The Children of the Company (24 page)

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Authors: Kage Baker

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BOOK: The Children of the Company
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Amaunet just looks at him.
“Bring me what I long for, and I’ll show you,” she says.
He laughs, and rises to his feet. “Why don’t you introduce us to little Emil?”
She nods at her narrow bed, which is on a long chest built into the caravan’s wall. “Introduce yourselves. He’s under there. He likes the dark.”
Nennius thrusts the mattress back and opens the side of the chest. There is a shrill scream. Emil Bergwurm curls away from the light, hiding his face. Labienus leans down to smile at him.
“Come out, little man! I’ve work for you to do.” He begins to chortle. “Nothing matters except our work, you know.”
Even Amaunet laughs at that.
In the end they have to haul him out bodily, and he squeals and fights until they shut him in a fake mummy case Amaunet has had propped in the corner. They take their leave of Amaunet. Labienus walks with the case tucked under his arm, like a devil carrying off a soul.
“That went rather well, really,” says Nennius.
“Didn’t it, though?” says Labienus cheerfully. He has already thought of a use for Emil Bergwurm.
1906
On the eve of destruction we had oysters and Champagne.
Don’t suppose for a moment that we had any desire to lord it over the poor mortals of San Francisco, in that month of April in that year of 1906; but things weren’t going to be so gracious there again for a long while, and we felt an urge to fortify ourselves against the work we were to do.
London before the Great Fire, Delhi before the Mutiny, even Chicago—I was there and I can tell you, it requires a great deal of mental and emotional self-discipline to live side by side with mortals in a Salvage Zone. You must look, daily, into the smiling faces of those who are to lose all, and walk beside them in the knowledge that nothing you can do will affect their fates. Even the most prosaic of places has a sort of haunted glory at such times; judge then how it looked to us, that gilded fantastical butterfly of a city, quite unprepared for its approaching holocaust.
The place was made even queerer by the fact that there were so many Company operatives there at the time. The very ether hummed with our transmissions. In any street you might have seen us dismounting from carriages or the occasional automobile, we immortal gentlemen tipping our derbies to the ladies, our immortal ladies responding with a graceful inclination of their picture hats, smiling as we met each others’terrified eyes. We dined at the Palace and as guests at Nob Hill mansions; promenaded in Golden Gate Park, drove out to Ocean Beach, attended the theater and everywhere saw the pale, set faces of our own kind, busy with their own particular preparations against what was to come.
Some of us had less pleasant places to go. I was grateful that I was not required to brave the Chinese labyrinth by Waverly Place, but my associate Pan had certain business there amongst the Celestials. I myself was obliged to venture, too many times, into the boardinghouses south of Market Street. Beneath the Fly Trap was a Company safe house and HQ; we’d meet there sometimes, Pan and I, at the end of a long day in our respective ghettoes, and we’d sit shaking together over a brace of stiff whiskeys. Thus heartened, it was time for a costume change: dock laborer into gentleman for me, coolie into cook for him, and so home by cable car.
I lodged in two rooms on Bush Street. I will not say I slept there; one does not rest well on the edge of the maelstrom. But it was a place to keep one’s trunk, and to operate the Company credenza necessary for facilitating the missions of those operatives whose case officer I was. Salvaging is a terribly complicated affair, requiring as it does that one hide in history’s shadow until the last possible moment before snatching one’s quarry from its preordained doom. One must be organized and thoroughly coordinated; and timing is everything.
On the morning of the tenth of April I was working there, sending a progress report, when there came a brisk knock at my door. Such was my concentration that I was momentarily unmindful of the fact that I had no mortal servants to answer it. When I heard the impatient tapping of a small foot on the step, I hastened to the door.
I admitted Nan D’Arraignee, one of our Art Preservation specialists. She is an operative of West African origin with exquisite features, slender and slight as a doll carved of ebony. I had worked with her briefly near the end of the previous century. She is quite the most beautiful woman I have ever known, and happily married to another immortal, a century before I ever laid eyes on her. Timing, alas, is everything.
“Victor.” She nodded. “Charming to see you again.”
“Do come in.” I bowed her into my parlor, acutely conscious of its disarray. Her bright gaze took in the wrinkled laundry cast aside on the divan, the clutter of unwashed teacups, the half-eaten oyster loaf on the credenza console, six empty sauteme bottles, and one smudgily thumb-printed wineglass. She was far too courteous to say anything, naturally, and occupied herself with the task of removing her gloves.
“I must apologize for the condition of the place,” I stammered. “My duties
have kept me out a good deal.” I swept a copy of the
Examiner
from a chair. “Won’t you sit down?”
“Thank you.” She took the seat and perched there, hands folded neatly over her gloves and handbag. I pulled over another chair, intensely irritated at my clumsiness.
“I trust your work goes well?” I inquired, for there is of course no point in asking one of us if
we
are well. “And, er, Kalugin’s? Or has he been assigned elsewhere?”
“He’s been assigned to Marine Transport, as a matter of fact,” she told me, smiling involuntarily. “We are to meet on the
Thunderer
afterward. I am so pleased! He’s been in the Bering Sea for two years, and I’ve missed him dreadfully.”
“Ah,” I said. “How pleasant, then, to have something to look forward to in the midst of all this …”
She nodded quickly, understanding. I cleared my throat and continued: “What may I do for you, Nan?”
She averted her gaze from dismayed contemplation of the stale oyster loaf and smiled. “I was told you might be able to assist me in requisitioning additional transport for my mission.”
“I shall certainly attempt it.” I stroked my beard. “Your present arrangements are unsuitable?”
“Inadequate, rather.You may recall that I’m in charge of presalvage at the Hopkins Gallery. It seems our original estimates of what we can rescue there were too modest. At present, I have five vans arranged for to evacuate the gallery contents, but really, we need more. Would it be possible to requisition a sixth? My own case officer was unable to assist me, but felt you might have greater success.”
This was a challenge. Company resources were strained to the utmost on this operation, which was one of the largest on record. Every operative in the United States had been pressed into service, and many of the European and Asian personnel. A handsome allotment had been made for transport units, but needs were swiftly exceeding expectations.
“Of course I should like to help you,” I replied cautiously, “if at all possible. You are aware, however, that horsedrawn transport utilization is impossible, due to the subsonic disturbances preceding the earthquake—and motor transports are, unfortunately, in great demand—”
A brewer’s wagon rumbled down the street outside, rattling my windows. We both leaped to our feet, casting involuntary glances at the ceiling; then sat down in silent embarrassment. Madame D’Arraignee gave a little cough. “I’m so sorry—my nerves are simply—”
“Not at all, not at all, I assure you—one can’t help flinching—”
“Quite. In any case, Victor, I understand the logistical difficulties involved; but even a handcart would greatly ease our difficulties. So many lovely and unexpected things have been discovered in this collection, that it really would be too awful to lose them to the fire.”
“Oh, certainly.” I got up and strode to the windows, giving in to the urge to look out and assure myself that the buildings hadn’t begun to sway yet. Solid and seemingly as eternal as the pyramids they stood there, for the moment. I turned back to Madame D’Arraignee as a thought occurred to me. “Tell me, do you know how to operate an automobile?”
“But of course!” Her face lit up.
“It may be possible to obtain something in that line. Depend upon it, madame, you will have your sixth transport. I shall see to it personally.”
“I knew I could rely on you.” She rose, all smiles. We took our leave of one another with a courtesy that belied our disquiet. I saw her out and returned to my credenza keyboard.
QUERY,
I input
, RE: REQUISITION ADDTNL TRANSPORT MOTOR VAN OR AUTO? PRIORITY RE: HOPKINS INST.
HOPKINS PROJECT NOT YOUR CASE,
came the green and flashing reply.
NECESSARY, I
input
. NEW DISCV OVRRIDE SECTION AUTH. PLEASE FORWARD REQUEST PRIORITY.
WILL FORWARD
That was all. So much for my chivalrous impulse, I thought, and watched as the transmission screen winked out and returned me to my status report on the Nob Hill presalvage work. I resumed my entry of the Gilded Age loot tagged for preservation.
When I had transmitted it, I stood and paced the room uneasily. How long had I been hiding in here? What I wanted was a meal and a good stretch of the legs, I told myself sternly. Fresh air, in so far as that was available in any city at the beginning of this twentieth century. I scanned the oyster loaf and found it already pulsing with bacteria. Pity. After disposing of it in the dustbin
I put on my coat and hat, took my stick and went out to tread the length of Bush Street with as bold a step as I could muster.
It was nonsense, really, to be frightened. I’d be out of the city well before the first shock. I’d be safe on air transport bound for London before the first flames rose. London, the other City. I could settle into a chair at my club and read a copy of
Punch
that wasn’t a month old, secure in the knowledge that the oak beams above my head were fixed and immovable as they had been since the days when I’d worn a powdered wig, as they would be until German shells came raining down decades from now …
Shivering, I dismissed thoughts of the Blitz. Plenty of
life
to think about, surely! Here were bills posted to catch my eye: I might go out to the Pavilion to watch the boxing exhibition—Jack Joyce and Bob Ward featured. There was delectable vaudeville at the Orpheum, I was assured, and gaiety girls out at the Chutes, to say nothing of a spectacular sideshow recreation of the Johnstown flood … perhaps not in the best of taste, under the present circumstances.
I might imbibe Gold Seal Champagne to lighten my spirits, though I didn’t think I would; Veuve Cliquot was good enough for me. Ah, but what about a bottle of Chianti, I thought, arrested by the bill of fare posted in the window of a corner restaurant. Splendid culinary fragrances wafted from within. Would I have grilled veal chops here? Would I go along Bush to the Poodle Dog for chicken
chaud-froid blanc?
Would I venture to Grant in search of yellow silk banners for duck roasted in some tiny Celestial kitchen? Then again, I knew of a Swiss place where the cook was a Hungarian, and prepared a light and crisply fried Wiener schnitzel to compare with any I’d had … or I might just step into a saloon and order another oyster loaf to take home …
No, I decided, veal chops would suit me nicely. I cast a worried eye up at the building—pity this structure wasn’t steel-framed—and proceeded inside.
It was one of those dark, robust places within, floor thickly strewn with fresh sawdust not yet kicked into little heaps. I took my table as any good operative does, back to the wall and a clear path to the nearest exit. Service was poor, as apparently their principal waiter was late today, but the wine was excellent. I found it bright on the palate, just what I’d wanted, and the chops when they came were redolent of herbs and fresh olive oil. What a consolation appetite can be.
Yes, life, that was the thing to distract one from unwise thoughts. Savor the
wine, I told myself, observe the parade of colorful humanity, breathe in the fragrance of the joss sticks and the seafood and the gardens of the wealthy, listen to the smart modern city with its whirring steel parts at the service of its diverse inhabitants. The moment is all, surely.
I dined in some isolation, for the luncheon crowd had not yet emerged from the nearby offices and my host remained in the kitchen, arguing with the cook over the missing waiter’s character and probable ancestry. Even as I amused myself by listening, however, I felt a disturbance approaching the door. No temblor yet, thank heaven, but a tempest of emotions. I caught the horrifying mental images before ever I heard the stifled weeping. In another moment he had burst through the door, a young male mortal with a prodigious black mustache, quite nattily dressed but with his thick hair in wild disarray. As soon as he was past the threshold his sobs burst out unrestrained, at a volume that would have done credit to Caruso.
This brought his employer out of the back at once, blurting out the first phrases of furious denunciation. The missing waiter (for so he was) staggered forward and thrust out that day’s
Chronicle.
The headlines, fully an inch tall, checked the torrent of abuse: MANY LOSE THEIR LIVES IN GREAT ERUPTION OF VESUVIUS.
The proprietor of the restaurant, struck dumb, went an ugly sallow color. He put the fingertips of one hand in his mouth and bit down hard. In a broken voice, the waiter described the horrors: roof collapsed in church in his own village. His own family might even now lie dead, buried in ash. The proprietor snatched the paper and cast a frantic eye over the columns of print. He sank to his knees in the sawdust, sobbing. Evidently he had family in Naples, too.
I stared at my plate. I saw gray and rubbery meat, congealing grease, seared bone with the marrow turned black. In the midst of life we are in death, but it doesn’t do to reflect upon it while dining.
“You must, please, excuse us, sir,” the proprietor said to me, struggling to his feet. “There has been a terrible tragedy.” He set the
Chronicle
beside my plate so I could see the blurred rotogravure picture of King Victor Emmanuel. REPORT THAT TOTAL NUMBER OF DEAD MAY REACH SEVEN HUNDRED, I read. TOWNS BURIED UNDER ASHES AND MANY CAUGHT IN RUINED BUILDINGS. MANY BUILDINGS CRUSHED BY ASHES. Of course, I had known about the coming tragedy; but it
was on the other side of the world, the business of other Company operatives, and I envied them that their work was completed now.

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