The Lightning Keeper (29 page)

“You were the last one of all to take the ladle, and with your customary bravery you held your hand steady and let a great dollop of lead through the hole in the key. When we fished it out of the water it was the strangest thing to look at, for it did rather resemble a man, but with
a great bundle on his back, and as no one could solve the riddle I called out that Harriet must marry a hunchback. You were quite cross with me. Later, when we were in bed together, and perhaps a little merry with the champagne Papa had allowed us, I tried to make amends. I showed you your bit of lead, which I had put in my pocket, and pointed out that the creature had three legs. ‘And do you know what that is, Harriet?' I asked, pointing to the middle one. And you said ‘No' so very quickly, and turned such a shade of scarlet that I knew perfectly well you knew, but I couldn't get another word out of you.

“Well, dear Harriet, I have found your little man again, wrapped in cotton wool in the very back of my drawer, when we visited my parents at Easter. I laughed to see him, and laughed again to think of how you must blush now, for there is no question of your not knowing, though I would be eager to know how you have solved the rest of your puzzle. I will question you no more, for I certainly don't wish you to be vexed all over again by this silly thing. But I do hope to come and see you before it becomes too difficult to travel, and I shall bring your treasure with me. Have you news for me in any way?”

No news, thought Harriet, and placed her hand on her belly in an effort to imagine what such news would actually feel like. She was not cross with her cousin—it would not change Lucy at all to be cross with her—but she was not to be drawn into the dialogue that Lucy seemed to have in mind. She was pleased to find a way of answering the letter that neither ignored Lucy's text nor surrendered to the impropriety of it. The hump on the back of the figure turned out to be a most telling augury, for she had married a man who had the cares of the world on his back, and she rejoiced in that, for who better to bear such a burden? She made no answer or mention of the other. What could Lucy possibly want to know about that? And what could she bear to tell?

She was silent, too, on the matter of “news.” She was not ready to share with Lucy or anyone else the possibility that God might not bless her marriage in that way. And if she dwelled rather long on her new room, and her piano, and the progress she made in her singing, it was at least partly in response to the knowledge that Lucy herself could not sing a note.

There was the stamp of feet at the door, though she had not heard the sound of the motor. She sealed her letter and went down.

 

H
E IS NOT A DWARF
at all, thought Harriet as she poured coffee for Dr. Steinmetz. He was quite short, in fact very short, and he did certainly have a hump on his back, which was unfortunate. But he also had the most beautiful manners, and very lively eyes too.

“Thank you, Mrs. Truscott, for my coffee and for this exquisite meal. May I smoke?”

“Of course you may. Coffee, Mr. Peacock? Fowler?” Toma had barely spoken in the course of the meal and seemed anxious to her.

“Thank you my dear. And if Dr. Steinmetz is going to indulge, then I might also. Sir, you do me great honor, and a very elegant cigar, too. Is it true, by the way, that story one has heard so often?” Fowler Truscott held up his unlit cigar and Steinmetz shrugged and pursed his lips, as if to say: I will not dispute it.

Harriet looked inquiringly at her husband.

“Oh, nothing improper, Harriet, just that Dr. Steinmetz is a kind of legend in Schenectady on account of his cigars.”

“It was a small thing….”

“They thought to banish smoking from the General Electric premises, and they put up a sign. Then Dr. Steinmetz disappears for five days, and no one knows what is wrong. A vice president of the firm is sent to his house to find out why he has stayed home. Is he ill? No. The reason is simply this: No Smoking, No Steinmetz.” The senator laughed, Harriet smiled, and Steinmetz shook his head.

“This has become a kind of folk story. I don't believe I spoke those words.”

“The words may have been altered to make a better story,” said Harriet, “but I am sure the part about your importance to the firm is true.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Truscott. I am pleased to accept your kind exaggeration.”

“But seriously, Dr. Steinmetz, to touch again on our earlier subject, and hyperbole aside, may we not interpret your presence in Beecher's Bridge as a mark of your corporation's commitment to this project?
Might we not hope, one day, to have an installation, perhaps an entire division, of General Electric right here in Beecher's Bridge?” It never failed to impress Harriet how her husband could pluck such connections out of the air in mid-phrase, the way her horse on one lead would make a flying change to the other.

Steinmetz chuckled. “You speak of ‘my corporation,' but I belong to it rather than the other way around. I am only an engineer, and so it is only proper that I should come. This is a most pleasant town, I think. Who knows what comes after?”

“Oh, but, Dr. Steinmetz,” the words burst from Harriet. She was overwhelmed by the thought of Power City, rising like the phoenix, and the strength of her feeling made her blush. “It is quite thrilling to think that it might happen. Toma…?”

Toma smiled and said nothing. Steinmetz inclined his head to acknowledge Harriet's enthusiasm, and he bestowed a glance on Toma. “You see that our young friend does not commit himself, wisely I think. You are speaking as if an invention, or even a patent, is a reason to build a factory, and I can only say: Perhaps. What is certain is that the job of the engineer is more complicated. I don't want to bore you….”

“Never,” said Harriet. “Please go on.”

“First we find out that a thing exists—and here is Mr. Peacock with such a thing, his machine. Then we must get to the general theory, which is nothing but the phenomenon as it would exist under ideal conditions. And the last part is to adapt those general theories to the specific conditions under investigation. You can see, then, that we are now only at the beginning.”

“Oh yes, I quite see, now that you have explained it. But you must not take away my hope, and my husband's, that something wonderful and useful shall be accomplished right here.”

Again Steinmetz made his courtly, seated bow, a gesture that emphasized the relative hugeness of his head. He smiled up at the senator, who had poured him a small glass of cognac.

“Thank you. My life in Schenectady will seem dull after this.” He turned back to Harriet. “Senator Truscott was telling me, on the way from the station, of your family's long involvement with industry here, so I understand your enthusiasm. But if Mr. Peacock's turbine wheel is successful, it will not be the achievement of one man or one town, it
will be part of a new way of thinking, of doing, which is energy and industry together, each element interconnected, so that the coal burned at the mouth of the mine in West Virginia can light the city of Philadelphia; or the high mountain stream, which is particularly adapted to the function of this turbine, can power, at a distance of many hundreds of miles, the factories of Mr. Ford.”

“Good heavens,” murmured Harriet.

“Splendid!” exclaimed Senator Truscott. “A vision of the future. And what do you call this thing, this arrangement?”

Steinmetz pressed his palms together, then turned his hands perpendicular to one another. “I sometimes think of it this way: the grid…for the lines of electrical transmission will leave a mark on the map like a gridiron. Every part contributes and cooperates. Mrs. Truscott, have I distressed you?”

“No, no. It is extraordinary, what you say.” She stared at the tobacco-stained fingers. “But I can't help thinking that it doesn't sound very much like…well, like America.”

Steinmetz was delighted by this observation. “Mrs. Truscott, you have seen the essence of the matter. Exactly so: this is not a description of America, not now, but as she may be, with luck. At this time, it is more an accurate description of Germany.”

“Fascinating, fascinating.” Fowler Truscott's tone announced another flying change. “And would you have time to see the rest of Beecher's Bridge today? I think a little air would be just the thing.”

Steinmetz rose and offered Harriet his arm, ignoring the difference of height. “I think I must attend to Mr. Peacock's business, yes? But first, if I may see the new music room? Really, Mrs. Truscott, I am overwhelmed. The soul of an artist, but the mind like an engineer's. If only other women were like you.”

 

T
HE BRANDY AFTER LUNCH
had given Charles Proteus Steinmetz a headache, and he was in a less generous frame of mind as he and Toma made their tour of the silk mill. It was a glorious afternoon, and the little yard by the door was filled with fluttering sheets set out to dry in the updraft from the river.

Inside, the kitchen was as orderly as Toma had ever seen it, with
not a frying pan or a dish in sight. Even the calico curtain seemed to have been washed and ironed. Stefan sat at his bench in the new bay, trying to look very busy, but overcome by the urge to stare at Steinmetz. The collection of scrap and machine parts had been picked up piece by piece, wiped with rags, and set down against the wall. Toma and Stefan had scoured the floor, but while everything seemed a good deal cleaner, there is no way to disguise a junk pile.

“Do you find this material useful?” Steinmetz waved his cigar at the pile.

“Sometimes, yes, particularly so in the early stages of rebuilding the wheel, and we have been able to adapt some of the gears from the old ironworks.” Steinmetz said nothing; he nodded as if he were already thinking of something else. Toma remembered Horatio's passion for these articles, and that long, rambling lecture. “Do you know what Mr. Edison says about a junk pile? He says that invention—”

“Please, please!” Steinmetz put his hand to his forehead. “Do not talk to me about Edison's junk pile…such nonsense, and I don't believe that he said that any more than I believe myself to be the author of my famous phrase. You know, Mr. Edison has done some wonderful things, but he is a man of the last century, no matter how much the newspapers love him. And why? Because he thinks only of inventions and not of systems. This is a lesson for a young man to learn.”

Toma nodded respectfully, but added, almost in an undertone, “Yes, sir, but I think of myself as an inventor.”

“Well, well, I suppose we must always have inventors. And as long as we have inventors, they will be waiting for the world to reward them for the better mouse trap, or the improved turbine, ja?” He turned away and walked the length of the bench to the sunny spot where Stefan worked. “And what is this, my friend?”

Stefan realized that the great Steinmetz was addressing him, and he could hardly answer. “The wheel, Dr. Steinmetz, that is the wheel.”

“Yes, yes, of course, and my compliments on your work. But where is your notebook?”

“My…?”

“Your working papers, your observations….”

Stefan reached behind the wheel for the dog-eared composition
book in which he made his calculations and kept records of the wheel's performance. Sitting squarely in the crease of the open book was the unconsumed portion of his daily sausage. Stefan uttered a moan of dismay and pushed the book to the edge of the table, where the trash barrel stood.

“No, no, my friend, the sausage is innocent, and that would be a waste. I will try some if you please?” Stefan cut a piece with his penknife, and Steinmetz ate, nodding his approval. “Much too good to throw away.”

“Es tut mir leid, herr Doktor, es sollte nicht geschehen.”

Steinmetz's frown relaxed at the sound of his native tongue, and he replied in German. Toma did not catch what was said, but Steinmetz tapped the paper where the sausage had left a corona of grease. Stefan smiled up at him, knowing he had been let off lightly.

Steinmetz took Toma by the arm and walked to the far end of the mill. He spoke in a confidential tone. “Now, my friend, we must have a little chat about our problem.”

“And what is that?”

“Problem is a strong word. Perhaps there is a better one.”

“Yes?”

“Let me see if I can explain. You are a young man, clever and energetic. And out of this chaos”—here Steinmetz encompassed the silk mill with a small gesture of his hand and cigar—“out of this chaos you have made your marvelous machine, with perhaps a little good luck too.”

Toma did not reply, but nodded, acknowledging the compliment, if that's what it was.

“So far, so good. But now you are no longer the independent operator, living from hand to mouth. You have sold your machine, or the controlling interest, to General Electric. So what happens now?”

“We perfect the machine, we manufacture it, we sell it. There are many uses for the Peacock Turbine….”

“Ah, the Peacock Turbine. There it is: the statement of the problem.”

“But that is the name, as the patent application states.”

“Yes, indeed. That will not change. But my point is that your
thinking is all for the machine, your invention, and nothing beyond. I suppose Edison is your hero?”

“No…I would name Tesla, Nikola Tesla.” Toma spoke the name with pride.

“Even worse. You have taken as your model the most arrogant, intractable, and egotistical man that was ever put on this earth, or at least in the category of scientist. Shall I tell you who my hero is?”

“If you please.”

“Well, he is a man with not a single patent to his name, and you will certainly never find his photograph in any newspaper, and probably not a single article.”

“Then how should I know him?”

“Because you have already met him. It is Mr. Coffin of whom I speak.”