The Siren's Tale (33 page)

I returned to San Francisco
in May and was sickened by the devastation. The bravery of those who remained was far beyond any drama I might have conceived of.

Several months later, I
was walking past Grace Cathedral Church, picking my way through the scaffolding and the rubble on Nob Hill, when I saw my old friend Ian Scattergood coming out of what remained of the Union Club.

Catching sight of me, he waved and moved as qu
ickly toward me as his increasing girth would allow. I kissed Ian on his bearded chin, then took his arm. We continued to walk down the hill to my waiting carriage. I was chattering away about my recent experiences in Hollywood, dropping names, as this gambit never failed to amuse him. I stopped, however, when I noticed there was no appetite on his part for inside gossip. 

“
Anything the matter, Ian?”

He cleared his throat.
”Cassie, have you had any news from Wyoming recently?”

“
Let's see. Back in March I had a letter from grandfather. It was just the usual gossip about the Bottomly crowd. He talks of visiting, but he never comes. I have tried sending him train tickets, but he sends them back unused.”

I looked more c
losely at my old friend. Something was definitely the matter.  

“
Has anything happened? Ian, what is it? Is my grandfather dead?”

“
Your husband, Cassandra. Nicholas Brighton is dead.” As he blurted the news, his eyes filled with tears. “I am so sorry, Cassie.” 

I
was frozen to the spot, watching dully as Ian pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “There was a letter that came to me from Clare. Nicholas was killed in the earthquake.”

“
Earthquake? Where?”

“
The earthquake here.”

“
Nicholas was here in San Francisco in April? Why?”

“
The YMCA had him here to lecture on Indian land rights.” 

There was no need for him to say what we both were thinking, that
Nicholas had perhaps also harbored a hope of seeing me while he was in town. I was desperately trying to absorb the fact that Nicholas Brighton was dead. That was the third death since the curse. I was adjusting my gloves, however, as though my world had not just gone down a sinkhole. Ian was waiting for me to speak.

“
W-W-Where…was…he…when…he—he…died?”

“
They found him on lower Market Street. A row of buildings across from the Ferry Building collapsed. The body was not discovered for a week, and then it took even longer to identify him. No one in Wyoming knew he was here. His next of kin were only recently notified that the body was being sent by train to Alta.”

“
The next of kin. Then there is I, the less than kind.” I began to laugh hysterically. Passersby stopped and stared.

Ian grabbed me by the shoulders
and shook me gently. “Calm down, girl. It isn’t like you to fall apart. Steady as you go.”

H
ysterical laughter had turned into blubbery sobs and tears. Ian offered his handkerchief. “Here, use this.”

I blew
my nose and managed a faint smile.  

“
It seems God has a perverse sense of humor, Ian. He has turned me into my own worst enemy. Take a look at the new Widow Brighton.”

Several months later, on a cold and foggy summer day, I was sitting by myself in the back row of a re-built storefront theater on Castro Street. My friend
Bibi was rehearsing a script called “The Squaw Man.”   

I was there to give her coaching, but my mind
was morbidly focused on the past. Since learning of my husband's death, I was haunted by scene after scene of our relationship, though I had never been troubled by such flashbacks before. On that day, I was thinking how I had dressed up as Sacajawea the first time I saw him.   

The rehearsal ended in late afternoon, and the movie screen was drawn down. That evening they were going to offer several films to the public, including
“The Kiss,” a popular short since 1897, and a travelogue.   

After a short
conversation with Bibi about changes in the script, I declined her invitation to a post-rehearsal party in North Beach.  

“
Cassie doesn’t love us anymore,” said Bibi with a pout. “She won't go dancing with us.”

My
excuse was that I wished to stay on and watch “The Kiss.”

But hardly had the screen beg
un to flicker than I fell fast asleep in my chair. Truthfully, I was a bit the worse for wear from a bout of heavy drinking prior to my arrival at the theater that afternoon. I had begun using alcohol to ease the pain of my guilty conscience. There were many citizens self-medicating with alcohol in those days to get themselves through the grim post-earthquake period. But to all appearances, there was no reason for me to be depressed. I had experienced no first-hand trauma. My career had suffered no major reversal. Miraculously, my living quarters and employment were intact, and none of my immediate friends had been killed. Only my poor husband.

I
had been saved and Nicholas had died. With him had gone my carefully composed sense of equilibrium. The emotions I felt over his death were magnified by the memory of Drake's death on Hatter's Field. There, too, I had been saved and the man I loved suffered the dire consequences of the curse on me.

I also thought with grief and regret of my
hardheartedness toward Nicholas. My selfishness haunted me, day and night.

In a
recurring dream, Nicholas sat in his chair by the fire and stared at me reproachfully, the way he had looked at me after the incident of the closed door. Sometimes it seemed as though he had a pressing message for me. I would wake up with an eager sensation of waiting for him to enlighten me. Was my husband trying to tell me something from beyond the grave? If so, what was the message?

I had dozed off
and suffered the dream again while the theater was dark. When I woke up, I found myself alone in the theater. A travelogue was coming on the screen: “A Trip Thru Market Street.”  

I shook myself
fully awake and focused my eyes with mixed eagerness and dread on the screen.

I had not yet
seen the startling footage everyone was talking about. Movie industry people are a close-knit group, really an extended family. They were all talking about the travelogue, and I had seen ads promoting it in the
New York Clipper
, a show biz paper.

The short film
presented moving images of pre-earthquake San Francisco. The Miles brothers had mounted a camera on a streetcar and driven it down the four-mile length of Market Street, only a few days before the buildings and the people in them were demolished in the earthquake. The Miles brothers’ offices on Market were destroyed in the disaster, but luckily they had sent off the film to New York the day before the earthquake hit.  

The screen flickered for thirty se
conds, and then the film began. Scenes of the street life were immediately mesmerizing. Buildings like the Nathan Hale appeared and the street unfolded before me, the street that was now in ruins, undergoing reconstruction. I saw a dray with “Eureka California” on the side of it, a carriage with a little boy looking out the back of the curtain. As the streetcar made the wide curve by the Ferry Building, I saw newsboys heading toward the mounted camera, waving their papers in their cold, bare hands. 

When the film was over, I went up into the projection booth and asked the operator if he would run it again. He seemed
to know who I was. He kept looking at my coursing red-gold hair with the jagged white streak. Though I was known for my platinum bob, I had reverted to my natural color as penance. My agent hated it because the white streak aged my image. Defiantly, I had reams of photos made of me in my retro hairdo. 

Since
the projectionist had nothing better to do that night, he was glad to oblige me, particularly after I gave him a ten-dollar tip. He ran the film again and again, and yet twice more, six times in all. I watched in silence, intently searching for my husband. I was sure I would find him. I desperately wanted one last glimpse of his face, but here was a situation where my siren gifts were powerless to help me. 

It was eerie the way the images took me immediately back in time, back to life in the City exactly the way it was before the disaster. Market Street’s 120-foot-wide, rough-and-tumble expanse of dirt road and street-car tracks stretched out before me, framed with tall buildings and all a-bustle with people, horses, and vehicles, their paths
criss-crossing as they carried out their ordinary activities, the images zooming in and then receding.

D
rays passed the camera, filled with barrels of coffee, tea, and spices, as Market Street had been a busy wholesale spice district. I laughed aloud at the speedy roadsters that appeared and re-appeared, circling the streetcar to give the appearance of a multitude. There were still only a few thousand of these vehicles in the entire country, but the magic of film made it appear San Francisco had the lion’s share of them. 

The drivers laughed and waved, as did everyone who ow
ned such an enjoyable machine. The sight made me nostalgic for my grandfather, who had driven me around Bulette in his Model T while my mother-in-law lay dying. Having begun its journey at Eighth Street before gilt-domed City Hall, the streetcar made its slow and bumpy progress all the way down Market. The Ferry Building with its iconic clock tower stood tall and proud, facing the car as it approached the end of the line.

M
y interest was not in the buildings, though some had fallen that would never be seen again. My eyes scanned strangers’ faces, seeking one that would be dearly familiar. Some came at the camera from behind; others appeared to the side, or at a distance. Everyone, man, woman, and child, wore a hat. The women’s were trimmed with feathers and birds, and their long skirts swept the ground. 

With each renewed roll of the film, I studied a different group, hoping to catch certain elegant features on a thin face, an uncommonly wistful look, or a wavy shock of sandy-blond hair.
However, I could not watch the film without becoming painfully aware I was seeing the last day on earth for many a carefree citizen of San Francisco.

T
hough I continued to search, during that afternoon and other times when the film was shown, I never did find a recognizable likeness. All the same, I was sure my husband was there, just out of sight of the camera. I could feel his presence in my bones. 

Nick
had once told me the Indians feared to have pictures taken of themselves, in the belief their souls would be spirited away. Perhaps he felt the same way. Unlike fake reformers who yearned for publicity, if he had seen a camera, he surely would have shied away from it. 

If I were in the City when he arrived and we met by chance or by appointment, w
hat would we have said to each other? Perhaps he would have watched my act, sitting in one of those dark rows at the back. Watching me dance, showing my bare legs to strange men, would he have felt horrified and ashamed? Or would his old enjoyment of my high spirits have been uppermost?

Nick was not a prude like his mother
. I knew he had a secret weakness for men and that I was the only woman he had ever felt desire for. If we had gotten together again, would we have made love?  Would we have made a baby?

Bitter tears were shed as I recalled with
regret how I had denied my gentle husband the pleasures of parenthood by insisting he should wear a shield. I had once thought it would be the end of the world if I got pregnant by him. Perversely, now I wished I had a daughter by such a man, a worthy sire to help me carry on our siren line.

I reviewed my sins of pride
, egoism, and carelessness. I blushed at the harm I had done. At the very beginning, we had been tender. Recollecting our love gave me a cerebral rather than a visceral thrill. Our lovemaking always seemed like minds and souls uniting. With Nick I experienced nothing like the heights of passionate sensual fulfillment I felt with Drake. Sex with my husband had otherworldly attributes. But certainly no one could equal him in my affections and admiration.

In those days, my sexual partners in San Francisco were rare and chosen for their virility and detachment. My male escorts were
chosen for their photographic appeal. Most were homosexual, wonderful dance partners who escorted me home and went off with each other. Was I destined by my nature to lead an empty life, unfulfilled except by work and the applause of strangers? As the theater lights came back on, still I sat in the empty hall, thoroughly dissatisfied with myself, but not knowing what to do about it. 

It was
then that a few words Caleb Scattergood had once said to me, back when he helped me escape from Wyoming, rushed forward into my mind. It was another rescue I owed him for. Like the trumpeting of oncoming cavalry, his words rang out loud and clear: “I don't want my money back, Cassandra. All I want is for you to pay the favor forward.” 

Pay the favor forward. But how?

Suddenly, in a flash, I saw what I must do. I must align myself with the compassionate forces in the universe, as Nicholas had done so naturally and carried off so unselfishly.

Such a shift would not be easily done, for it would require no less than a rehab of my essential character. I would need to force myself to
think and act beyond my own self-interest, which is a siren's strongest primal instinct.

Nobility had never been required of me before, but surely I could do it. First off, there was much for me to be
thankful for, and gratitude was surely a first step toward redemption. Unaccountably and probably undeservedly, my life had been spared twice, while a much more precious soul had been plucked from the planet while he was still engaged in trying to save it. Without a strong standard bearer carrying it forward, Nicholas Brighton's work might be lost for all eternity, wasted for want of a continuance. Surely it was my clear human duty to carry his work on myself.

No siren arrives at such a juncture without wishing there were a wise elder siren nearby to offer advice. There was none to help me carry out what I had decided I must do. And, I am glad to say, no demons arrived to dissuade me from my plan.
But one might say there was an angel nearby, an angel who had the face of my husband. As though in a waking dream, I understood the message Nicholas was trying to tell me from the grave.

H
e was saying: “You have suffered, Cassandra, but you also have been given much. Share more of yourself. Be more than you have been. Be there for others. Today might be your last day on earth. Your life might end suddenly, as it did for me; then it will be too late to reach out.” 

I left the theater in a trance, in which I continued for several days. Though I had
failed to find Nick's face on the flickering screen, his spirit had arisen from the rubble and given me a valuable lesson. Soon after, I set out to do something about my epiphany. I made a drastic turn in my life and began to lead it differently, focused on giving instead of taking. I would be surprised by an additional payoff for generosity. Eventually, I would get beyond the emptiness that lies at the middle of an existence focused solely on oneself. I would become, for want of a better word, more human.

So it was that
Nicholas Brighton's death had a more profound effect on me than our marriage ever had, and thus was the damage of the curse defeated. As I put on the mantle of his altruistic fervor, I began immediately to champion his causes, of which there were many in the City, that were focused on the poor, the overlooked, and the stranded. 

My first action was to hand over a portion of my
ever-increasing income to Ian Scattergood’s Accountancy Trust for Foundlings. At Christmas, we threw fund-raising parties for the Salvation Army, and when charities came asking for free performances, I volunteered. There was also my inheritance from Nicholas, the Brighton Grange and all the royalties from his books that would come to me as his legal widow. He died intestate, but Ian said the court would eventually award me all his property. With Ian's help, I turned over ownership of the Brighton Grange to Nicholas’s nearest kin, Clare Scattergood. Caleb’s goat farm was doing well, but with all the mouths to feed—Caleb’s younger brother, his wife, and their baby Sarah also lived there—the Scattergoods could use the money. It allowed them to leave their small living space and move their growing family to the Brighton Grange, a home that they adored.