Daughter of Fortune (29 page)

Eliza, overlooked in her disguise as an Asian boy, sat in a corner, exhausted, while Tao talked with various people, inquiring about gold and life in California. For Tao Chi'en, protected by the memory of Lin, it was easier to resist the temptation of the women than of gambling. The sound of the fan-tan chips and the dice on the tabletops called to him with the voice of a siren. The sight of the decks of cards in the players' hands made him break out in a sweat, but he forbore, fortified by the conviction that good luck would abandon him forever if he broke his promise. Years later, after many adventures, Eliza asked him what good luck he was referring to, and he, without a moment's hesitation, answered, The luck of being alive and of having met her. That evening he learned that the placers were located along the Sacramento, American, and San Joaquín rivers and their hundreds of tributaries, but the maps were untrustworthy, and distances immense. The easy surface gold was growing scarce. True, there were still plenty of lucky miners who came across a nugget the size of a shoe, but most had to be content with a handful of dust won with considerable effort. There was a lot of talk about gold, they told Tao, but little about the sacrifice needed to get it. It took an ounce a day to make any profit, and that was only if you were willing to live like a dog, because the prices of things were outrageous, and the gold melted away in the blink of an eye. Merchants and moneylenders, on the other hand, were getting rich, like one of Tao's countrymen who had taken in laundry and after a few months was able to build a solid house and was thinking of going back to China to buy several wives and devote himself to producing male offspring, or another who lent money to gamblers at 10 percent interest per hour, that is, more than 87,000 percent per year. Tao's informants told fantastic tales of enormous nuggets, of beds of dust mixed in with sand, of veins in quartz rock, and of mules' hooves shearing off rock face to reveal a treasure, but getting rich demanded hard work as well as luck. The Americans were short on patience; they didn't know how to work as a team, and were defeated by greed and a lack of discipline. Mexicans and Chileans knew about mining, but they squandered their earnings; Oregonians and Russians wasted time fighting and drinking. The Chinese, on the other hand, got ahead however poor their beginnings because they were frugal; they did not get drunk and worked like ants eighteen hours a day without rest or complaint. The
fan wey
were indignant about the success of the Chinese; Tao was warned to play a part, act stupid, not provoke them or they would get the same treatment given arrogant Mexicans. Yes, they told him, there was a settlement of Chileans; it was some distance from town on the hill over to the right; they called the place Chilecito, Little Chile, but it was pretty late to be going there with no company but his simpleminded brother.

“I am going back to the ship,” Tao Chi'en announced to Eliza when finally they left the hall.

“I feel dizzy, I think I'm going to fall.”

“You have been very sick, you need to eat well and rest.”

“I can't do that alone, Tao. Please, don't leave me yet . . .”

“I have a contract, the captain will send someone to look for me.”

“And who will do that? All the ships are deserted. There is no one left onboard. Your captain can yell himself hoarse and none of his sailors will come.”

“What am I going to do with her,” Tao Chi'en asked himself aloud in Cantonese. His responsibility ended in San Francisco, but he didn't feel able to abandon Eliza to her fate in this place. He was trapped, at least until she was stronger and could meet other Chileans, or find where her slippery lover had gotten to. That shouldn't be difficult, he supposed. However chaotic San Francisco might seem, there were no secrets anywhere for the Chinese; he could afford to wait until the next day and take her to Little Chile. Darkness had turned everything into a dream world. Nearly all the shelters were canvas, and with lamps lighted inside they were as transparent and glowing as diamonds. The torches and bonfires in the streets, and the music from the gaming halls, contributed to the impression of unreality. Tao Chi'en looked for somewhere they could spend the night; he found a kind of large shed some twenty-five meters long and eight wide built of boards and tin salvaged from grounded ships and topped by the sign “Hotel.” Inside were two floors of cots, simple wooden planks where a man could curl up and sleep, along with a counter at the rear where liquor was sold. There were no windows, and the only fresh air filtered through cracks in the board walls. For a dollar you bought the right to a night's rest, and you provided your own bedding. The first to get there claimed the cots and latecomers had to hit the floor, and although there were empty beds, they weren't given one because they were Chinese. They stretched out on the dirt floor using a bundle of clothing for a pillow and the serape and Castile blanket for their only cover. Soon the place was filled with men of assorted races and types lying elbow to elbow in tight rows, clothed, weapons in hand. The stench of filth, tobacco, and human exhalations, plus the snoring and strange cries of those lost in nightmares, made it hard to sleep, but Eliza was so tired she blacked out the passing hours. She woke at dawn shivering with cold, huddled close to Tao Chi'en's back, and that was when she noticed that he smelled of the sea. On the ship his scent had been indistinguishable from the immensity of the ocean around them, but that night she learned that this was the specific aroma of Tao's body. She closed her eyes, pressed closer to him, and soon fell back asleep.

The next morning they both set off to look for Little Chile, which she recognized immediately both by the Chilean flag fluttering boldly atop a pole and because most of the men were wearing
maulinos
, the typical cone-shaped hats. The settlement consisted of some eight or ten densely populated blocks, including a few women and children who had traveled with their men, all busy at some task or activity. People were living in tents or board shacks and huts set in the middle of a junkyard of tools and garbage. There were also restaurants, makeshift hotels, and brothels. Eliza and Tao estimated that there were a couple of thousand Chileans in that barrio, but no one had counted them, and, in fact, it was nothing more than a place for new arrivals to pause a while. Eliza was happy to hear the language of her country and to see a sign on a ragged tent advertising
pequenes
and
chunchules
. She went right to it and, disguising her Chilean accent, asked for a helping of the latter. Tao Chi'en stood staring at that strange food served on a piece of newspaper instead of a plate, unable to guess what the devil it was. Eliza explained that it was deep-fried hog tripe.

“I ate your Chinese soup yesterday. Today you eat my Chilean
chunchules,
” she ordered.

“How is it you two Chinese speak Spanish?” the vendor asked amiably.

“My friend doesn't, and I do only because I spent time in Peru,” Eliza replied.

“And what are you looking for around here?”

“A Chilean named Joaquín Andieta.”

“What do you want him for?”

“We have a message for him. Do you know him?”

“A lot of people have passed through here in recent months. No one stays more than a few days, they're soon off to the placers. Some come back, some don't.”

“And Joaquín Andieta?”

“I don't remember, but I'll ask.”

Eliza and Tao Chi'en sat down in the shade of a pine to eat. Twenty minutes later the vendor returned with a short-legged, wide-shouldered man who looked like an Indian from the north of Chile, who said that Joaquín Andieta had started off in the direction of the placers of Sacramento at least a couple of months ago, although no one kept time by calendars or kept track of other folks' whereabouts.

“Then we're going to Sacramento, Tao,” Eliza decided as soon as they left Little Chile.

“You can't travel yet. You need to rest awhile.”

“I will rest there, when we find him.”

“I would rather go back to Captain Katz. California is not the place for me.”

“What is the matter with you? Has your blood turned to water? There's no one left on the ship, only that captain with his Bible. Everyone has gone off looking for gold and you plan to go back and work as a cook for a miserable salary?”

“I don't believe in easy fortune. I want a peaceful life.”

“Well, if not gold, there must be something else that interests you.”

“Learning.”

“Learning what? You already know so much.”

“I have everything to learn!”

“Then you have come to the perfect place. You know nothing about this country. They need doctors here. How many men do you think there are in the mines? Thousands! And they all need a doctor. This is the land of opportunity, Tao. Come to Sacramento with me. Besides, if you don't come with me, I won't get far.”

For a bargain price, given the lamentable condition of the vessel, Tao Chi'en and Eliza started north, sailing the entire length of San Francisco Bay. The ship was crammed with passengers with elaborate mining equipment; no one could move in that space crowded with boxes, tools, baskets, sacks of provisions, gunpowder, and weapons. The captain and his second mate were a pair of Yankee seamen sinister in appearance but good sailors and generous with the limited rations, even their bottles of liquor. Tao Chi'en negotiated the cost of Eliza's ticket and he was given his passage in exchange for working as crew. The passengers, all with pistols in their waistbands, in addition to knives or straight razors, scarcely spoke to one another the first day except to curse some jab from an elbow or foot, inevitable in that tight space. At dawn on the second day, after a long, cold, damp night anchored close to the shore because of the impossibility of navigating in the dark, everyone felt as if he were surrounded by enemies. The scruffy beards, filth, unappetizing food, mosquitoes, opposing winds and currents all contributed to the general irritation. Tao Chi'en, the only one without plans or goals, appeared to be the only serene person aboard, and when he was not fighting the sail he was admiring the extraordinary panorama of the bay. Eliza, in contrast, was miserable in her disguise as a slow-witted deaf-mute boy. Tao Chi'en presented her as his younger brother and quickly found her a place in a corner more or less protected from the wind, where she sat, so quiet and still that after a bit no one remembered her existence. Her Castile blanket dripped water, she was shivering with cold, and her legs had fallen asleep, but she was fortified by the thought that every minute she was getting closer to Joaquín. She touched her bosom, where she was carrying his love letters, and silently recited them by memory. By the third day the passengers had lost much of their aggression and were lying sprawled in their soaking-wet clothes, half drunk and very dispirited.

The bay was much longer than they had imagined; the distances marked on their pathetic maps had no bearing on actual miles, and just when they thought they were approaching their destination it turned out they still had to sail through a second bay, one called San Pablo. Along the shores they glimpsed a few camps and boats overflowing with people and goods, and beyond them thick woods. Even then their voyage wasn't over; they had to maneuver a canal with swift water and sail into Suisun Bay, the third, where navigating became even slower and more difficult, and then up the deep, narrow river that led to Sacramento. At last they were near the place where the first gold had been found. That insignificant little flake the size of a woman's fingernail had provoked this uncontrollable invasion, changing the face of California and the soul of the North American nation, as Jacob Todd, transformed into a journalist, would write a few years later. “The United States was founded by pilgrims, pioneers, and humble immigrants with an ethic of hard work and courage in the face of adversity. Gold has brought out the worst of the American character: greed and violence.”

The captain of their ship told them that the city of Sacramento had sprung up overnight, within the last year. The port was bustling with ships; it boasted of well-laid-out streets, wood houses and buildings, commerce, a church, and a good number of gaming houses, bars, and brothels; even so, it resembled the scene of a shipwreck, because the ground was littered with bags, harnesses, tools, and all manner of refuse left behind by miners in a hurry to get to the placers. Huge black birds swooped over garbage crawling with flies. Eliza estimated that in a couple of days she could cover the town house by house; it would not be difficult to find Joaquín Andieta. Their fellow passengers, made animated and friendly by the proximity of the port, shared the last swallows of liquor, clapped one another on the back, and sang chorus after chorus about a girl named Susanna to the confoundment of Tao Chi'en, who could not understand such a sudden transformation. He debarked with Eliza before the others because they had so little baggage, and made a beeline for the Chinese district where they found something to eat and a place to sleep in a tent of waxed canvas. Eliza could not follow the conversations in Cantonese, and all she had on her mind was finding out something about her lover, but Tao Chi'en reminded her that she was not to speak and asked her to be calm and patient. That same night the
zhong yi
was called on to treat a countryman's dislocated shoulder, snapping the joint back into place and earning the immediate respect of the camp.

The next morning Tao and Eliza went in search of Joaquín Andieta. They saw passengers from the ship already starting for the placers; some had obtained mules to carry their equipment but most were going on foot, leaving a good part of their possessions behind. Tao and his “brother” asked around the entire town without finding a trace of the person they were seeking, although some Chileans thought they remembered someone by that name who had passed through a month or two earlier. They suggested the pair head on upriver, where they might find him: it was all a matter of luck. A month was an eternity. No one kept account of who had been there the day before, and names, or where anyone else was going, meant nothing. The sole obsession was gold.