I told him that Father had passed and all about our life in Spirit Vale, even admitting that the
Dance of the Ghosts
nickelodeon made me think of home. In the hours since we'd first met, I'd grown increasingly at ease with him. "Does it sound insane?" I asked.
"It sounds like a lot of fun," he replied. "What a great place to grow up."
"It's not meant to be fun," I said. "They take it very seriously. Being a scientist, you must think it's a lot of rubbish."
He shrugged. "Who knows? I believe in life after death but I don't know how long a soul hangs around before it moves on."
Thad told me that he'd lived in China until the age of ten and then he'd returned with his parents. At seventeen his parents had wanted him to go to seminary college to become a minister, but he'd had other ideas.
Thad was interested in science even though his parents
were adamant that science was the enemy of religion. Thad thought that was absurd. "They're so behind the times," he said. "They don't realize that we're on the brink of a new, modern age. Everything will soon change. Everything!" He and his parents had fallen out bitterly over this. And so he'd come to New York to live on his own.
"The greatest thing that happened to me was being hired as Tesla's assistant," he told me. "In the last three years I've learned more about science than I would have in Harvard and Yale put together."
I realized that made him twenty. I decided to make no mention of my own age. There were only four years' difference between us -- not really so much. We were getting on so well and I didn't want anything to spoil it.
"Do you want to be an inventor like Tesla?" I asked.
"I could never be like him. I'm no genius. But I
have
invented a few things."
"What?" I asked eagerly.
He pushed the white plates to the side and took out a pencil. He began to draw an airplane different in every way from the propeller planes I'd seen.
"It's a glider," he told me. "Tesla is working on something he calls a flivver plane, which is a cross between a gyroscope and a plane, but it needs fuel. This is a glider that would ride the air currents like a hawk. I believe that we can't be so reliant on fossil fuels. It's going to run out someday."
Tearing off a piece of paper tablecloth, he began to fold it in intricate ways. "I learned origami in China," he said with a grin as he folded. When he was done, he got up and opened a high window. "Have to let some air currents in here," he explained. Then he shot his paper plane into the room.
Everyone stopped eating and gasped as it sailed over their heads. Every second, I thought it would crash into someone's food, but it kept going. I couldn't believe it.
Finally, the little paper plane glided in for a landing on the windowsill, The entire restaurant erupted in applause, and so did I. "That's wonderful. How can you say you're not a genius?" I praised him sincerely.
"I'm not," he said, retrieving his plane. "But I would like to take what I'm learning from Tesla about magnetic resonances and apply it to aeronautical design. Planes are going to be huge."
"Do you think so?" I asked. "They seem so clumsy right now."
"They won't stay that way for long," he said. "There are guys like me everywhere who are working on sleeker, better designs. You'll see, Jane. It's the future."
Our meals came, interrupting us. They were a sort of egg pancake with shrimp, onions, and vegetables cooked in and topped with gravy. "Shrimp Egg Fu Young," he told me. "What do you think?"
"I'm sure this is better than anything Mimi and Ninette are having back at the hotel," I said. "I still can't believe I met Benjamin Guggenheim."
"All those rich backers are like that Guggenheim guy," he said as he ate with chopsticks. "They're so full of their own importance. And it's absurd that he has that young girlfriend, Ninette Aubart. She's divorced or something. People gossip about them. She's not his wife. She's his side girlfriend. He's forty-six and she's about twenty-four or -five."
"I suppose it's the trend with wealthy men," I suggested. "I read that John Jacob Astor is marrying a woman twenty years younger than he is next month."
"Madeleine Force. Yeah. She's twenty! He's getting married next month
if
they can find a minister to marry them. Nobody will do it."
"Because of their age difference?" I asked.