Tesla Read Free Page B

You’ll only get hungry again.”
    Nikola laughed. His brother remained serious. When Dane’s smile eventually shone through, Nikola forgot himself and his envy. He never encountered such grace again.
    If he were not around , it occurred to Nikola more than once, what kind of world would this be? Would the sun still shine?
    Perhaps Nikola would be important in that thrilling world? Perhaps he would seem bright in that horrifying world without Dane?

CHAPTER 7

    The Horror
    Dane leaned over a steep flight of stairs and called the servant, Mane, who was taking care of the brandy in the cellar. Nikola ran toward his brother, reaching for him. The sound of Dane’s fall merged with the dull sound of something breaking. As he lay on his back at the bottom of the stairs, Dane pointed a finger at Nikola.
    Whenever he talked about that moment, Nikola spread his arms and whispered in an agitated voice, “But that wasn’t true!”
    Mother’s heels clattered as she ran down the stairs. She slowly removed her lips from her son’s temple and looked at Father.
    Accusing eyes multiplied around Nikola.
    Something whispered into his ear: The horror!
    Something growled from the dark: The horror!
    Something screamed in his mind: The horror!
    The news spread to the neighboring houses. People started to bang on the door. The Young Joseph, the incomparable Danilo Tesla was fifteen when he died. Visitors filled the house and whispered condolences.
    “The prince!” they wept over the casket.
    They could not say to God, “Don’t aim for where you’re looking, but where you want to strike.” Mane served drinks to the teary-eyed relatives.
    The suit Dane was to wear at his graduation turned into his funeral suit. Andja Alagić, who lived next door, stood by Djuka as she washed her dead son’s body and asked, “How can you do that?”
    Djuka gave her a dark look and said, “Those who can’t do this should never have been born.”

CHAPTER 8

    Let Me Go!
    The chapel was right in the middle of Nikola’s room. The open casket was next to his bed. His brother was lying in the casket. His face was the color of tapers. He looked real, and seven-year-old Nikola stretched his arm to pat him on the forehead. His hand went through Dane’s face, but the face did not disappear. Nikola started to cry.
    “Let me go,” he whispered into his brother’s ear. Dane refused to go away. “Please, let me go.”
    Didn’t his mother always insist that it takes a peg to drive another peg out from the hole? It had happened before—someone would utter a word and the image of the physical object would appear in his head. Nikola was aware that what he saw was conjured, so he tried to protect himself with his own imagination.
    He envisioned Mother’s face over the face of his dead brother. When his mother—a pure soul—appeared in the room, he felt greatly relieved. She stayed there for a while and then faded out. The horrifying face from the casket replaced his mother’s image. Nikola kept repeating the word Mother and she came again, but this time paler.
    He said Father and the tall man with eyeglasses obediently came into his room. Then he vanished but was called back. When Father faded away, he whom Nikola feared appeared again.
    It was bad. And when it was bad, you heard the music only for yourself. It was so frightening that he didn’t dare to feel scared. Every night, Nikola tripped over the same vision. The phantom tormented him even during the day. This obsession made living difficult for him. He fought back. The obsession persisted. He had to persist even harder.
    He projected other images over that image. Thus he invoked all the people he knew, including his detested aunt Deva and the menacing Luka Bogić, who was still less frightening than the dead Dane. Finally, nothing he had actually seen in his small world was left to help him confront his brother.
    And the funeral scene kept coming back. Father Alagić and the entire family walking