Bones of the Barbary Coast (32 page)

"Not here," she said.

"Where, then?"

She glanced quickly toward the door at the back, where the madame or whoremaster would no doubt soon appear. "Gone and won't ever be back. And you should, too, before you bring more bad luck."

"Where did she go? What do you mean?"

The other was a slender girl with a sallow olive complexion, protruding front teeth above a weak chin, wearing nothing but drawers and a loose shawl. "Gone wherever bad girls go," she said in a high voice, "and no one the wiser."

"It was you caused it all," the fat one said. Her eyes were tiny and porcine yet oddly intelligent above the mounds of her cheeks. "With Percy Oh, she had black around her eyes that night he saw you here, I can tell you. She wasn't kissing the Johnnies with lips cracked like that, neither."

"Are you saying he beat her?"

"Sure, he beat her! But this time it was to make her tell about you. And then a week later he come back in the middle of the night to raise holy hell. I was sitting right on this chair, and he stomps in with his face stained red, eyes all pouring, in a rage. He goes up the stairs and starts in on her for a while. Then it goes quiet. And half an hour later down she comes, all dressed and carrying her Gladstone, says nothing to no one and out she goes. And never come back."

I could hardly speak. I stammered out, "But what of Percy?"

"Still upstairs. With her fine sewing scissors in his neck and laying snow white in a bathtub's worth of blood. And my first thought seein' him was, God love you, Mag, good for you! But after the police carted him away, it was me and Tildy had to mop it up so's the room could be used again quick. And that was not such a delight."

"Do the police have her?"

"Naw!" the slender one said.

"How do you know?"

The fat one explained: "They been poppin' in every day or two ever since, askin' after her and runnin' quick through the rooms. And we tell them, Forget it, ain't this the last place she'd ever be found again?"

"And who're they lookin' for, anyway?" the thin one screeched. "A girl named Mag, hair on top, two legs on the bottom, and a dollar twat between 'em! And how many are there fit that description in our town, Mag?" For the fat one's name was also Margaret. The scrawny girl thought it a great joke and slapped her bony knee in amusement.

The fat one only gazed at me somberly as if she could see my soul plummeting. "I know what it's about," she whispered. "With the walls so thin. I know what she done for you."

The slender one had misinterpreted. "What was it? Because I can do it in her place. I don't care, men or women, it's all the same to me."

"Hssst! It's her sister, you idiot!" the fat one said, turning on her angrily, and the other's eyes grew round as if I were some astonishing thing appeared in their midst.

Then the front door opened and two sailors came in, young boys and very shy. Simultaneously, the whoremaster appeared in the back room, an evil man and always suspicious of me, and not wanting to confront him I fled into the night.

And so I am free of Percy but without a sister again. Tonight I am sure my heart will burst from the feelings that overfill it. To know my sister has not only whored but murdered. To know it was to protect me that she killed him, and with the scissors I had given her! To wonder who saved whom and how so, to wonder who is to blame and who has sinned and who needs or should receive forgiveness: What is sin and what judgements should follow seems now even more confused and uncertain.

I feel the hollow that comes from not knowing where she is, for as hard as our encounters were she was forever my sister and, in momentary flashes and glints, my friend. I wonder if I will ever see her again and what becomes of such a woman, when she tumbles deeper into the bottomless murk and shadows. Where can she possibly go?

I am astonished at the world, appalled at it. One mercy given, one taken, and I cannot understand the purpose of it. I look for God's hand and know it is there but cannot decipher its intent. I barely heard Darby's good-night as I dismounted from the carriage. I stood in front of our dear fine house, which was all dark but for the one light Hans leaves for me. I did not know what to make of any of it.

All my thoughts were confused but for this: What a clear, crystalline night, how vast the sky, how great the celestial distances, how very bright and piercing are the stars above our hill!

40

SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1889

Y
ESTERDAY I COULD not bear to go to the mission, being simply too overcome. I arranged a substitute, then stayed at home and tended to small things. I spent some time in the garden, which bestowed a bit of serenity; it is as if the green things and elegant colorful shapes emit an aura or radiance unseen by the eye (though the eye is much pleased as well) but beneficial to the spirit.

My mind will not rest from thinking of ways I might search for Margaret, but none strike me as likely to succeed. Besides, she is sought by the police, and unless she stays hidden might well be apprehended, prosecuted, and hanged. My chest contracts painfully when I imagine her out there, in a world hostile and degrading in every way, with danger from every quarter, not even a whore's security of a brothel. In this she is barely better off than the wolf-man, though she is a fully formed human woman.

With Percy's death, I have been relieved of the pressing need to reveal my sordid secrets to my husband. Yet I do not think I can continue without some revelation to him: I see now that even in the darkest depths of my fears, wrapped in the coils of uncertainty and every dire consideration, the thought of being truthful with Hans persisted as a clean, bright thing, sharp and frightening, yet welcome and needed. It would be a mercy to drop all pretense, and having imagined it so many times I now long for it, whatever difficulty it might entail.

I must be a simple person, or perhaps there is some grain of truth in what Rev. Wallace said about a woman's design and limitations. For I could not imagine how to begin this process of unsavory revelation: what the first word would be, what tone of voice to use, in which moment of the day. Instead, yesterday evening after supper, when Hans had taken his place in his chair, I could think of nothing other than to go to him, to sit on his lap and bury my face in his hair and beard.

I cannot quite say why I did this. I certainly felt an instinct to take comfort from the close company of another human being, but it was not a simple impulse. The doubts Percy had raised in my mind were still with me, about whether I might ever feel Hans's strength turned against me, and I still feared him. Thus I came to Hans also to be near the source of that fear: to study it and learn if it was a real thing, to surrender to it and so to challenge it.

Hans said nothing, and I think he was quite startled. I sat and smelled him, the sweat of his skin and the wool of his suit with its ever-present whiff of brick and stone. I felt his muscles through his shirt and the abrasion against my forehead where his beard turns so wiry just beneath his ear. I had neither thoughts nor intent; I was too weary and world worn. Hans put his great hands around my waist, still speechless.

Later, I still could not think but only let that inner wind move me where it would. Hans took his Friday bath, which delights him as much for the comforts of hot water and cleanliness as for the time spent among the bright marble and smooth enamel and gleaming fixtures; he takes pleasure in working the faucets and operating all the devices. I waited until the water stopped and I heard his great sigh as he eased into the tub, then went into the room with him. Again, it was not from decisiveness or confidence I did so, only that numb submission to my several weeks' ordeal and the need to be near him. He was somewhat alarmed at my intrusion, but I gazed at him frankly.

Without his clothes, he is more majestic, a great perfect animal in the natural fullness of his frame and musculature. In his physical aspect, I found him indeed a fearful being, capable of anything, good or ill; but with every shape and proportion so ideally squared with its needed function and every part in purposeful harmony with the other. I thought: Surely, this is Adam's shape precisely as God wanted him; surely God does love the animal of him as He does the man.

For a gentleman of forty-seven, he retains an exceptional youthfulness of physique. This is not entirely surprising, given the many years he labored; and to this day he will off his jacket and show some strapping youngster how to carry the hod, or hoist a timber, or lift and lever a cornerstone square of granite. He claims he does this only when one of his men is showing a want of application, to stimulate his resolve; but I know it satisfies Hans to apply his great strength and to exercise those familiar skills. And it certainly does not hurt his authority among his crews, who may chafe at his discipline but admire his strength and his willingness to take a laborer's role again.

His face asked a question, and of course I could not say that I was wanting to know my love and my fear, that I could not bear any further uncertainty and would rather die of a certain fact than live any longer in the absence of one.

I told him, "I have come to scrub my husband's back."

This is not an intimacy we are accustomed to. His expression remained puzzled, but he made no refusal as I took up the cloth and soap and sat on the back of the tub. I lifted the hair off his neck and tugged it around to one side, then pushed him to lean forward. His back is a great shield-shaped landscape of rounded hills and soft valleys, with a forest of small curls trailing down his neck and dwindling to nothing between his shoulder blades. I wet the cloth and rubbed the soap, then applied the lather to him. My hands followed every curve and outline, traced every knob of his spine, explored beneath his arms, stroked the great wing muscles along his sides, went up the stout tapering pillar of his neck. At every moment I expected him to show doubt or resistance, but he did not; nor did I hurry or allow myself shame in my savor of him. When I had scrubbed and stroked far more than any back could need, I tugged him back to wash his hair and beard. When I was finished, I laid his hair snug behind his ears so that he looked fiercely handsome and dashing. Then I reached over his shoulders and applied the same attention to his chest and belly, another landscape of wonderful particulars. His manhood thickened and half rose against his thigh, but he made no effort to conceal himself; for the first time I looked directly upon it in the full light, freely indulging my curiosity. It struck me as a marvelous ugly thing, and I would have bathed him there also had I dared.

Looking back at what I have just written, I can scarcely believe my daring and shamelessness. Is this a newfound strength or some strange weakness of character manifesting itself? The former, I have to think: The trials of the last weeks have confounded my former certainties and thus distilled them. When all is in doubt and in danger, one has no recourse but to the deepest reservoirs of character and belief. In my case, they are not thoughts so much as the simple impulses that have stayed steady when all else is in transition, and must therefore be the bedrock of my nature.

I had not begun with any intent, or even desire, except that unthinking wish to linger near my husband and to trace his body with my hands as if his shape alone would answer my questions. But after his bathing was done, and I had dried him and he stood pink and humid, desire had kindled in both of us. And as we went into the bedroom, I suddenly knew how it should go: Tonight I will freely admit the pleasure he gives me; tomorrow I will ask him to accompany me on my walk down the hill to the cable car, and he will see how I do that. He will accept these things of me or he will not. By degrees we will both learn whom we have married. And we will make a certainty, be it a good one or a sorry one.

41

TUESDAY,JULY 2, 1 8 89

IT IS EARLY morning and I am in the dim pantry, scribbling fast as there is so much to recount. I have seen the wolf-man again, under very different and tragic circumstances.

Yesterday early evening, Monday, Dr. Mahoney came to the mission all disheveled and whiskey-breathed, in a great state of excitement. He lifted his cap to show me his freckled pate and whispered urgently that he wanted to speak with me in confidence. We took ourselves to the front porch, where he explained in a hushed voice: He had heard from one of his patients that a werewolf is now on display at a saloon called The Red Man. My heart sank at the name, for we at the mission know The Red Man all too well as a cesspit of unspeakable depravity and excess, operated by a ruthless, Godless man named Silas Singer. Dr. Mahoney showed me a crude handbill which advertised the "werewolf" as a "blood-drunk murderer, devourer of babes" and gave times when for a fee he might be viewed in his cage or fighting dogs and men.

I was much moved by Dr. Mahoney's concern for him, for without having seen the creature his view was certain and unquestioned: this was a pitiable freak or a victim of disease, now in dire need of benevolent intervention.

"Why do you come to me, Dr. Mahoney?" I asked.

"Mrs. Schweitzer, I was certainly born Irish and quite possibly born stupid, but I was certainly not born deaf and blind. You know something of him. You have asked after him too many times, with too keen an interest." His red eyes fixed me remorselessly, and though I did not speak he had his answer.

"Know something of whom?" a voice asked pleasantly from behind me, and there was Deacon Skinner, stepping up from the street.

He took the handbill from me and read it quickly. In an instant, I saw understanding come into his face, perhaps as he recalled my questions about Darwin, or the "old man" beneath the stairs, or the fate of innocents damned by God for the innocence He had inflicted upon them. He looked at me with affection admixed with concern; he and Dr. Mahoney then gazed at each other, two men sizing each other up and for all their differences finding some common sentiment.

"I have always suspected our Lydia has aspects unseen and too little appreciated," Deacon Skinner said. A flush came to my neck, and I felt as if his bright hawk's eyes could see all my night-time walks and fears and secret, heretical thoughts. "How do you know this is not just another wild man done up hairy for the show?"

I stuttered out: "Because I have seen him."

"Well, then, is he a man or a wolf?" Dr. Mahoney asked.

Both men scrutinized me as I thought how to answer, how to sum up a month of tireless questioning and pondering. "I could not say. I have seen his physical aspect, but have no experience of his nature. And it seems that not everyone agrees upon just what qualities make us human."

Deacon Skinner looked at me shrewdly and favored me with a bitter smile. "Oh, Lydia. What a dead-eye shot you are for the precise center of the question." He glanced again at the handbill and caught Dr. Mahoney's eye. "Well, I for one am willing to risk The Red Man to get a glimpse of this rare creature. My rig is nearby, Doctor. Perhaps between your expertise and mine we can answer some of these questions."

"I want to go," I said.

"Never!" Dr. Mahoney said instantly.

"Lydia, it is out of the question," Deacon Skinner concurred. "Thursday is Independence Day, and there are ten thousand ruffians come to town for the celebrations. They will be drinking hard and every criminal sort will be out to prey. It will be dangerous enough for Dr. Mahoney and myself. But a good Christian woman—"

"Acts upon her beliefs," I finished for him. "And is not deflected from her duties. If you don't take me, I will have to walk or send for Darby to take me."

So we went in the deacon's carriage, both men quite put out with me. It was just dark when we arrived in the vicinity of The Red Man, and my companions grew silent and watchful. Dr. Mahoney took a small revolver from his jacket pocket and checked its workings with a grim expression. Deacon Skinner reluctantly left his horse and rig, hiring a young man idling nearby to watch and telling him there was two dollars for him if it was still here in an hour. Then doctor and deacon each took one of my arms and walked with me held tightly between them. I had donned my gray cloak and put up the hood, to attract as little attention as I might.

The Red Man takes its name from the Indian, and maintains the conceit in its decor and furnishings. A carved wooden Indian, dour and savage, stands in front, and inside there are souvenirs of native life: buffalo skins, tanned hides with pagan designs on them, rows of scalps hanging on a string, bows and spears and battle axes. There is even a mummified or desiccated Indian tied up against the wall, horribly shriveled so that his lips are drawn back from his teeth. It is a foul, shabby place of smoke-darkened board walls, gas flames fluttering dangerously from fixtures without globes, wired-together wooden chairs and deeply scarred tables scattered on a floor more dirt than board. The pretty waiter girls wear only an Indian's loincloth, and endure whatever fondling or insult to their persons the drinkers give them; they are constantly leading men up the stairs to assignations in the second-floor rooms. As we wedged into the crowd, we were suffocated by the stink of unwashed bodies, rotting teeth, stale alcohol, spoiled food, and worse. Moments after we arrived, a fight broke out in the far corner, although in the press we could not see it, only hear breaking glass and the shouted encouragements of watchers.

At the rear, a wide doorway leads into a second room with a raised stage along its back wall, where for the gratification of the customers women are frequently subjected to degradations I cannot bear to write of. Through this doorway, we could see what must be the wolf-man's cage, a canvas-draped rectangle that filled the width of the stage and was painted with a lurid illustration of a werewolf. It was not yet time for the "performance," and with the crowd distracted by the fist-fight, we were able to push through without too much difficulty.

A pair of large, menacing men stood at the door, one of whom moved to bar the way, telling us, "Fifty cents each to stand, dollar for the chairs up front."

Deacon Skinner opened his purse and handed over the money. When the bully stepped aside, we pushed our way in and were able to find three chairs in the second row. I kept my hood pulled well forward but sneaked glances at the cage. My apprehension grew and grew, and I was not sure I could bear to witness him again. I could not say whether it was the sheer hideousness of his appearance that caused me such distress, or the prospect of seeing ferocity from him, after I had imbued him with hopes of a gentle nature. Perhaps it was simply the prospect of seeing any creature confined and in such degraded and unhappy circumstances. At intervals the canvas shook and vibrated, as if something were moving inside, and my uneasiness mounted each time.

"Courage, Sister," Deacon Skinner whispered.

"Two dollars for her, after the show," the man in front of us said. He had turned and now gave a demanding, surly look to the deacon.

"I beg your pardon!" Deacon Skinner said indignantly.

"Oh, he begs my pardon," the awful man said to his companions. Heads turned toward the three of us, faces eager for entertainment. "A gentleman, is it? I said, pardon me, two dollars for yer whore, that's double her worth. Upstairs after the show. First or after yer done, I don't care."

Dr. Mahoney stood suddenly bolt upright, a short Irishman of middle-age, now flushing red to match his hair. "Ye airen't speakin' o' me saister now, are ye?" he inquired, cheeks trembling with outrage. I don't know if his brogue had come up so strong by itself, or whether he let it show on purpose. I hid my face, afraid of what would follow.

"What, and a fightin' mad mick, too!" By the twisting of his legs, I could see that the man was craning further around to face us. "A mick the size of my dick."

The man's companion laughed, saying, "So that'd make him a fightin' cock, hey, Bill?"

Dr. Mahoney's eyes never left his tormentor. "Step out wi' me fer two minutes an' you'll have no dick at all, Billy-boy."

But the men at the door were barking out for the customers in the other room to pay now or miss the show.

"Have to wait, Mick," the big man said. He made a derisive noise and turned front again, elbowing his chum in amusement. When Dr. Mahoney at last took his seat, I felt his panting and trembling against the side of my arm.

Soon the room was packed and the air was thick. The doors closed, and three men positioned themselves at the front of the room, each standing ready with a pistol in his belt and a determined expression. Then a man who was surely Silas Singer himself came up to announce the night's proceedings in a most theatrical way. If a man could be part mantis, I thought, he would look like Silas Singer: angular, jerky in movement, hands held up before him, mouth biting off the words. Leering continuously, he told a poorly contrived tale of how he and his men sought the famous werewolf, perpetrator of so many murders, and how they caught him at last after arduous pursuit. The means of his capture was a noose of silver wire, which also arrested his transformation back into a man. Singer explained dramatically that the desperadoes standing now to either side of the stage were there for the crowd's protection, should the monster break free. The werewolf would be revealed shortly, after which dogs would be admitted to the cage and he'd fight them. Finally, they would noose and muzzle him and men could volunteer to fight him, if any dared.

Then the canvas was pulled aside to reveal a metal-barred cage, as at a zoo or circus. For a moment it seemed nothing was inside, but then I saw a hunched form, far back where the light was not as good. It looked to be a naked man, head down between his knees, hair hiding his face, sinewy humanlike arms tightly wrapping his legs. The audience made a hiss of whispered disappointment, but only a moment later Silas Singer emerged from the wing to jab the wolf-man forcefully with a staff put through the bars. The creature sprang away to half-stand, closer to the front of the cage, in a posture of reluctance. When the better light caught him, the sound of the audience changed to awe, astonishment, and revulsion. Deacon Skinner and Dr. Mahoney uttered identical gasps.

He was as I have described before, but now appeared in a most miserable way: streaked with filth, hair knotted and crusted, skin scabbed and reddened with cuts and abrasions. But what struck me most forcibly was his solitude: a creature knowing only danger from the world, a creature with no other of his kind, unless we were they; and we had put up bars to assure his separation.

He was the most alone creature I have ever seen or could ever imagine.

Unthinkingly, I stood up so vehemently that my hood fell off and my chair tipped back. From behind came angry calls for me to sit, but I barely heard, for the wolf-man had bounded to the front of the cage and now stood fully upright, arms wide above his head, and short, clawed fingers clinging to the bars. He stared wild-eyed out at the room. In that position, every feature of his anatomy was plain to see, and in all ways he seemed half human and half canine. His male member was fully a man's, but hung between narrow, forward-bent thighs more like a dog's. It was a dog's muzzle he raised to scent the air, but his dark blue eyes were precisely those of a terrified human child. He seemed to stare straight at me just as I stared at him, and I believe without a doubt that he recognized me.

Two men appeared, dragging two tightly leashed, snarling and straining curs, at which the wolf-man let go the bars. He dropped to all fours, moved in two long lopes back to his corner, and crouched again, looking left and right as if seeking a way to flee. When the men pushed the dogs into the cage, the wolf-man crowded against the bars at the far side, showing every indication of extreme agitation and unhappiness.

I could not witness more. I stumbled out of the seating area, followed immediately by Deacon Skinner and Dr. Mahoney. They took my arms tightly again and we burrowed through the standing crowd. Behind us, I vaguely heard the sound of snarls and scuffling. As we arrived at the door, a sound pierced the noise of the crowd: high, pitiful yelps that became a throbbing, ghastly warble that was quickly throttled to silence.