Stoker's Manuscript (24 page)

The box further yielded a half dozen such letters prior to Tesla’s hiring his assistant that year, 1892. This began the greatest acceleration toward modernism the world has ever seen, for the harnessing of electricity and its cheap production ended the slow plod out of agrarianism and into the age of convenience.

I paused at a letter from George Westinghouse that challenged the inventor to consider electrical-powered appliances in every American home, not just the moneyed class. It dawned on me then that the world of modern invention had been waiting for electricity as much as electricity spawned modern inventions. And though I might have savored an unlimited dig through the historical documents of our greatest inventors, I had business to attend to, so I moved on.

Several more letters from George Westinghouse to Tesla followed, one offering to purchase Tesla’s power-generating machine patents with a royalty that eventually would have funded every idea he could ever conjure. But next in the pile came Tesla’s rejection letter, which would surely rank among history’s worst business decisions. Instead, Tesla chose to undertake self-guided expansion with very limited capital, thus a shoestring staff, including one Gheorghe Antonescu, who worked for Tesla repairing Edison’s generating systems in Europe. Countless nights Tesla spent in his lab in New York City while his engineering staff babysat flimsy infant power systems. Then, later that year, George Westinghouse won the contract to provide electricity for the World’s Fair in Chicago and tasked Tesla with installing it in only eight months. Immediately the inventor sent for Antonescu, exhorting him to grab the first available boat and join him as a long-term assistant. I found Gheorghe’s response letter filed with Westinghouse’s congratulatory note.

1 August, 1892

London

Dear Mr. Tesla,

How pleased I am that you have chosen me to join you in this historic endeavor. Am departing from Southampton on the first berth I can secure.

Recently, my work here in London has been near The Strand in the Theatre District, and in that endeavor I chanced to meet the owner and operator of the Lyceum Theatre, Sir Henry Irving. He claims to have met you at your lecture before the Royal Society of London and insists he knows sincere from acting when he sees it. I believe I have convinced him to travel to Chicago’s Fair for a firsthand demonstration, and he agreed to schedule his entire company for travel, including the actress Ellen Terry and his operations manager, Mr. Abraham Stoker.

There are no fewer than two dozen theatres within walking distance of The Strand here, Mr. Tesla, and I am confident that as one house, such as the prestigious Lyceum, converts, the others will queue with impatience.

My wife, Sonia, will be accompanying me, and although she does not speak the language she has begun taking lessons in anticipation of working at the event.

Congratulations again and I look forward to seeing you soon,

Gheorghe Antonescu

That was how Sonia and Gheorghe came to America. He worked eight months, day and night, beside Tesla to build the AC-generating station on the fairgrounds, erect poles, string wires, and run cable inside buildings. Sonia learned the language and worked the event in her soothsaying tent. Tesla won his contracts when buyers observed firsthand that his newly invented systems were safe.

Among the papers I found a list of London theatres, written in Gheorghe’s handwriting, with check marks beside those who signed contracts to convert from gas to electric lighting systems and purchases of electrical stage lights. First on the list was the Lyceum, and a contract executed by Sir Henry Irving rested in the box.

Following the Chicago Fair, Gheorghe and Sonia returned to Europe and modernization work began at the Lyceum. In the file box were dozens of drawings and crude schematics of the electrician’s work, plus several notes exchanged with the operations manager, Bram Stoker. Mostly the notes covered supply purchase orders and work schedules, but others spoke of their outside meetings on “that other topic.”

The next box contained the original contracts signed by Tesla to provide power stations and transformation plans for several palaces, grand residences, and government buildings across Europe. Three such castles were located in Romania, one of which I had already stayed in. The dim lights in the basement came to mind.

I located several documents tracking Gheorghe over a four-year period around Europe and back and forth to New York City. He was Tesla’s most versatile employee across the Atlantic. Finally, in 1897, Tesla invited him back to New York to assist him by taking notes in his laboratory, to which I found this response letter:

14 April, 1897

London

Dear Mr. Tesla,

I will be honored to take the position of lab assistant with you, though I am briefly detained in London at the Lyceum with a most pressing issue, one that cannot see my departure before resolution.

As soon as such matter is resolved, I shall at once return. My most conservative estimate would be that resolution shall occur within thirty days of this postmark.

With Sincerest Gratitude,

George

I understand I was a little slow connecting dots, but when I saw
George
written and registered the date, I realized why I should have identified him earlier. I recalled my authentication work at the Rosenbach: Included in the documents were articles of news clipped from London papers chronicling the fires at the Lyceum and those that consumed the Constable publishing house. The person questioned and released in connection with the theater fire was an itinerant tradesman, an electrician by the name of George Anton, the Americanized version of the name Gheorghe Antonescu.

Mere weeks separated that letter and the fire at Constable, where all of Stoker’s first editions were consumed. George was there for both events.

I then looked closely at the handwriting on the correspondence sent from George to Tesla. Though I had immediately recognized that the penman wrote left-handed, it took until that moment to realize that the same hand that penned those letters also wrote the notes on Stoker’s manuscript. Undeniably, Sonia’s husband George served as assistant to both Tesla and Stoker.

That raised a question in my mind—why would Sonia give me only half the truth?

I
took a moment to inventory what I knew, a mental list connecting dates with people. It all started in 1890 when Bram Stoker began composing his novel, based upon ideas gleaned from that era’s gothic plays, which had often been staged at the Lyceum Theatre. The story took a material change in 1894, when the electrician charged with installing AC power at the theater provided Stoker with numerous details of Romanian and vampire-related lore, events, and locales that Stoker could never have known on his own. Yet the assistant, Gheorghe, had clearly not intended for Stoker to include all these details in a book destined for international publication. In fact, based on the notes I’d read in the original manuscript, I gathered that the two had a falling-out when Stoker included confidential details as the book went to press. This was followed by the warehouse fire, and a total loss of the first editions—perhaps a desperate attempt by Gheorghe to prevent the dissemination of sensitive information. Second and subsequent editions of
Dracula
included only the content that Gheorghe had approved of.

Yet at some point much later the secrets were bound to surface, as they had when I’d gained access to the original epilogue in Philadelphia. Still, the location clues there had led me to the wrong grave entirely, one the assistant deliberately inserted, whose discovery led to a familial war between Noble vampires.

It was confounding, as I knew the who and when, but not yet the real where, how, or why. It was like cobbling together a puzzle, but the last few remaining pieces did not fit the available spaces. They must be in a different storage box. I was sure they were somewhere in that basement.

Now that I was getting closer to finding what I needed, my mind turned to practicalities—specifically to conducting some petty larceny. I started by casing the perimeter of the basement, checking the state of the windows. Most of them were either painted shut or stuck in the closed position, but one in the back corner near the security camera had a mechanical lock and no contact sensor. I tested it and found the wood screws stripped out. A visual deterrent, yes, but one good yank and the latch would lift with the window.

I recognized the security camera as one made by the same company as those installed in my warehouse. During my shopping, I learned that some cameras run at all times and the tapes get archived. Other cameras run only when the system is activated after hours, and the tapes are archived only if the system is set off. And the least expensive cameras only run once a system is activated after business hours and a disturbance triggers them and films the activity until manually turned off. The way to identify which of the three was by the small red light on top of the camera. Each camera has two small hemispherical objects on its top; one is the motion detector and the other is the camera light indicator. If the red camera light is on that means the camera’s running. This one was not on, like the one in the other corner, thus I knew it was a less expensive system that filmed only when activated.

I made a mental note of this and returned to the boxes.

The next box held a collection of reference books and technical papers either written or dictated by Tesla, plus professional responses from his contemporaries. An old Bible contributed mightily to the box’s excess weight.

The box next to it was marked
teatru
.
Theater.
My pulse racing, I hauled the container to the working table. Externally, it appeared different from the other archived boxes in that it had two crossing straps to keep the lid affixed. Inside I found the contracts for several London theater houses near The Strand, including the Lyceum’s work orders, correspondence, and invoices for ancillary electrical supplies. It felt close, so close.

I inspected every invoice, every paper scrap, and everywhere George’s handwriting appeared, as well as Stoker’s initials and signatures as he signed for goods received. I turned everything over, everything upside down, until I found a handful of letters in envelopes addressed to George Anton from Abraham Stoker. Inspecting the paper as well as the contents, I could positively place them as authentic. But as I poured over each paragraph, each word, the only subject mentioned was the theater’s renovation. As I read them in order, there was not a single reference to Stoker’s manuscript, except some references in early 1896 to “the other issue.”

I reached for the last file folder in the box, deeply disappointed that my senses had let me down. I had felt so sure that I’d find something in this batch. Indeed, that little voice inside, which had never betrayed me before, had told me to prepare to remove documents from the museum.

A voice from the stairwell sent an electrical shock through me: “We are closing now.” It was the attendant keeping bureaucrat hours.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll put this box back.”

Before leaving, I grabbed two pieces of paper and a pair of rubber bands and wrapped the security camera bodies and lenses.

Exiting, I found Luc waiting for me across the street. He asked if I was hungry.

“Very.”

“I found a place with good
ciorba de burta
,” he said.

The dish is
the Eastern Euro version of menudo, something I had only once at a Serbian social gathering, my social life reduced to scraps from my brother’s priestly invites. I agreed and we hustled to the restaurant under threatening skies.

We sat at a window seat and Luc ordered for both of us. He kept looking outside, seemingly preoccupied. I asked if he wanted a different seat. He declined. Only when a certain young lady walked toward the restaurant’s front door did I realize the source of his distraction. Quickly Luc wished me good-bye and dashed off toward the young lady at the door, the familiarity of their embrace suggesting I would be alone for the meal.

I found myself staring across the street at the park, watching the employed hurry home to beat the rain.
So close to my treasure,
I thought. Wind gusts nudged the trees in the park and tossed papers, the rain burst, stopped, then restarted as if it were trying to allow the people intervals to get home.

With my soup and hard-crusted wheat bread before me, my thoughts were redirected back to the heavy box.
Why that box?
Why was that box invading my head? I asked for soup seconds and sipped weak tea while the rain laid sheets upon the busy street. Distant thunder warned of darker events to follow.

“Excuse me, sir.” The waiter’s voice startled me.

I looked up. “Yes?”

In a heavy accent he explained that the gentleman in the back wished to pay my tab. I declined and went to leave when the waiter said, “Mr. Bena.”

I looked around to see if anyone was watching me before following the waiter to a booth in the back corner. It took a second before I recognized Alexandru Bena. He gestured toward the opposing seat, and I slid into the booth.

Mr. Bena instructed the waiter to bring my serving over to the table, then turned to me and said, “Looks like you found something.”

It took me a moment to decide to answer. “How’d you know?”

“Your look,” he said, “is different than the last two evenings.”

“Good to know someone is watching over me.”

He nodded. “Tell me what you’ve found.”

“Why should I? You couldn’t protect Mara.”

That halted the conversation as his lower jaw clenched and his lips tightened. Tension mounted as the moments passed until he reached for his cloth napkin and dabbed his eyes. The waiter set my food in front of me and left.

“Allow me to start at the beginning, Mr. Joseph,” he said.

I nodded.

“About a quarter century ago, my wife was watching television when she called me to come quickly. It was an American broadcast, and she repeated the names of the two boys being interviewed in a state-run orphanage in Romania.”

He paused to let me guess. “Joseph and Bernhardt.”

Mr. Bena nodded. “Petrescu Barkeley.”

It took a moment. “So you are my benefactor,” I said. A warm feeling enveloped me.

“Yes.” A long pause separated his words. “I have long-standing connections with the Catholic Church, and I was able to send someone to get you and your brother the next day. I flew to Chicago and met with Mother Daniela and explained things as best I could. She understood, and took you in.”

I pushed my food away and leaned on the table. “Why me? Why us?”

He pointed at me. “You need to know something.” Then he reached into a small briefcase and produced a journal, much like the one Mara had given me, and opened to a certain page before handing it to me. “Go ahead, read. Start at the end.”

It looked like a family tree, and my name, along with my brother’s, was at the bottom of the lineage. Above it were my parents’ family names, Petrescu and Barkeley, and the cities they grew up in. Dates of birth and death were listed. I recognized the left-handed writing. Then I noticed the tree only went up my mother’s side.

“What am I looking for?” I asked.

“Keep going up your mother’s side.”

With each generation I noticed very long lives of the women, but not the men. My mother was the exception, a mere forty when she died. Then my eyes landed on her grandmother’s grandmother, whose life spanned the years of 1688 until 1801. And her name was Contessa Gratz of Solingen. I knew the German city lay in the north Rhine region, and that I should know that name.

“I asked you about that name before,” said Mr. Bena. “Do you recall?”

Yes, I did. “Countess Dolingen of Gratz, sought and found death in 1801.” It was the name on the tomb in Stoker’s prologue.

“And you are her direct descendent. That’s how they know you.”

“I thought it was just a name lifted off a tomb.”

“Sort of,” said Mr. Bena. “It is why that part was left off the manuscript. She was a human slave, and passed their Noble bloodlines down to you.”

At that moment it made sense why I was being selected, for I had been followed since birth. It also would explain why my father chose to end the bloodline. I thought of Mara’s words and asked, “How does Mara fit into this?”

Again his eyes watered and it took a moment for him to answer. “My wife and I rescued her in similar circumstances many years before you.”

“You found her a safe place,” I said.

“Not safe enough.”

I felt infinitely sad for his loss, and said, “I’m sorry.”

He nodded, then continued. “I must ask you this, Mr. Joseph: Do you happen to know where the original manuscript is now?”

“No,” I said, “but my guide told me it is likely in the old wine cellar vaults in Castel Bran.”

He nodded. “You realize . . . there will come a day when you need to escape.”

I shook my head. “That’s going to be tough, considering my legal mess. You know I’m the suspect in those murders.”

“I know,” he said, and slid a key toward me on the table. “Take this.”

I looked it over. It appeared to be the key to a safety box with a number stamped—
N279
.

“That key opens a locker at the
train station. There is only one bank of lockers, north wall. If you find the original manuscript and place it in the locker, my original offer still stands.”

“It was four million dollars from the family, but I don’t—”

“I know,” he interrupted, and held up a hand to halt me. “More importantly, whatever you find in this museum you will need to dispose of. Use that key. Inside the locker you will find a passport and some traveling money.”

I did not need clarification to know he meant a fake passport.

“May God be with you,” he said.

I nodded and held back several emotions. I had a lot to be grateful to him for. I whispered, “Thank you . . . for everything.”

Parting ways with him, I returned to the Excelsior, where I showered and stood out on the balcony to watch the storm. I replayed my visit with Mr. Bena repeatedly. I realized that I must have appeared to be anything but grateful.

First, I should have hugged him, for it’s not every day that you get to thank the person who saved your life. But I let him walk away into the night. True, I did not grow up in a home where people hugged each other, and certainly did not experience touch in my youth, so I grew up feeling something akin to static electricity jolts every time someone touched me. I keep distance. This time, however, I felt shame at allowing my benefactor to walk away.