Speak Through the Wind (36 page)

The shouts of the sailors outside became more urgent and purposeful. They were eager to unload their cargo—including her, she was sure—and disembark.

When she emerged from below deck, the crew shouldered past her, carrying crates and boxes, rolling barrels, marching them down a feeble-looking wooden plank that extended between the
Sea Crest
and the dock. Nobody took any notice of Kassandra at all, unless she stood squarely in his path, In which case she was shoved aside with a muttered curse mixed with a profane prayer of thanks to be rid of her.

After one such assault, she found herself stumbling backwards until she collided with Captain Weathersby, who reached for her arm to steady her.

“Miss Kassandra,” he said, tipping his cap, “you are hereby delivered.”

He kept hold of her arm as he escorted her down the plank, through the milling wharf where well-dressed merchants met with the cargo-toting sailors to purchase their goods sight unseen for prices that made Kassandra turn and gasp. One crate full of men’s shirts was handed over for five hundred dollars. A case of straw-packed dinnerware went to a dapper man in a tall silk hat for over a thousand dollars. One man sat with a basket of tiny mewling kittens, lifting them up by the scruffs of their necks to start an impromptu auction with the bids starting at ten dollars each. There could be only one reason for such a price: a city full of rats.

Captain Weathersby kept hold of her arm, steering her through all of this, until they were no longer on the dock at all but squishing through mud. At the edge of the first solid structure they came to, he tipped his cap again, turned, and disappeared into the crowd.

Kassandra clutched the shawl a little more tightly to her, gripped the handle of her bag a little stronger, and backed against the wall. She looked up the street and down and saw nothing but one unadorned building after the other standing sentry over a wide, muddy street. She tried to keep count of the people who passed by. Men dressed in brushed wool coats and silk brocade vests crossed with thick watch chains; men dressed in filthy, torn shirts and tattered boots; the occasional Chinese with his long, thin braid—all rushing by, calling out to others just beyond her sight. Nobody offered her so much as a passing glance. Even if she found the courage to reach out, touch an arm … what would she ask? She had nowhere to go. Knew no one.

Lord
, she prayed,
You have brought me here. Help me now.

She closed her eyes, hoping that blocking out some of the chaos would help her focus on what direction to take. The steadying arm of Captain Weathersby had helped ease the transition from so many months walking the deck of a ship, but now Kassandra felt herself on the verge of collapse. She reached out her hand to try to regain her balance, but drew it quickly back as it encountered something soft and fleshy.

“If you was a fellow I’da charged you ten bucks for that.” The voice was deep and husky, almost like a man’s.

“I am so very sorry,” Kassandra said, opening her eyes to the largest woman she had ever seen. Not tall, as Kassandra stood nearly a head taller, but wide. From hip to hip she was the width of three women, and her depth was no less impressive. Her hair, an unnatural shade of red, was piled haphazardly on top of her head, and the highest frizzy mound of it threatened to tickle Kassandra’s chin as she leaned in close.

“You’re lookin’ like you lost your best friend.”

“I haven’t got a best friend,” Kassandra said.

“Well, that ain’t no surprise, smellin’ the way you do,” the woman said, wrinkling her powdered nose after a brief, too-close inspection.

“I just got off a boat,” Kassandra said, wondering why she was so quick to confide in this woman.

“Well, didn’t nobody tell you this was San Francisco? California? If you’re lookin’ for Ellis Island, you sailed the wrong ocean.”

Kassandra laughed despite herself, despite the dizziness and the-strangeness of the city. She felt an eerie ease with this woman, something she hadn’t felt since her first year with Ben, and the realization caused her to catch her breath up high. The painted face, the tinted hair, the plunging neckline. She knew exactly what this woman was. Certainly God didn’t bring her halfway across the world just to drop her in another brothel.

“Oh, now come on, girl, don’t look so scandalized. I ain’t gonna eat you up. Hiram pointed you out to me. Told me to help you out.”

“Captain Weathersby?”

“The one and the same. My name’s Jewell, by the way Jewell Gunn.”

“I am Kassandra.”

“Good. I got the right girl. Now,” she reached over and took Kassandra’s bag before Kassandra had a chance to protest, “what’ll it be? Bath, then dinner? Or other way ‘round?” Jewell started walking up the street, leaving no choice but to be followed.

They passed one building after another advertising every kind of good and service imaginable. Just like the city back home, every other establishment boasted liquor and women. This far from the docks, there weren’t many street vendors, but the air was alive with every kind of scent pouring from the restaurants lining the street. Pungent noodle shops, savory roasting sausage, yeasty baked goods—all seemed to vie for Kassandra’s palate, practically pulling her from the path she followed behind Jewell’s voluminous skirts.

“You’re prob’ly pretty hungry,” Jewell said, glancing over her shoulder without breaking stride.

“I am,” Kassandra said, already near breathlessness after what she estimated was merely half a block.

“Well, tell you the truth, the shape you’re in, you wouldn’t be welcome in none of the establishments I care to frequent.”

“Sorry?”

“I’m just thinkin’ it would be best to get you cleaned up a bit. Don’t you worry, the food’s not goin’ anywhere. Our first stop needs to be a bath.”

Kassandra followed without question, already feeling inextricably linked to the waddling woman in front of her. The crowd was such that if she lagged behind one step or took one to the left or the right, she would be swallowed up. There was a strange sense of comfort in how every third person they passed saluted Jewell—men tipped their hats, women called out greetings—like she was the flagship of the San Francisco Armada and Kassandra the tall tugboat behind.

They came to a stop in front of an impressive-looking four-story building with arched windows along the top story. Several well-dressed men loitered at its doors, and Jewell pushed through them with good-natured ribbing and an open invitation to visit her later in the afternoon.

She led Kassandra through an ornate front door and into the most sumptuous room she had ever seen. The grand, open floor was a checker-pattern of different carpets. No fewer than a dozen chandeliers hung from the vaulted ceiling, and groupings of overstuffed sofas and chairs were scattered throughout.

Kassandra stopped dead just inside the door, her eyes opened so wide she felt she’d never close them again. “What is this place?” she asked.

“This is the finest hotel in San Francisco,” Jewell said. “They got a public bathhouse downstairs. Hot water, imported soap. Just ten dollars.”

“Ten dollars? I do not have ten dollars to spend on a bath.”

“How much you got?” Jewell asked with a sly wink.

Kassandra reached down to pat her skirt pocket. Just a few dollars there. Mrs. Hartmann had given her a soft leather wallet with fifty dollars cash. It was snugly wrapped within a pair of stockings. In her bag. In Jewell’s hand.

“Let me tell you this,” Jewell said with a conspiratorial air. “They got huge vats of steaming water ready to fill up a porcelain tub. Perfumed soap imported from France, make you smell like the sweetest woman you ever hoped to be. Soft towels, big enough to wrap you up like a baby.”

“Please give me my bag back,” Kassandra said, reaching for her case, amused at Jewell’s juvenile attempt to hold it out of her reach.

“Oh, come now. Wouldn’t you like the chance to take off them rags, have ’em washed at a Chinese laundry?”

“I simply cannot—”

“Then they’ll give you a fine silk robe—not to keep, you understand—and let you wear it upstairs to the softest bed you’ve ever set your bones on.”

The images swam in Kassandra’s head. Her skin grated against the fabric of her filthy dress, and she could feel the prickling grime at the back of her neck, exposed by her greasy, upswept hair. More powerful than the vision of such an experience, though, were the disdainful looks she drew from all who walked past her. At first she thought maybe the disgusted glances were more for Jewell and her ostentatious display but the upturned noses and muttered insults were proof enough that it was she who offended. For just a moment, she wished to be invisible again. But certainly such luxury must come with a price. If a bath cost ten dollars, she couldn’t imagine the price of a bed.

“Now if it’s just a matter of the money,” Jewell said, her voice taking on a teasing quality, “don’t let that bother you. I’m more’n happy to help out a new girl in town.”

This was it. Seduction. Rather than being fifteen and poised for love and adventure, she was twenty and tired from unwanted battles. The lure of luxury, the promise of protection. She closed her eyes. Surely God had some other plan for her. She sent up a silent plea for rescue. A four-piece band struck up a lively tune somewhere in the recesses of the main hall, and a group of men raised their voices in a cheerful toast. She heard the
clink
of glasses and opened her eyes to see Jewell’s face, oddly comforting in its multitudes of painted, folded flesh.

“Why would you do this for me?”

“Why, you’re nothin’ but a poor little lost sparrow, ain’t you? Blown in from the storm. Come on, let’s get them feathers cleaned up.”

She nudged Kassandra toward a stairwell to their left above which a sign read,
Public Baths for Hotel Patrons Only.
Kassandra followed a few steps, then stopped.

“Why are you doing this for me?”

Jewell smiled, a big grin that showed her teeth to be small and yellow framed by her crimson-smeared lips. “This is a big ol’ scary world, darlin’ A girl oughtn’t go through it without her mama. And if she ain’t got her mama, she at least needs a friend. And if she ain’t got a friend,” she winked, “at least she got me. Now, come on, Sadie, let’s get you cleaned up.”

“My name is Kassandra.”

“I like to name my girls myself.” Jewell transferred the bag to her other hand and took Kassandra’s arm to lead her through the stairwell door. “No better way to start off a new life than with a new name.”

As they took the stairs down into the dark basement, Kassandra had the feeling of her life being a book, flipped back to its first page to be lived again. Another tainted savior, and her with no doubt what the price of such salvation would be.

ot three days after her rescue in the street, and Kassandra was wearing new clothes, had been given a new name, and occupied a moderately sumptuous room on the second floor of Jewell Gunn’s red-roofed brothel. The modest bit of cash she’d arrived with wouldn’t have supported her for a day in this city, and Jewell had been more than happy to extend her credit.

She’d never before worn gowns tailored to her frame; she’d never had her hair arranged in painstaking curls, fussed and fretted over by some of the younger of Jewell’s girls. The first night she’d been primped for an evening in Jewell’s parlor, she stood in front of the full-length gilded mirror (the first of those she’d ever seen, too) and marveled at her own reflection. She felt beautiful. Looked beautiful. The décolletage made her broad shoulders seem anything but manly, especially with the single spiraled curl draped artfully over one of them. The redness brought on by so much exposure to the sun had faded to a healthy bronze, nothing like the ghostly pallor on every face in the sun-starved streets of New York. She used a bit of powder to disguise some of the darker blotches, and there was a definite new crinkling at the corners of her eyes. But with the tiniest dot of rouge applied to her lips and a brush of beeswax on her lashes, her face took on an exotic appeal she’d never anticipated.

Jewell let out a long whistle the first evening Kassandra descended the stairs into the parlor. “Lookee here, girls,” she said in that deep, rasping voice of hers. “We got us a genuine Amazon.”