Dangerous Betrayal Page 6

  “Papa, I came back like you said and I found him like this sitting here at the table. I threw a blanket over him as you asked. Feel his forehead. What is happening to him?”

  The doctor put his hand on Nikola’s forehead and pulled it back in surprise. It was very cool. His clothes seemed to be drenched, as if he had fallen into the nearby river. Nikola was in some sort of trance, completely oblivious to their presence. He continued to write and make strange drawings on the paper.

  The doctor looked down at the paper. “He is writing in Greek! The boy is writing about water and water pressure being used to spin a wheel or a disk. Very strange indeed.”

  Before them, Nikola, ten years of age, had just outlined a water turbine design that was revolutionary in concept. It would be more than a hundred years before this concept was adopted as the motive force for seagoing recreational vehicles.

  Nikola suddenly came out of his trance, put down the pen, and looked around. “Papa, has the storm passed? The lightning was very strong. The bright light hurt my eyes.” He looked at his father, the doctor, and his sister standing there with concern and questions in their eyes.

  The doctor spoke first. “Hello Nik, I am Dr. Vendar, and your father has asked me to take a look at you. How are you feeling?”

  Looking at Milutin and Christina and then back at the doctor, Nikola answered, “A doctor? Why? I’m not sick. I feel fine.”

  “Nik, look at yourself, you are very wet and very cold, but there has been no rain at all. So unless you fell in the river today, you have been perspiring profusely.”

  “But where did the lightning come from? My eyes are still sore and wherever I look I see little green dots where the bright flashes stung me.”

  Neither the doctor nor Milutin could explain Nikola’s questions about the lightning. They knew that something unusual had happened to him. The drawing before them could not be explained away. It was the work of a genius. The doctor spent the next half hour examining him but found nothing out of the ordinary. He could do little else but suggest that Nikola get into some dry clothes, lie down, and take a nap. Nikola’s temperature had returned to normal and any lingering effects of the episode were gone. But the drawing on the table was the key to the puzzle of what had just occurred, one that neither the doctor nor Milutin could answer. It was a map that led to a buried treasure, one that would remain locked in Nikola’s head for years to come.

  Nikola’s “lightning bolts” were bright, unexplained flashes of light that would appear in his head during periods of extreme stress or creativity. Interestingly, Ana complained of similar flashes in the depths of her depressive grief. These flashes of light would be a part of Nikola’s life forever.

  Christina never forgot this moment. There was a pattern to these strange episodes. Nikola would first experience deep, debilitating depression then he would become completely nonresponsive and statuelike. These periods of catatonic behavior were always accompanied with the complaint that he saw very bright lights, his temperature would drop, and his body would perspire profusely. The creative outpouring following these incidents resulted in gigantic leaps of creative thought, and later in his life, massive writings of his philosophies of social fairness and equality.

  CHAPTER 12

  Nikola Tesla—Genius

  Nikola continued at the school in Gospic. During his last two years, he became an assistant, often better at teaching concepts of chemistry and physics than the teachers themselves. His natural curiosity and his bent for mischievousness constantly got him into trouble, but the schoolmaster had given up trying to discipline him. It simply didn’t work.

  Milutin allowed his son to graduate just before his sixteenth birthday. The awards and accolades Nikola received took nearly half the time allotted for the entire graduating class. It was with a mixture of extreme pride and great relief that the schoolmaster announced, “And we wish the very best for Nikola Tesla as he moves on to Austrian Polytechnic Institute for his continued education.”

  Nikola’s family, minus Ana, sat in the front row. What should have been a joyous moment was dulled by Ana’s absence. She was home in bed, slowly dying of a broken heart. She was never able to break free of the pain caused by Dane’s death. Nikola, flushed with pride at his accomplishments, and resplendent in his graduation gown with medals hanging from his neck, was missing the only thing he really craved: the love and acceptance of his mother.

  That fall, Nikola bid farewell to his family and the town of Gospic. Milutin, although still concerned about Nikola’s well-being, had consented to his son’s leaving home as soon as he reached the age of seventeen. The institute was anxious to receive this young genius and had reassured Milutin that Nikola would be well supervised and given special guidance and counseling when needed. They were well aware of the potential problems that awaited a young man of seventeen entering a world of boys two to three years his senior.

  Austrian Polytechnic Institute

  In class, Nikola was always alert, the first with answers to the most complex of questions. His analytical abilities were beyond the grasp of everyone.

  He brought on the ire of one of the school’s most respected professors, Dr. Hochstein, openly challenging the professor’s theory that DC (direct current) was the natural state of electricity. Nikola, working on his own, had theorized that AC (alternating current) held the real benefits for mankind. AC was the natural state of all energy, and he was not at all bashful about correcting others who did not agree with him, even the most highly regarded, experienced, and respected professors.

  Nikola held firm to his theory and openly stated that AC power would overshadow DC and become the world’s preferred source of electrical energy, and he was right. Not because of strong opinions, not because of overbearing ego, but because he could prove it.

  Unfortunately, he was just a student, a young brash student at that, and he was given the option of accepting what he was being taught or leaving the class. Despite his massive intellect and proof, at least to himself, he backed down, accepting that his time had not yet come.

  As his first year at the institute approached its end, Nikola was clearly suffering physically from his lack of adequate nutrition and sleep. The chancellor wrote to Milutin, expressing his concern for Nikola’s well-being. Milutin asked newly married Christina and her husband Branko to travel to Austria and bring Nikola home.

  Christina was shocked at Nikola’s appearance. He looked like a walking cadaver. He had never been particularly heavy or muscular, but now he was little more than skin and bone. Over his vociferous objections, Christina made him get into bed, and while she prepared hot soup for him, Branko went for a doctor.

  The doctor’s reaction to Nikola’s condition was predictable. “This boy needs to get home, get some food and sleep, and receive a doctor’s care until he regains his strength. What has happened to him? Why hasn’t he been eating?”

  The doctor was familiar with malnutrition and expressed that perhaps Nikola could not afford to eat properly. When Christina explained her brother’s study habits, his incredible intellect, along with his inhuman ability to drive himself, the doctor suggested they get him home and nurse him back to health before he killed himself and that incredible intellect ceased to exist. They remained at the institute for another three weeks at Nikola’s insistence so he could complete important laboratory work. Between the two of them, Christina and Branko made sure that Nikola got at least six hours sleep and two meals each day.

  Christina and Branko spoke to the institute’s chancellor explaining that Nikola needed to go home until he regained his strength. They were reassured that his place in class would be waiting. But the chancellor did advise them, “When young Nikola has sufficiently regained his strength, his father needs to explain the value of showing respect to his elders, especially his professors. His theories of electricity are not in concert with modern progress. He is here to learn, not to teach.”

  Christina knew that the chancellor and the insti
tute professors did not understand her brother as she did. Nikola had never been wrong, a simple fact these men had yet to learn.

  When they arrived back in Gospic there was black everywhere. As they rounded the last corner Christina broke into tears and sobbed uncontrollably. The family home had a wreath on the door. No one needed to tell Christina that her mother had passed away.

  The house was filled with mourners. Milutin was on his knees before a beautiful coffin surrounded by white flowers. He was praying for his beloved Ana, lying motionless before him, a smile on her lips for the first time in years. Christina wrapped her arms about her father’s neck, and the two of them held each other as she sobbed uncontrollably. Nikola stood back. His eyes, filled with tears, were fixated on his mother.

  Nikola stepped forward and softly placed his hand on his father’s shoulder. He didn’t know what to say. Milutin turned toward him. His eyes widened at his son’s emaciated appearance.

  “My God, boy, what have you been doing? Is this what happens when I let my only living son go away by himself? I should never have let you go!”

  It was the wrong rebuke at the wrong time.

  Nikola’s mood darkened with each goodbye and condolence. An ache that could not be salved filled his heart. His mother was gone to the grave, her soul gone to a place his father called heaven. He had been taken from the institute by force. How little his father understood of the workings of his mind, the depth of his intellect, or the gift of knowledge that had been taken from him. He was only seventeen, still considered to be a child, and therefore subject to his father’s will.

  Is this what happens when I let my only living son go away by himself? I should never have let you go! rang in Nikola’s ears.

  Nikola felt as though his educational future had been cut off forever. Until he was twenty-one, he would be under his father’s thumb, forced to be whatever helping hand was needed. No, this he would not do. He would not have his vision limited by that of a smaller intellect, even if that intellect was his father’s, well meant, but miniscule in comparison to his own.

  Nikola decided to leave. He knew how to live in the world. For the past year he had done perfectly well by himself. Why remain? No one needed him, and most likely, no one would care where he went, or why. He knew more than nearly everyone about the primitive machinery being installed to generate and use electricity, and such knowledge would land him a solid, well-paying job wherever he went.

  He remained at home, sleeping and eating well, rebuilding his strength and health, avoiding his father as much as possible. As part of his preparation to leave, he would regularly borrow a horse from a local friend and ride through the countryside. This was part of his plan to get away unseen, but it also reinforced his belief that he was destined to live a life of solitary existence, depending on no one but himself for his security, shelter, and well-being.

  Two weeks after his mother was laid to rest, at three in the morning, Nikola quietly gathered his few belongings, went to the barn, and rode off into the night. He went across the countryside to a nearby town where he could catch a train that would take him out of the country to the mountains of northern Italy. His last act had been to stop at his sister Christina’s house and leave a letter on her doorstep. He expressed his sincere thanks for her kindness to him, promised that he would stay in touch from time to time, and included instructions that would lead them to the horse so it could be returned to its owner.

  CHAPTER 13

  Tesla the Recluse

  Nikola settled in the Italian Alps town of Lecco, at the southeastern end of Lake Como. He found employment working with draftsmen and engineers, laying out plans for a DC electrical generating plant. He quickly became frustrated with the overall plans, which to him seemed primitive at best. Nikola learned that the “Italian method” of decision making was a series of expletive-laced screaming matches where logic and reason were buried under emotional outbursts. He felt betrayed by fate. He was the lowest ranking person in a group of men who did not possess half his understanding of electricity.

  One man, Mario, could not help but notice Nikola’s unhappiness. As they were leaving work one Friday afternoon, Mario asked him, “Nik, how about we stop and have a beer on the way home?”

  Surprised by the friendly offer, Nikola readily agreed.

  “Nik, here’s to our friendship.” Mario raised his glass and Nikola did the same. Nikola had his first taste of beer. He found it deliciously bitter and sweet at the same time.

  “So tell me, Nik, why the long face?”

  Nikola drained his glass. He told Mario of the death of his mother and the death of his brother Dane. He spoke of being forced to leave the institute by his overbearing father. He was tired of being a freak of nature, a biological oddity, taller than everyone, and cursed with a superior intellect. He was living in his own isolated prison, at arm’s length from everyone around him—and on he went.

  Hours later and emotionally drained, Nikola finally stopped talking. To his surprise, he had finished five glasses of beer. He felt strange, kind of woozy, and yet relaxed at the same time.

  “Nik, I think we’d better get you home” were the last words he remembered as Mario helped him stagger to his apartment.

  A loud pounding on his door awakened Nikola the next afternoon. His head hurt and his mouth felt like someone had stuffed it full of cotton. Mario was standing there trying hard to suppress laughter as he looked at his poor hungover friend. “I thought I had better come by and make sure you were all right.”

  After a cup of black coffee, Nikola started to feel a bit more human. He was hungry, in fact famished. He invited Mario to lunch at a nearby ristorante, and the two of them strolled down the street on a beautiful sunny day.

  Taking their time with the meal, they sat and talked while enjoying delicious Italian food. As Nikola settled the bill Mario asked, “Do you have plans for tonight? I am getting together with my cousins for our Saturday night game of cards. My sister will be making pasta for everyone. Her sauce is the best in the city. My brother will be there and he will bring wine.”

  Mario’s family was warm and inviting, if perhaps a little too loud. They welcomed Nikola with hugs and kisses, and glass after glass of wine. As the evening wore on, they invited him to join in the card games. Nikola’s mind was as sharp as ever and he quickly mastered the games. He found he could determine his odds of winning by watching the cards as they were discarded. When the evening finally ended at three in the morning, Nikola held most of the money.

  Mario asked, “Are you sure you’ve never played cards before?”

  Nikola became a regular at the local tavernas. He was good at cards, but due to his late hours and drinking, he was showing up later and later for work, disheveled and smelling like a brewery. He was ultimately dismissed for showing up in such a sorry state.

  He found that in a few hours of playing cards several nights a week he could comfortably support himself. He would sit down at a table of strangers, act like a rookie and an easy mark, but at the last minute produce a winning hand, leaving the others cursing in Italian as he left with a pocket full of lira.

  Nikola’s gambling nearly cost him his life when he unknowingly sat down at a table with the brother of a man he had beaten a few nights before. As Nikola walked home after his usual “beginner’s luck,” he was nearly stabbed in the back. He managed to escape the attacker, but six hours later he was on a southbound train quite fortunate to be alive. He had purchased a ticket on the next train out without regard for its destination.

  Most of the train’s passengers were headed for the seaport town of Civitavecchia, a shipping port on the Tyrrhenian Sea, which had been in use since the days of the Roman Empire.

  Nikola hadn’t bathed in days. His body odor, mingling with the sickening stench of alcohol, caused others to move away from him. He made a quiet vow that he would get off at the next stop, regardless of where it was.

  He found his way to the shipping docks of Civitavecchi
a where he would spend the next two years. He located a pensione, took a long bath, and went to bed, sleeping well into the following afternoon. He wandered out, found a busy taverna, and enjoyed a hearty meal and a bottle of Chianti. In this seaside city he could be completely anonymous. No one would find him here, and he could easily make enough money as a gambler.

  He preferred the company of the sailors, drunks, and prostitutes. They had no aspirations beyond the next drink, the next meal, or the next job on whatever ship would hire them. But, most importantly, they had no desire to hurt him, to take anything from him, or to treat him like he was some kind of freak. He was nothing more than a momentary friend, the source of the next drink, or a pigeon to be fleeced in a card game.

  Whenever his memory took him back to his family or his life of learning, he turned to the bottle to bury the pain.

  Days turned into weeks and weeks into months, and before he realized it Nikola had been living as a recluse for nearly two years.

  One Thursday afternoon as he was eating a bowl of pasta e fagioli, his eye caught the headline of the previous day’s newspaper lying on the corner of the bar. The title of an article, First AC Electrical Power Plant Construction, leapt off the page. A flood of memories rose to the surface. He grabbed the paper and read about an experimental electrical AC generating plant.

  The article went on for several pages and provided a rather comprehensive explanation of the process of generating electricity. It included a comparison of DC power versus AC power. Nikola devoured each word like a hungry person eating his first food after weeks of starvation He agreed with everything that was written. Yes, this was exactly as he had predicted two years ago.

  As he continued to read, he found that he could predict, word for word, the contents of each paragraph. And then, almost like an explosion in his mind, it hit him—these were his exact words! His photographic memory, capable of recalling the tiniest events of his life, suddenly focused with precision. He was reading the contents of the thesis paper he had written two years earlier while at the Austrian Polytechnic Institute, presenting his arguments defending AC electricity’s superiority over DC electricity. A professor, Dr. Franz Hochstein, was credited for the technical content of the article.