face. But it looked nothing like him.
When I saw him on the bed, nothing but a slight rise on the sheets, I knew I would leave the hotel behind. An idea of a warmly lit house came to me.
We were shut out of his rooms and from the end of the hallway watched government men come and go. They wore trench coats and didnât take off their hats. They carted away practically every piece of paper in all of the rooms. There were policemen with them, standing around in the halls and cracking jokes and smoking. They held the elevator forever and dropped their cigarette butts on the floor, left burns on the carpet where they ground out the burning stubs with their shoes. They took a lot of other things too: the heavy safe, the cabinets and bookshelves and every stick of furniture. When we went in later to clean the rooms they were completely bare. Only a few downy puffs in the corners, and long gray droppings down the walls where the cabinets had stood. The wallpaper had to be stripped.
The mayor read a eulogy over the radio, and people came from all over to attend the funeral at St. John the
Divine. Over two thousand of them, we heard. Even Mrs. Roosevelt sent a condolence note. Pia and I wanted to go but we couldnât get off work; she said a prayer and lit a votive candle.
But I think, even then, that she had left it behind. By it I mean the regular worldâthe Hotel New Yorker and me. She had already gone; she had gone after Tesla. She had no use for a world without him.
And the next time I saw her she was in jail. I went to visit her after she was sent up the river.
She told me the poisoning had been painful and she was sorry for that. She hadnât wanted Marco to suffer, she said, because suffering wouldnât have changed him. But all they had in the house was strychnine, to kill the rats that shared the basement with them.
I was so used to getting along with her that I really wanted to nod, to say What can you do? To say that we were still friends. But my mouth was shut. I was almost struck dumb.
When she got home from work the night of Teslaâs funeral, she told me, Marco was in their apartment, a dingy basement in a tenement on the Lower East Side. It was a ten-by-ten living room with a grated window at ground level, a sofa and a table; the bedroom was
the size of their bed, and the bathroom was the size of a closet. Marco was drinking and listening to music and getting all revved up to go out and meet women, as he did every Thursday and Fridays too. Saturdays he went to see his old mother in Hoboken, who was still bitter that heâd married a harelip when he could have had anyone.
He yelled at Pia as soon as she stepped over the threshold, because his favorite dress shirt was wrinkled. He threw it at her to iron.
She was glad to iron the shirt, she told me. She had always liked the peace that came with ironing. It was a night like any other night in the routine, but for her it was entirely different. Because Tesla was gone and she was thinking of Tesla and how much she had loved him. She ironed and she remembered: dear Tesla with his gentle voice. She recalled his predictions and smiled to think of them, a world where such predictions came true.
By now the shirt looked perfect. Tesla, it seemed to her, believed in the goodness of everyone. Still, they took all he had from him. They took things only he could give and ran away with them.
And then there was Marco.
She kept on ironing and smiling. At last a flatter shirt had never been.
Marcoâs music was floating in from the radio in the bedroomâTommy Dorsey, she said. Marco was shaving at the bathroom sink; they used straight razors then. She hung the shirt on a padded hanger and tapped some rat poison into his drink. Then she took the drink into the bathroom to him.
Nothing was ever, ever so easy, she told me. As easy as falling.
She looked so calm she reminded me of the small picture of the Virgin glued into her locker, except with
When I saw him on the bed, nothing but a slight rise on the sheets, I knew I would leave the hotel behind. An idea of a warmly lit house came to me.
We were shut out of his rooms and from the end of the hallway watched government men come and go. They wore trench coats and didnât take off their hats. They carted away practically every piece of paper in all of the rooms. There were policemen with them, standing around in the halls and cracking jokes and smoking. They held the elevator forever and dropped their cigarette butts on the floor, left burns on the carpet where they ground out the burning stubs with their shoes. They took a lot of other things too: the heavy safe, the cabinets and bookshelves and every stick of furniture. When we went in later to clean the rooms they were completely bare. Only a few downy puffs in the corners, and long gray droppings down the walls where the cabinets had stood. The wallpaper had to be stripped.
The mayor read a eulogy over the radio, and people came from all over to attend the funeral at St. John the
Divine. Over two thousand of them, we heard. Even Mrs. Roosevelt sent a condolence note. Pia and I wanted to go but we couldnât get off work; she said a prayer and lit a votive candle.
But I think, even then, that she had left it behind. By it I mean the regular worldâthe Hotel New Yorker and me. She had already gone; she had gone after Tesla. She had no use for a world without him.
And the next time I saw her she was in jail. I went to visit her after she was sent up the river.
She told me the poisoning had been painful and she was sorry for that. She hadnât wanted Marco to suffer, she said, because suffering wouldnât have changed him. But all they had in the house was strychnine, to kill the rats that shared the basement with them.
I was so used to getting along with her that I really wanted to nod, to say What can you do? To say that we were still friends. But my mouth was shut. I was almost struck dumb.
When she got home from work the night of Teslaâs funeral, she told me, Marco was in their apartment, a dingy basement in a tenement on the Lower East Side. It was a ten-by-ten living room with a grated window at ground level, a sofa and a table; the bedroom was
the size of their bed, and the bathroom was the size of a closet. Marco was drinking and listening to music and getting all revved up to go out and meet women, as he did every Thursday and Fridays too. Saturdays he went to see his old mother in Hoboken, who was still bitter that heâd married a harelip when he could have had anyone.
He yelled at Pia as soon as she stepped over the threshold, because his favorite dress shirt was wrinkled. He threw it at her to iron.
She was glad to iron the shirt, she told me. She had always liked the peace that came with ironing. It was a night like any other night in the routine, but for her it was entirely different. Because Tesla was gone and she was thinking of Tesla and how much she had loved him. She ironed and she remembered: dear Tesla with his gentle voice. She recalled his predictions and smiled to think of them, a world where such predictions came true.
By now the shirt looked perfect. Tesla, it seemed to her, believed in the goodness of everyone. Still, they took all he had from him. They took things only he could give and ran away with them.
And then there was Marco.
She kept on ironing and smiling. At last a flatter shirt had never been.
Marcoâs music was floating in from the radio in the bedroomâTommy Dorsey, she said. Marco was shaving at the bathroom sink; they used straight razors then. She hung the shirt on a padded hanger and tapped some rat poison into his drink. Then she took the drink into the bathroom to him.
Nothing was ever, ever so easy, she told me. As easy as falling.
She looked so calm she reminded me of the small picture of the Virgin glued into her locker, except with
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