“Wow,” Burke said. “Were you in New York then?”
Ceplak scoffed at the idea. “No. I wasn’t even born.” He paused, and posed, raising his chin in a noble profile. “How old you think I am?”
Burke shrugged. “Eighty?”
Ceplak’s face fell. “Yes, this is amazing guess! I am eighty.”
“So your father-”
“He stops working for Tesla in 1915. Bad time. No money. Tesla, by then he’s moving from hotel to hotel. Always he’s feeding pigeons in his room, always he’s being thrown out. My father has job now at Con Edison, okay? And he gives Tesla little salary – just to live on.” He paused. “Imagine, this great man! He invents everything – alternating current, radio, a hundred patents, plus! He’s on cover of Time magazine – and he cannot pay hotel bill!” Ceplak shook his head and chuckled to himself. “Ten years later, I am big surprise to my parents. We come back to Slovenia. End of story.” The old man topped off his vodka. “Now,” he said, “these notebooks – where do you want to begin?”
“Actually, I’m not here to see the notebooks,” Burke told him. “I’m not a scientist. I probably wouldn’t understand them.” He paused and corrected himself. “I mean, I definitely wouldn’t understand them.”
Ceplak rubbed his chin between his thumb and forefinger, peered narrowly at Burke. “Youuuuu… are a journalist… or a writer. Perhaps, you are writing a book about the maestro, am I right?”
“No,” Burke said, his voice regretful. “I came to ask you about someone else who was here, someone who did come to look at the notebooks. An American – maybe you remember him. A guy named Jack Wilson.”
A look crossed the old man’s face, and Burke tried to read it: distaste or apprehension. Maybe both. “Yes, he’s here,” Ceplak said. “Long time. He sits where you’re sitting. And he’s reading. For days, he’s reading reading reading. And he’s making calculations.”
The old man got to his feet, and walked to the window. Lifting a pair of binoculars to his eyes, he gazed at the lake, and then began to chortle. “Look at this!” he insisted, handing the binoculars to Burke. “On the steps, up to the church. For newlyweds, if the husband carries the wife to the top, it’s good luck for the marriage. But this poor fellow, he’s smaller than me! Better she should carry him.”
Burke got the couple in view. The man was hunched over, dragging his bride up the steps in a sort of fireman’s carry.
Ceplak refilled their glasses. “Now that,” he said, “is love!” He handed a glass to Burke, clinked it with his own, then downed his portion in a gulp.
Burke sipped his vodka as Ceplak went to the fire, and added a log. “You know where Wilson went?” Burke asked.
Ceplak shrugged. “He says he’s going home. So, I guess he goes back to the States.”
“Any idea where?”
The old man shook his head. “Tell me something,” he said. “Why you are so interested in this man?”
Burke had a story ready – he’d thought it up on the plane. But he decided it would be simpler to tell the truth. “We had a business arrangement. It didn’t work out.”
The old man nodded, knowingly. “He owes you money.”
Burke shook his head. “No,” he said, “it’s worse than that. There’s trouble with the police.”
“Police?” The old man’s face creased with worry. “He’s criminal?”
Burke made a gesture. “According to the FBI, he’s a terrorist.”
Ceplak closed his eyes, put his head in his hand, and massaged his temples. “You’re sure?”
Burke reached for the vodka. “I’m not sure of anything. All I know is, they shut down my business because of him.”
“And if you can’t find him, what happens then?”
“I’ll tell the FBI what I did find. Then it’s up to them.”
Ceplak nodded thoughtfully. After a moment, he said, “No good.”
Burke looked at him.
“Your FBI,” Ceplak muttered, “they know Tesla. When he dies, they take his papers.”
“I know,” Burke said. “I read about that.”
“They come here, it’s not good,” Ceplak said.
Burke tried to reassure him. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Ceplak looked worried. “I think, these FBI, maybe they don’t just read. Maybe they take the notebooks.” It could have been the light, but it seemed to Burke that the old man’s eyes were wet with tears. “Better they don’t come here,” Ceplak announced. “Better, you find him.”
Burke looked skeptical.
“Maybe I can help,” the old man said.
CHAPTER 28
“How much do you know about Tesla?” Ceplak asked. They were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee.
“The basic stuff,” Burke told him. “Croatia, New York, Edison-”
“Yes, yes, of course! But what about his physics? You understand resonant frequencies? Scalar waves?”
Burke chuckled. “No.”
“The Tunguska incident,” Ceplak said. “You know what this is, right?”
The word was familiar, but… Burke shook his head.
Ceplak took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “Resonance. You know word,” Ceplak insisted. “It’s an English word. Please, to tell me what it means.”
Burke thought about it. “It has to do with sound. The way things vibrate.”
Ceplak squeezed his eyes shut and looked pained. “This is true, but… not just sound. Energy.” Across the lake, the bell began to ring. Ceplak turned toward it. “I guess he made it!” Then he turned back to Burke, and sighed. “You didn’t study physics?”
Burke shook his head. “Science wasn’t my thing.”
“But mathematics?”
Burke nodded. “A little.”
“How little?”
“Math for Poets.”
Ceplak stared at him.
Burke looked sheepish. “It was a class for kids who were not so good at math,” he explained.
Ceplak filled his cheeks with air, then released it in a rush. Leaning forward, he placed his elbows on the table and put the palms of his hands together, as if he were going to pray. “To find Wilson, you need to understand Tesla, okay?”
Burke hoped not.
“Because Wilson, he’s doing something with Tesla,” Ceplak said. “I don’t know what. But until you know what he’s doing, you won’t be able to find him. So, first I’m telling you Tesla is about resonance. This is key to all Tesla’s work, okay?”
Burke looked uncertain.
“Don’t worry!” Ceplak told him. “I promise: Physics for Poets!”
“Okay.”
“So here we are: Tesla is manipulating electromagnetic energy – using resonance. Now, I ask again, what is this ‘resonance’? You guessed it has to do with sound.” Ceplak sighed. “And you’re right, it does, but not only sound. Sound is what? A kind of ‘wave.’ Correct? Correct! But what is a ‘wave’?”
Burke shook his head.
“Think of stone in pond,” Ceplak told him. “Throw stone in pond, what happens? Waves move out in every direction. What are these waves?”
“I-”
“Energy,” Ceplak said. “In the case of stone, impact creates kinetic energy, yes? And we can see this. Water was flat, stone hits, the energy radiates out from center, eventually dissipates on shore, yes?”
Burke nodded.
“Now I am telling you that electromagnetic spectrum – this is all waves. Twenty-four/seven, it’s waves! X-rays, gamma rays, microwaves, radio waves, infrared waves, light waves – all forms of energy. Yes?”