A-Splendid-Ruin(74)
The problem with riding was that one could not really hide in shadows or burrow about like a rat.
One of the militiamen came from a doorway where I hadn’t seen him. “You there! Where’d you get that horse?”
“It’s mine,” I said.
“We need him for cleanup work,” he told me. “I’m requisitioning him in the name of the US Army.”
Desperation made me momentarily stupid. I opened my mouth to argue with him. I considered spurring the horse to a run. But I wasn’t certain it could run, or would, and the soldier fingered his gun as if he knew I might try, and in the end, I dismounted and handed him the reins.
“Wait a minute.” He stepped back to grab something, which he threw to me. I caught it clumsily. It was a tin, but in the darkness I couldn’t see what it contained. “Enjoy. Now get back to where you came from, before I arrest you for not having a pass.”
I tucked the tin into my pocket and walked until I found a pile of bricks to lean against, and went to sleep, given that my plan to get to the relief camp was not happening—not tonight, and not in the near future. It was too difficult. My plan would have to wait. I wanted to cry with frustration. But one good thing came from it. When I woke, I discovered that the soldier had given me a tin of tobacco, which was nearly as good as gold.
I traded some of the tobacco to an Italian man for two cans of peaches, a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, and a sausage. I gave the wine to a doctor who cleaned my stitches and rewrapped my feet. I gave the peaches to a woman in trade for coffee and a blanket. I ate half the sausage and the bread and traded the rest for cans of tomatoes, which I traded again. It was a simple truth that someone always wanted whatever you had, and in this way, I survived until they relaxed military restrictions in the city, five days later.
Restrictions were no sooner loosened than San Francisco filled with people, not only those with property or business in town, but tourists from unburned parts of the city or from Oakland or other areas, drawn by disaster like flies to a corpse. They were everywhere, gawking. They hired opportunistic guides to fill their ears with details, the more grisly the better. They bought mementos of burned bits and shattered relics. In such a circus, rumors mushroomed, sometimes spored by nothing more than a casual question or supposition, so I didn’t know if it was true when I heard that they had set up a relief camp at Nob Hill for those rebuilding. I still did not know if any of my relatives were alive. But if they were, and there was a relief camp on Nob Hill, it was where they would be. That house had been the showcase of their wealth. They would not abandon it, even in ruins.
I went in search of a newspaper to find the truth. They were all free, at least for now, and when I saw a copy of the Bulletin for the first time since the disaster, I was almost embarrassed at the extent of my excitement. I didn’t know if he was still there, I told myself as I looked for the society page—who knew if there would even be a society page? I drifted over ads for the stores on Fillmore that had not been touched by the fire, and those that had temporarily moved to new locations, and announcements of shipments due in a few weeks. When I saw the column, I was half-afraid to see if it was still his.
The Rich Are Just Like Us!
The latest disaster has made all classes equal. The rich have no more than the poor, and stagger about the relief camp on Nob Hill in filthy boots and stinking clothes like the veriest beggar on the street, most of them clad by today’s most popular of designers, the Red Cross.
Mrs. James Sheldon wears overalls and a flannel shirt, and Miss Bessie Osmoss treads through the mud to the soup kitchen where today’s banquet consists of canned soup and Postum, and the decorations are stockings and unmentionables hanging on the many laundry lines stretched from tent post to tent post. After dinner, instead of dancing, the best of San Francisco society sit around campfires like their hallowed grandfathers, who pried from the earth the fortunes that built their houses, which are now only piles of rubble. The earth giveth, and the earth taketh away . . .
While some toil at cleaning up the city, others toil at love. The city reports an astonishing rise in the application for marriage licenses, and one cannot turn a corner without stumbling upon a new engagement announcement. Disaster is the best aphrodisiac! Some are so anxious to tie the knot that they will not be waiting for churches to be rebuilt, as they fear it will take longer than nine months . . .
The writer was indeed Alphonse Bandersnitch, though I would have known it even without his byline. I recognized his style, his sarcasm. He was still alive. Until that moment, I didn’t know how afraid I’d been that it was otherwise. I thought of him sitting beside me that first time at Coppa’s, smoking his cigarette, his dark eyes that seemed to miss nothing as he took me in. “You’re no coward, Miss Kimble.” And then, later at the Anderson soiree. “I find you puzzling . . . Nothing about you makes sense, unless . . .” He’d never finished the sentence. I’d never known what he meant. Now I wondered if Dante LaRosa had suspected that I was caught in the Sullivan game not as a player but as a victim.
But perhaps that was wishful thinking. Be clever, I reminded myself. I did not know yet whether Dante LaRosa was a friend, and first there was the camp on Nob Hill.
It would be dangerous for me to go there; I knew that. Goldie would recognize me in any garb. But Shin had been with the Sullivans when I’d seen her last. Could she be there still? Surely it was worth a visit to see.