Earthquake (6 page)

California Street was teeming with people leaving Chinatown. They all carried baskets and bundles of their belongings. Some of them pushed handcarts. Dai Yue maneuvered the wagon through to the sidewalk, scanning the faces as people passed. It took Brendan a moment to understand that she was probably looking for her uncle.

Brendan smiled when he saw the bell tower of St. Mary's still standing. The inscription beneath the clock face stood out in high relief in the slanting morning sunlight: “Son, observe the time and fly from evil.” Brendan glanced down the long sidewall.
The bricks were all still intact. So his pouch was safe. He made a sudden decision to leave it where it was. If he took it out now, a hundred people would wonder what was so valuable. Even if no one robbed him, he could never use the hiding place again.

“Well, I'll be turning here.” Miss Toland took the wagon handle from Dai Yue. “You are two lovely children. Keep yourselves safe.”

Brendan watched as Miss Toland pulled the wagon on down California Street, her lavender gown flapping in the breeze.

“Good Fon Kwei lady,” Dai Yue murmured.

“What?” Brendan looked at Dai Yue, then shrugged his shoulders when she didn't answer. He pointed to St. Mary's. “I have to go in there. Wait for me here. I won't be long.”

Without waiting for an answer, Brendan walked away from her. He pushed open the heavy wooden door. At the font, he dipped his fingers and crossed himself. Inside, the church was crowded. People prayed in hushed voices. Some were kneeling at the marble altar. Others sat in the pews, their rosary beads clicking through their fingers.

Brendan crossed himself again and approached
the altar. He knelt and prayed to St. Jude. Standing, he crossed himself again. For a few seconds, he hesitated, considering lighting candles for his parents. His mother had been devout. His father, if he were alive, would be working on a drink right now. The idea of candles would make him laugh.

Brendan made his way back down the aisle. The stained glass window splintered the sunlight into a hundred colors. The murals on the walls seemed vivid, like living scenes beneath the high ceiling. The very walls seemed to breathe hope, calmness. Brendan wet his fingertips in the holy water, then hesitated again. He hated to leave. He didn't want to see the frightened faces in the streets, the smoke that was beginning to cloak the city. He took a deep breath and pushed on the door, then went out. He had taken three steps when the earth jolted beneath his feet again.

Dai Yue screamed before she could stop herself. The tremor moved through the earth, into her belly, rattling the calmness that she had worked so hard to maintain. The Earth Dragon Day Leong was still angry, still shifting. The Fon Kwei going in and out of the church had all noticed her, their curiosity plain to see. She had wanted to shout at them, to tell them she had no interest in their temple, their weak Fon Kwei god.

Now, as the earth trembled, she wondered if their god could hear her thoughts so close to his temple. Had she angered him? Was this a warning? Or was this the tremor that would open the earth at her feet and swallow her? She closed her eyes and tried
not to imagine the weight of earth and fallen bricks crushing her.

“Dai Yue!”

She looked up to see Brendan running toward her, his steps labored, off-balance, as he fought the shaking in the ground. He ran, taking a serpent's path through the frightened people who stood in ragged groups on the sidewalk. One woman was still wailing, her voice high-pitched, almost painful to hear. An older man sank to the ground and sat, his eyes empty as a bewildered child's. Brendan reached Dai Yue and clasped her hand.

She looked into his strange Fon Kwei face. The earth beneath their feet heaved once more, then lay still again. Brendan shook his head. “I will sure be glad when that stops happening.”

Dai Yue nodded. She turned, still holding his hand, and began walking up Dupont Gai. All she could think about now was her uncle. Was he alive? And would he speak to her or turn her aside for her disobedience?

Dai Yue blinked. Her eyes stung from the smoke in the air. As they went, the tide of humanity coming toward them increased. There were more and more
Celestials here—her own people. Handcarts clattered over the cobblestones, shouts and arguments rang out as wagons and pedestrians competed for room in the street. Dai Yue saw three little boys, still small enough to be dressed by their cautious mother like little girls. Boys were important. They attracted demons more often than girls. Dai Yue shook her head. Maybe girls' clothing would fool the demons, but Day Leong could surely see through the ruse.

Dai Yue heard fragments of conversation as they wove their way along. Everyone was talking about the same thing—there were fires in Chinatown. There were fires all around it. People were afraid.

As they approached the Street of the Sons of Tang, Dai Yue saw a mass of people moving uneasily along the sidewalk in front of the boot and shoe factory. There was a solid line of workers all the way across the front of the tea store. Of course, she realized. None of the factory workers would want to stay at their benches, but they would be reluctant to leave without permission. Any man who went home without permission risked losing his job.

Dai Yue walked faster. Some of the saloons had women standing in front of them, shawls wrapped
hastily over their gaudy dresses. The tailor's shop was damaged. Its front windows had shattered, spraying a glitter of glass out into the street. A strong, warm odor of tobacco drifted from the cigar factories.

“How much farther?” Brendan asked.

Dai Yue gestured. “Not far.” She searched his eyes. Was he going to leave her here? She glanced around. Among the hundreds of men were a few women. Some of them looked respectable. Perhaps she could ask one of them for news of her uncle, for help.

A man bumped into Dai Yue and Brendan tightened his hold on her hand. “Show me which way you need to go.” He leaned close and almost shouted so that she could hear him over the street noise.

Dai Yue nodded, then noticed a man staring at her. She averted her eyes, only to meet the gaze of another man glaring in her direction. She became acutely aware of Brendan's hand on hers. What would her uncle think when he saw them walking together? What would he do?

There were only a few people headed toward the center of Chinatown. The street was swarming with dark-coated men trying to get out. Here and
there women and children walked with their heads down, their possessions tied in bundles on their backs.

Dai Yue walked beside Brendan along Sacramento Street. She was grateful for his kindness, but the closer they got to Chinatown's narrow streets, the more foolish she felt. Her uncle was not going to welcome this stranger.

Dai Yue tried to hurry. For the first time she realized that her feet hurt. She was not used to walking so far on cobblestones. She turned left onto Brooklyn Place, cutting in front of two old men as she passed the laundry on the corner. She waited until they were past the shirt factory, then looked back. Some of the lodgers on the second story of the laundry were on their balconies, gathering up their belongings.

Dai Yue darted into an alleyway, Brendan close behind her. She saw a collapsed lodging house and caught a glimpse of someone trapped in the wreckage. She turned right, then left, passing a restaurant and a tailor's shop. On the next block, four buildings lay in ruins. Dai Yue could feel her heart thudding against her ribs. Two more turns, and she would be able to
see her uncle's pharmacy. She was so frightened and so worried that several seconds passed before she realized that the earth was moving once more.

The ground beneath her feet quivered, then jolted. The street noise died for a few seconds, then rose again. Dai Yue felt her heart quicken with fear, but the tremor was over so quickly that she didn't have time to get really frightened. Still, the tremor seemed to shake her free of her indecision. She stopped and faced Brendan. “You go now. I am home.”

He looked puzzled. “Where? Here? You live in one of the shop buildings?”

She shook her head. “You go. I thank you.”

Brendan was looking into her eyes. “Are you sure?”

Dai Yue nodded, freeing her hand from his. “Yes.”

Brendan's eyes clouded and she saw that he was afraid of something. She looked around the crowded street. Was it as strange for him to be surrounded by her people as it was for her to be surrounded by his?

“You go home,” Dai Yue said gently.

Brendan hesitated. “I stay in a warehouse down by the ferry.” He shrugged. “From the hill it looked like that whole stretch was on fire.”

“You have no father?”

Brendan shook his head. “And it's better that way. I do all right.”

“I have only uncle,” Dai Yue said. She searched for a Fon Kwei word to describe her uncle's strict, cold nature. “He is mean.”

She watched Brendan's eyes cloud again. “My father was mean when he was drunk.”

“Uncle not drink.” Dai Yue hesitated. His eyes remained on hers, questioning. “He find husband.” She stopped again, her eyes flooding, unable to say more.

“For you? Someone you don't like?”

Dai Yue wiped at her eyes. “An old man. Fat. Mean.”

Brendan kicked at the cobblestones. “He can't make you marry someone like that.”

Dai Yue nodded. “Chou Yee have good family. Rich.”

Brendan was shaking his head. “But if you don't like him—”

“I go now. I thank you.”

Before Brendan could answer, Dai Yue turned and ran. She rounded the corner, then turned once more, racing down the narrow alley. She burst out onto the
street and stumbled to a halt, looking wildly down the block. There were four men lighting strips of scarlet paper afire and tossing them down into a hole they had dug. Dai Yue hoped their offerings of sacred red paper would appease Day Leong, calm him.

Dai Yue started up the street, disoriented, then realized her uncle's shop was a pile of rubble. The three buildings between it and the corner had fallen too. A brick lodging house still stood on this side of the street, but little else.

Dai Yue began to run again, her breath quick little explosions of worry. She stopped in front of the mountain of fractured planks and twisted pieces of wood that had been her uncle's store a few hours before. Scattered through the wreckage, she saw, were broken jars and bottles, their precious contents lost.

“Uncle?”

Dai Yue listened. There was no answer.

“Uncle?” Dai Yue called a second time. A scrap of dark blue cloth caught her eye. She ducked under a protruding beam, then began to climb through the wreckage, her eyes fastened on the cloth. She knew it was her uncle before she could actually see him.
When she did, she caught her breath, scared that he was dead.

“Uncle!”

He moved slightly, groaning. Dai Yue tried to shift the planks that lay uppermost on the pile of wreckage that had pinned her uncle down.

“Uncle!” she screamed.

He opened his eyes. “Dai Yue,” he said, and closed them once more. The ground began to vibrate. Bricks fell, slamming against broken boards a few feet from Dai Yue. She crouched, covering her head with her arms.

Brendan stood, his heart slamming in his chest as the earth quivered and rolled. The wind bells hanging from the balconies above his head swayed, ringing. A shower of bricks crashed around him and he flinched. For a second he tried to make himself run. But what good would that do? Any building could be the one to collapse, to bury him alive.

Finally, the shaking stopped. Brendan was tired, he was hungry, and he felt more alone than he had since the day his father died. He heard shouts and looked up. A heavy-jowled woman stood on a second-story balcony. She was yelling at him, the words razor-sharp and coldly unfamiliar.

Without thinking, Brendan ran until her voice
faded behind him. Then he stopped again. He shivered. His old bakery route had included two stops at the white groceries on Dupont Street in the middle of Chinatown. Usually, he liked the exotic smells and sounds, the sight of the black-coated men with their long queues and the delicate, flowerlike women. But the alleys and the narrow streets had always scared him.

All his life, people had told him there were tunnels beneath the streets, miles of them, where the opium addicts and the lepers lived. Brendan had never talked to anyone who had actually seen the tunnels, but it seemed possible. There was an air of secrets and mystery in Chinatown.

Four men appeared around the corner. Their faces were twisted into grim frowns. They walked fast, one older man in front of the others. Brendan tried to step aside, but he wasn't fast enough. The older man pushed past him. One of the three who followed pushed him a second time, glaring into his face.

Brendan regained his balance. When none of them even looked back at him, his heart began to slow. He waited until they were almost out of sight, then
followed the alleyway. He tried to recall the turns Dai Yue had made. It was confusing. The buildings were close together and the signs and bright red banners meant nothing to him.

Turning right, Brendan searched for something familiar about the buildings that would let him know that he was on the right path. Finally he spotted a laundry he was nearly certain they had passed on the way in. A few hundred feet farther on, he bore left into another narrow alleyway.

With every step, Brendan's uneasiness increased. The alleyways were full of people and every time his eyes met someone else's he saw surprise harden into hostility. He wanted to explain why he had come into their part of the city, but he knew he couldn't. So he hurried, glancing up just often enough to keep from bumping into anyone.

As he got closer to Brooklyn Place, Brendan hesitated. He was starting to regret his decision not to get his pouch. The idea of losing his mother's ring and his father's watch made him feel almost sick.