Earthquake (5 page)

“Maybe fall down,” Dai Yue objected. But then she heard the baby crying. She imagined how frightened it must be, how alone. She looked at the pile of debris. The boy was already moving away from her, picking his way through the twisted boards at the
foot of the heap.

Dai Yue watched him climb. About halfway up, some of the wreckage slid under his weight. He lifted his arms to catch his balance. The woman had begun to cry again, but it was a muffled sound now, muted with hope. The boy made it to the top of the heap and stood looking at the window.

The Fon Kwei boy stretched up, his fingertips spread out against the side of the building. His hands rested about a foot beneath the windowsill. He repositioned his feet and reached up again. The baby's cries were less shrill now, a thinning wail.

“Oh God, he can't,” the mother sobbed. “He can't reach the window.” Dai Yue felt the woman's heavy hand on her shoulder. “My baby.”

The last two words were so full of sadness that Dai Yue suddenly saw past the woman's f lushed pink face and ble ary light-colored eyes, all the way to the sorrow in her heart.

Dai Yue started up the pile of rubble. She snagged her trousers on a splintered plank and bent to free herself. When she stood up, she saw the boy looking down at her. “I help,” she called to him. He nodded, glancing up at the windowsill.

Dai Yue placed her feet very carefully, pausing
several times to look upward. When she was finally on top of the pile, she made her way toward the boy. “Stand here,” she told him, patting her own back. She bent over, her palms flat against the brick.

“Are you sure?” the boy asked.

“I am strong,” Dai Yue told him. It was true. He would have to trust her.

The boy sat in the rubble and pulled off his boots. He stood and a second later, she felt his foot on her back. It took the boy three tries, but he finally managed to stand, teetering, on her back, long enough to get a grip on the windowsill.

The instant his weight lifted, Dai Yue straightened to watch him scramble through the open window. Then she glanced down at the woman. Her face was impossibly pale, her cheeks were still wet with tears, her hands were wound around each other. Dai Yue looked back at the window and waited.

The noise in the street below swelled, then ebbed. Dai Yue heard little bits of the talk, understood some of it. The mother began to sing quietly, swaying back and forth.

“Dai Yue.” The boy's voice made her look up. He
had a bundle of blankets in his arms. A little fist jutted up toward his face, grasping.

“My baby!” The woman stood weeping at the edge of the tangle of wood and brick.

“Dai Yue.” The boy's voice was an arrow that pierced the street noise, the woman's hysterical crying. He held the baby out, feigning a gentle toss without really letting go. “Can you catch her?”

Dai Yue nodded. It was the best way. It was probably the only way. The mother was trying to climb now, fighting her awkward Fon Kwei skirts. Soon, she would be close enough to get in the way.

Dai Yue set her feet carefully on the uneven wreckage. She looked up at the boy and spread her arms. “I can.”

“Ready?” he asked. He held the baby out.

“Yes,” Dai Yue said. The boy leaned out and let the baby go.

The mother screamed and pitched forward, crying out in terror. But the baby dropped straight and true, a gentle fall into Dai Yue's arms. She climbed downward to hand the baby to the mother.

“You could have killed her,” the woman spat. Then she held her child close and began to cry again, tears
running down her already wet cheeks. “Thank you. Oh, God, thank you.”

Dai Yue nodded politely. She glanced back up at the window. The boy had crawled out like a monkey. He hung, looking back over his shoulder. Dai Yue moved to give him room. Once she was clear he jumped, rolling sideways when he hit the rubble, falling hard enough to lose his breath for a few seconds.

Dai Yue waited until he got to his feet and handed him his boots. She struggled to remember the correct words. “Tell me your name,” she said carefully. “Again.”

The Fon Kwei boy grinned at her, brushing splinters and brick dust off his trousers. “Brendan. Brendan O'Connor.”

Brendan scrambled down. The baby had stopped crying, comforted instantly by her mother's voice.

“I can't thank you enough,” the mother was saying as he stepped out of the shattered wood and fallen brick. Brendan nodded politely. He glanced southward. There were spires of smoke that looked like they were coming from the Mission District. Maybe the bakery would burn down.

“You hurt?”

Dai Yue's voice was quiet and close. Brendan looked at her. “No. You were right. You are strong.”

A shy smile fluttered at the corners of Dai Yue's lips, then disappeared. Her eyes darted over the crowds in the street. Brendan followed her gaze.
A Japanese man was struggling to carry a gilt-framed painting through the crowded street.

“Look at that,” the baby's mother said from behind Brendan. “A portrait of their emperor. Why would he take that?”

Brendan shook his head. “My mother would have taken her statue of Jesus.”

The woman smiled wryly. “I won't have to decide. I can't get back in to take anything.” She patted her baby's back, looking down into the little face. “The most important thing to me is right here.”

“We had better be going now,” Brendan said, glancing at Dai Yue. She nodded, then her hands flew up to cover her mouth. Brendan felt the earth shift beneath them.

The ground quivered, an odd rolling sensation. Brendan stood, clenching both fists, every muscle in his body tense. The mother began to weep. Dai Yue stood like an ivory statue. The crowds stilled and for a second, the city echoed in another strange, deep silence broken only by the church bells. Then the tremor ended and people came back to life.

“May? Oh, God, May!”

Brendan saw a man shoving toward them. He was
tall, wearing the rough clothes of a laborer. He leapt up the stairs and encircled the woman in his arms, then leaned back to peer at the baby.

“Is she all right?”

“These two got her out through the upper window.” The woman gestured at Dai Yue and Brendan. “I couldn't open the door.” She pushed her hair back out of her eyes. “Thomas, the door is ruined. We can't get back in.”

“Thank you for your help,” the man said. “May God watch over you both.” He picked up a long board and faced the door of his apartment. He began to beat at the unyielding wood.

Brendan led Dai Yue back into the milling throngs that filled the sidewalk and spilled over into the street. It seemed impossible that so many people lived in San Francisco. Even on the busiest day on Market Street, he had never seen crowds like this. People were shoving and shouting at each other. They were praying and weeping and laughing at nothing. No one seemed to know which direction to go.

“Make way, make way!”

The gruff voice startled Brendan. Dai Yue stepped
aside, with Brendan close behind her. Two workmen labored along the sidewalk, pushing an enormous piano made of glistening dark wood. A little girl stumbled in front of the piano, but her mother lifted her in time, running a few steps to get out of the way.

Brendan held tightly to Dai Yue's hand and started walking. He could tell she was close to panic again. The crowds seemed to terrify her.

The piano movers slowed as Dupont Street began to rise. Brendan looked up the hill. It only got steeper. The two men paused to rest, leaning against the piano to keep it from rolling. People streamed around them. As Brendan and Dai Yue passed they could hear the men arguing in low voices about whether they could possibly make it all the way to Nob Hill.

Brendan glanced back over his shoulder. Smoke was rising steadily from three or four places south of The Slot now. It was black smoke, roiling in spires that blurred and joined as they drifted higher above Market Street. Brendan heard the distant clanging of a fire bell. He felt the stir of a breeze against his face. If the wind came up, the firemen would have a harder time putting out the fires.

Brendan felt Dai Yue tug at his hand. She pointed, a questioning look on her face. Brendan followed her gesture. The hill rose gently, then more sharply closer to Chinatown. Near the top, soldiers were marching onto Dupont Street.

“Soldiers,” Brendan said wonderingly.

Dai Yue looked puzzled. She seemed to be searching for a word. “War?” she asked hesitantly.

Brendan shook his head, his eyes fixed on the men marching down the street toward them. There were fifteen or twenty of them. The man at the head of the column was shouting to people as they passed. When he got closer, Brendan could make out most of what he was saying.

“. . . looters will be shot. No junk thieves will be tolerated. This is General Funston's order and all troops will carry it out. Spread the word.”

“What's looting?” Brendan asked a man just in front of him.

“Going through the ruined shops. Stealing.”

Brendan nodded, then turned to Dai Yue. Her hand had tightened on his. “The soldiers will shoot thieves. That's all. No war.”

Dai Yue looked relieved, but her grip on his hand
didn't relax. The crowd carried them along like a river's current. The sidewalk slanted in places, and there were cracks in it from the earthquake. Here and there water gushed down the gutter. Water pipes had broken. Brendan saw people stare at him and Dai Yue, their eyes sliding away when he looked at them.

Brendan heard an odd whistling sound. He turned and suddenly noticed a crop of spiky gray hair, still uncombed and sticky with soap. It was the parrot woman, walking along not far behind them. He slowed, working his way back through a group of men, tugging Dai Yue with him. The woman had found a child's wagon somewhere. She was pulling the birdcage in it. The parrot was cleaning its feathers.

“Hello again, young man,” the woman said when she saw him. Her face lit with a smile. “I didn't get much farther than Market Street. They've closed the ferries. There's no way to get in or out of San Francisco.”

Brendan nodded. Walking along beside the wagon, he put a finger through the cage bars. The parrot reached to nibble it gently with its great black beak.

“I suppose there's no place like home,” the woman joked. She was breathing hard. “Especially when you can't seem to go anywhere else.”

The parrot tilted its head to get a better look at Brendan. Dai Yue touched it through the bars. It ruffled its feathers and ducked its head.

“He wants you to scratch his cheek,” the woman said. “Caruso rarely takes to strangers and I always trust his opinions.”

Brendan watched Dai Yue rub Caruso's cheek with the tip of her index finger.

“He sang this morning,” the woman said. “At least that's what people are saying.”

Brendan looked up, trying not to laugh. “He sings?”

“Of course Caruso sings. He is the most famous opera performer in the world. I named the parrot after him.”

Brendan shot a look at Dai Yue. She was still rubbing the parrot's cheek. Was she understanding any of this?

The gray-haired woman stopped, pressing one hand into the small of her back. “Caruso stayed at the Palace last night,” she said. “This morning after the earthquake, they say he sang from an open
window. I would give anything to have heard him.” The woman's face was radiant, her eyes shining. For a moment she looked like a little girl.

“I help you?” Dai Yue said to the woman. She reached out and took the wagon handle. The woman relinquished it, smiling. She took a hankie from her bodice and dabbed at her forehead. “I am most grateful. My name is Miss Agatha Toland.”

Brendan introduced himself and Dai Yue shyly said her own name.

Miss Toland gestured up the hill and they started walking. “Where are you two going?”

Brendan hesitated. He did not want to explain to anyone why he had to get St. Mary's.

“I go home,” Dai Yue said.

Brendan nodded. “I'm taking her back to Chinatown.”

“You are a kind soul, Brendan.” Miss Toland ran her fingers through her spiky hair. It had dried, a white film of soap framing her forehead. No one seemed to notice—many people were half dressed or still in their nightclothes.

As they crossed Post Street, Brendan helped Dai Yue ease the wagon from the sidewalk and onto the
cobblestones, then back up on the other side. Miss Toland pointed. “Look at that. So many are heading toward Union Square. I wonder if all their homes were destroyed.”

Brendan shrugged. If his cot and blanket had burned up along with the rest of the warehouse, he would have to find another place to sleep.

Miss Toland stopped again, breathing hard. “It's a terrible thing, really. It's as if God is punishing this city. It seems we no sooner rebuild from a fire or an earthquake than we have to start all over again. The quake of '90 ruined my uncle. He lost everything. Poor man never recovered.”

Brendan cast a sidelong glance at Miss Toland as she led the way again. He dropped back to walk behind the wagon, pushing to help Dai Yue get it up the hill. The parrot came to his side of the cage and made soft cooing sounds. Half a block farther, they stopped again to rest. Brendan looked back down toward Market Street. The columns of smoke were swelling. Why weren't the firemen putting out the fires?

Miss Toland was bending over the birdcage. The big gray parrot put his face close
to hers. “I want grapes,” he said, very distinctly. “Or apples.”

Brendan shook his head. Miss Toland laughed. “It's quite astonishing, isn't it? The odd thing is that he means it. Caruso loves grapes. And apples. Well,” she said, smiling. “Everyone ready?” Without another word, Miss Toland strode uphill again.

As they got close to St. Mary's, Brendan tried frantically to figure out what he was going to do. Miss Toland kept talking and he nodded to be polite, but he wasn't really listening. Dai Yue walked at a steady pace, her posture tense, her eyes always returning to the smoke hanging over the Mission District.