Fortune is a Woman (19 page)

He righted the sofa and brushed it off and said, "Please to sit down, lady."

Francie sank down thankfully and he lay the tired little boy beside her. He looked at her and said nervously, "Lady, I am Chinese. I enter America with no papers. I make a small living by gambling. I have no past, lady, and no future. Only
today.
It is the way I have always been forced to live, and my family before me. I can offer you nothing."

Francie thought carefully about what he had said and realized they were alike. She nodded. "Then we are lucky, you and I. The earthquake has buried my past and taken my future. I, too, have only today."

"Maybe it was good joss after all," he agreed.

While the little boy slept she helped him search the ruins for bedding or blankets, anything to cover them, for the night was cold and it was forbidden to light fires.

Then, exhausted, she curled up next to the boy and fell asleep. Lai Tsin covered them gently with a ragged pink quilt, and wrapped in an old curtain he kept watch until dawn came.

He thought about her as she slept. He remembered the hatred in her voice when she had watched the house burn and he knew she must have suffered, because he was no stranger to that emotion himself. He had lived all his life with brutality, loneliness, fear, and hate. Yet when she awoke he did not ask her for an explanation. He knew the time would come when she would want to unburden herself and then she would tell him the truth.

The next day they moved on, leaving their temporary shelter without a backward glance. "Where are we going?" the child asked in Cantonese, tugging at Francie's skirt.

"To the next place," Lai Tsin answered calmly. He had no idea where that might be but it was enough to satisfy the boy and he ambled uncomplainingly at his side.

After a while they came across a park filled with small white tents. People were sitting on the grass in the morning sunshine, chatting or reading newspapers while others stood in line for the free breakfast being served from the backs of wooden carts. There was a smell of hot coffee and bread and the boy tugged hungrily at Francie's skirt again. She stood in line for the breakfast and an issue of blankets, and they ate quickly, sitting away from the crowd. Then throwing their blankets over their shoulders, Francie and the boy followed Lai Tsin wherever he would take them.

For the next few days Lai Tsin looked after her like a little sister; he found food for her, he sought nightly shelter for her, and he spent all his money. He asked no questions and she barely spoke. Until one night they were sitting by the fire he had built amongst the rubble. The little boy was sleeping and the stark black smoldering ruins of San Francisco were silhouetted against the ink-blue sky and Francie said, "There is something I must tell you."

She hid her face in her hands and he waited patiently; he knew she would go on. She needed to cleanse her soul.

He was right. The words spilled from her lips as she told him her name—and her father's—Harmon Harrison. "I can see even you have heard of him," she said bitterly as he reacted to the name.

"Everyone in San Francisco knows of him," he replied, his black eyes suddenly unfathomable.

She told him how he had hated her, and about her brother, Harry. "If he ever finds that I'm still alive he'll put me behind bars in the state asylum and then he'll kill me," she said, terrified. She told him how she had met Josh and fallen in love, and how he had saved her. She said how beautiful he was. "And good, like an angel," she said with a long sigh. "Even the nuns said so." She told him about Josh and Sammy and about the murders, and how Josh had not wanted to believe it was Sammy, but he knew it was. And she put her head despairingly in her hands, reliving the moment the earthquake struck.

"Suddenly we were plunging into an abyss and everything was falling on top of us," she said. "I thought I was dreaming, that it was a nightmare. There was a great weight on my chest and my mouth was full of dust. I was choking, gasping until I thought my lungs would burst. I opened my eyes and I was looking into Josh's face. We were still lying on the bed, our arms were around each other, and his body was the weight I felt on top of me. A little light was coming from a hole above us, there was a terrible rending noise and an enormous beam came crashing down onto Josh's back, pinning him down on top of me. I could hear him breathing, harsh, rasping breaths like a file on metal. I tried to pull myself from under him but he was too heavy, he was still trapped by the beam. I could feel the stickiness of blood and I did not know if it was my own or his and I knew I had to get help. I eased my body inch by inch from under him. I don't know how long it took, maybe minutes, maybe hours, but finally I was free and I scrambled to my feet."

"I could still hear his harsh breathing and I remembered it was the same sound I had heard when my mother was dying. He was moaning, and I put my hands over my ears. I couldn't just leave him there to die. I tried to lift the beam lying across his back but it wouldn't move and then I knelt beside him and put my arms under his shoulders, trying to tug him out from under it. For a moment I thought I was succeeding, then suddenly the earth shook again and the beam slipped. There was a rumble and out of the corner of my eye I saw the chunk of falling masonry. Without thinking I jumped back and put my hands over my head to save myself, and instead it fell on Josh. I knelt beside him. I didn't know what to do. He was as still as death. Suddenly he lifted his head and looked at me." She stared, trembling, at Lai Tsin, hardly daring to remember, then she said slowly, "That beautiful angel's face was just a mass of blood and bone."

Lai Tsin was silent. He made no effort to comfort her. He knew there were some things that could never be expiated by mere words, there were some burdens too terrible ever to be rid of and man was doomed to carry them with him to the grave.

"I couldn't move," she said in a voice like a sigh. "I waited beside him, his harsh breathing became slower and slower, smaller and smaller... and finally there was only silence and I knew he was dead. I pulled the blanket from the bed behind him and covered him with it. And then I walked away and left him alone in his tomb.

"I don't remember how, but I found myself on the street. Only there was no street anymore, just rubble. There was the glow of many fires and people were running, but I did not know where. I followed them... someone helped me... they bandaged my head and gave me clothes. They took me to the hospital on a horse-cart, only the hospital was no longer there. There were so many people in the street, patients, doctors, nurses, so many people wounded and sick. I turned away. I knew I had to go home. I had to see what had happened. And in my heart I was wishing my father had died too."

She looked bleakly at Lai Tsin. "I went home," she said. "You were there. You saw what happened. I got my wish."

He said gravely, "Little Sister, my heart bursts with compassion for you. But it was not your wish that killed your father and destroyed your home. Your father stole your youth from you and gave everything to his son. You did not kill him, nor did you kill your lover. It was fate. Now it is time, Little Sister, to become your own person. You must forget youth and passion and control your own fortune so that fate will not treat you so contemptuously. It is time to pick up your life strings and go on."

Francie rubbed the tears from her eyes. She wrapped her arms around her knees, leaning forward, staring at him, really seeing him for the first time. Her savior was not a young man, though she could not have said his age. His oval face was delicately boned with deep, almond-set eyes, high cheekbones, and a wide, firm mouth. He was thin, with a look of deprivation, and an undefinable quality that had nothing to do with the shabbiness of his clothes nor how little money there was in his secret pocket. It was in his face; it had been passed down through generations and spoke of grinding hardship and endless sorrows and a depth of poverty she could not even begin to comprehend.

"You are very wise, Lai Tsin," she said quietly. "As wise as the Mandarins."

He bowed. "You must sleep now," he said. "You must forget your bad memories, forget the blows that have befallen you. Sleep like the child, Little Sister, and tomorrow you shall begin life anew. You will not forget, but you will bear your burden without looking back."

She lay obediently down beside the little boy and Lai Tsin placed a blanket carefully over them. And then he sat by the fire thinking for a long time of what he knew about Harmon Harrison. Then he put the bad thoughts behind him and turned to watch them as they slept. They were just two children, he thought pityingly. Fate had deprived them of their childhood, just the way it had him. Now it had united them and they would all face the future together. Tomorrow.

CHAPTER 15

It was raining, a short sharp shower with heavy gray clouds scudding fast through the sky. Francie hurried up the hill to California Street, pausing near the top to catch her breath. Her cheeks were pink from the wind and raindrops glistened on the fringe of blond hair sticking out the front of her gray shawl. It was three weeks since the earthquake. Three weeks since Josh had died. And three weeks since her brother had committed her father's body to the flames.

Now she had to lay his ghost. She had read that morning in the
Chronicle
that there was to be a memorial service for Harmon Harrison. It said that his son, Harry, brave in the face of his personal tragedy, had declared that he would rebuild the family mansion on Nob Hill "to show the world that nothing, not even an act of God, could destroy the Harrisons."

The report had also said Harmon Harrison was the richest man in San Francisco and that he had left his entire estate to his son. There was just one small exception; a ranch in the Sonoma Valley belonging to his late wife had been deeded by her to the daughter, Francesca, but the girl had not been seen since the earthquake and was now presumed dead.

She walked slowly along California Street, skirting the blackened Fairmont Hotel, staring at the ruins. Workmen were sifting methodically through the debris, loading carts with rubble and putting aside anything that might have survived—a scrap of mosaic, a marble bust, a satin shoe.

Only the facade of the Harrison house remained. Francie walked between the scorched Doric columns, up the familiar white marble steps and into the hall. She stared upward. The great stained-glass dome was no more and the house stood open to the pouring rain. With her foot she cleared a patch of dust from the black-and-white marble floor and saw it had cracked into a million tiny pieces. She shivered as she looked around her. Somewhere in that dust and rubble were the ashes of her father and she felt he was here, just as surely as if he were still alive.

She ran, shuddering, from the house, sprinting down the hill as fast as she could. She was glad she had no part of her father's inheritance. She would rather be poor and free.

By now she had become used to the scenes of ruin and desolation, yet down the hill the streets had an oddly festive air. Folks stood chatting in a neighborly fashion outside their makeshift dwellings, chairs and sofas lined the sidewalks, women cooked on outdoor stoves and men nailed orange crates into tables. Children ran through the ruins, dancing to the music of the organ-grinder, laughing at the antics of his monkey while street vendors hawked their wares to anyone who had money left to spend. The stricken city had an air of camaraderie and jollity as people made light of their hardship. "After all," they said to each other, "everyone is in the same boat."

Like the other two hundred and fifty thousand homeless refugees, Francie and Lai Tsin and the boy took whatever handouts the city gave them, dining for fifteen cents at the relief kitchens, or for free with Red Cross tickets when the money ran out. There was mush and hot biscuits and coffee for breakfast; soup and a plate of beef and vegetables for dinner; and Irish stew, bread, and tea for supper. They were living in their little shack on the edge of Chinatown and making do, like the others, as best they could.

Lai Tsin was sitting on an orange crate in their makeshift lean-to, showing the boy how to count on an old wooden abacus. He smiled at Francie. Taking some money from the secret pocket under his smock he offered it to her and said proudly, "See how much money I have."

She quickly counted it, then glanced at him astonished and said, "But Lai Tsin, this is more than a hundred dollars."

"One hundred and three dollars and twenty cents," he agreed, beaming. He held out a small black book and said, "The Chinese credit reopened today. All my money was not burned as I had thought. Today they pay me."

He beamed again and she laughed. "Why, Lai Tsin, you are rich after all."

"Tonight I play
pai-gow,"
he said confidently, pocketing the money, "and I get richer."

She stared at him, shocked. "You mean, you are going to gamble all that money?"

His face was suddenly expressionless. "That is what I do," he said, turning away.

She looked wistfully after him as he wended his way through the crowded street past the sewing machines and wash tubs and strings of hanging laundry, past the chiffoniers and trestle-tables, the painted screens and red banners and the improvised cooking-stoves made from bits of scrap metal and bricks. And she thought of what the hundred and three dollars and twenty cents might have bought: shoes for the boy, bedrolls, candles, soap, food that they could pay for instead of receiving from charity. She shook her head. The money was not hers, it was Lai Tsin's and he must do what he wished with it. And she must think about getting a job.

She went back into the shack and began to prepare the boy's supper of bread and milk, looking up, surprised, as Lai Tsin flung the curtain aside. He pushed fifty dollars into her hand and said quickly, "Before, I was alone. Now I am a man of responsibility. I am not free to gamble away all the family money. We must buy Little Son some shoes and other things Little Sister needs." He bowed quickly and was gone.