Earthquake (4 page)

“Yes,” Brendan almost shouted at the man. “She belongs to my family. She helps our cook.”

The man looked back at Brendan, taking in his worn jacket, his patched trousers, and his thin-soled shoes. “Who's your father?”

Brendan mumbled something, pulling Dai Yue forward and to the side. He walked fast, weaving his way through the shouting men, Dai Yue so close behind him that she kept stepping on his heel.

“Malloy!”

Brendan searched for the source of the shout.

“Malloy! James! Thompson!”

It was a gray-haired man standing almost in the center of the broad street, between the cable car tracks. As Brendan watched, Mr. Malloy and two other men responded to the shout. They stood in a loose circle and Brendan could hear the gray-haired man's words.

“Fires are spreading. Hopper is already out there somewhere. Find out the origins and extent of the fires, and if you can ascertain the direction they are spreading, maybe we can help the police and the firemen. Whole sections of the city are going to have to be evacuated.”

Brendan felt Dai Yue tug at his hand. “Fire?”

Brendan nodded slowly, noticing for the first time the faint smell of smoke in the air. He pictured the three enormous ovens at old man Hansen's bakery. If the earthquake had upset them, there would be
coals scattered across the plank floor right now, eating their way into the wood.

A soft hissing sound caught Brendan's attention. He ignored Dai Yue's insistent glare to focus on it.
Gas,
he thought, his stomach tightening. The gas lines had been broken.

“Is that you, O'Connor?”

Mr. Malloy's voice startled Brendan. “Yes, sir?”

The tall, mustached man gripped his shoulder. “It isn't safe here, son. The fires will likely come this way.” His gaze shifted to Dai Yue. “And you should get this young lady back to her home. People are a little on edge right now.”

Brendan nodded, but Mr. Malloy was already striding away. A motion across the street caught Brendan's eye. On the second story a dentist's sign swayed. A second later, Brendan felt the earth beginning to move again.

The crowd fell silent. Men gazed at the sky or gaped at the cobblestone beneath their feet. Brendan felt his heart race. The tremor loosened a few bricks, which crashed to the street. Then it faded. Church bells all over the city rang three or four times, then stopped.

Brendan glanced at Dai Yue. Her glare had softened into a dazed expression. She followed without resistance when he led her forward. There was less rubble in the street here. The cable tracks were undamaged.

A woman pushing a pram jammed with alabaster statues and an oval gilt mirror passed them, nearly running. Her dressing gown was stained and torn. Her face was smudged. Her expression mirrored the faces around her. She looked stunned, unsure of everything.

Brendan guided Dai Yue up onto the sidewalk at the corner of Dupont Street. A man dragging a heavy trunk nearly ran into them. He did not apologize. He barely looked at them. A cart horse lay dead in the street and Brendan glanced away, thinking about Hansen's mare. Maybe he should have chased her down Market. What would he tell old man Hansen? Would he ever see him again?

“I want to go home,” Dai Yue said, pulling him to a halt.

“That's where we're going,” Brendan told her. He pointed. Dupont Street rose steadily toward Chinatown. “I have to go to St. Mary's,
then I'll help you get back to your family.” He watched her face. It had gone blank again. A sudden thought occurred to him. “Don't you have a family?”

Dai Yue frowned. “One uncle.”

Brendan took a deep breath. He could smell smoke more strongly now, he realized. “I have to go to—”

“No. I want to go home,” Dai Yue interrupted.

Abruptly, Brendan let go of her hand. What gave her the right to demand anything from him? “I'm going to St. Mary's. If you want to come, you can.” He started up Dupont Street. When he glanced back Dai Yue was standing on the sidewalk, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. He gestured for her to follow. She did not shake her head or react in any way; she did not move.

Brendan turned away. He wanted, more than anything, to hold his leather pouch. The money in it had taken him three years to save. Three years of listening to old man Hansen's tirades.

Brendan walked faster. The Chinese girl would be fine. She was less than a mile from her family. And she obviously did not want his help. Brendan refused to look back. She was probably gone by now, taking some other route back to Chinatown.
It was rumored that Chinatown was built on top of a warren of underground passages. Maybe she knew some secret way home.

A man wearing six expensive hats, one stacked on top of the other, passed him. Brendan blinked. He knew one of those hats was worth more than everything in his leather pouch. The man was whistling, smiling, as though he were talking a stroll for his health. Brendan followed him for half a block, entranced by the man's strangeness, the stares that he drew from the crowd.

“Help me with this.”

Brendan felt a hand on his arm. The gray-haired woman was wearing a ruffled lavender dressing gown. Her lips were rouged and her hair stuck up in every direction. It looked wet and smelled of perfumed soap.

“Help me. Are you deaf, dearie?”

Brendan shook his head. The woman was like a figure from a dream. The street, the people, even the blue sky above his head and the sun streaming down between the buildings seemed false, like scenery on a stage that could be snatched away at any second.

“Just carry this for me.”

The woman was pointing at an iron birdcage. Inside it, a big gray parrot with crimson tail feathers was pacing back and forth on its perch.

“Please hurry up,” the woman commanded.

“Hurry up,” the parrot echoed.

Brendan blinked. The bird had matched its mistress's voice exactly. The woman tapped Brendan's shoulder with a sharp forefinger. “I have a sister in Oakland. I want to get down to the ferry at the end of Market Street.”

Brendan reached up to tighten the bandage Dai Yue had wrapped around his head. The crowd of oddly dressed people was thickening by the moment. Through the shifting throng he caught a glimpse of Dai Yue. She had not moved from where he'd left her. Brendan shook his head in disbelief.

“You won't? You won't help me?” The woman in lavender ruffles began to cry. The parrot tilted its head to one side, watching her.

“I'll carry the cage back down to Market Street,” Brendan said quickly.

The tears vanished and the woman smiled like a happy child. “Fine. Market Street, then. At least
it's a start.”

Brendan put his arms around the cage and lifted. It was heavy, but he could manage if he walked slowly. The parrot crossed its perch and reached through the bars to fiddle with his shirt buttons. Brendan worked his way along the sidewalk. He stopped twice to get a grip on the cage. The woman waited impatiently each time.

Brendan finally spotted Dai Yue. Her eyes were moving, flickering across the crowds as people passed her. She still had not moved at all and her posture was rigid, tense. As he watched, a man bumped into her and shouted angrily. Dai Yue lowered her head as he finished his cursing. Brendan tried to walk faster. The bottom of the birdcage banged his knees painfully with every step. He kept his eyes on Dai Yue. She took two uncertain steps, then stopped again.

◊ ◊ ◊

Dai Yue was trying hard to calm her breathing. Her head felt too large, full of air; her thoughts spun like kites. The earth was going to shake again. Day Leong was not finished with them yet. She was sure of it. The earth would leap and twist and she would fall beneath the feet of all these ugly Fon Kwei. They would trample her. Or maybe they would turn upon
her in an instant and beat her to death the way they had killed her cousin. Dai Yue watched the crowd. The pale faces that surrounded her were blank, or laughing absurdly, or scowling in pointless rage—they were all half mad. She was afraid to move, terrified she would bump one of them, would do something that would cause them all to stop and look at her, to notice that she did not belong here with them.

Dai Yue could feel demons all around her, too, invisible, ferocious. There were no bells here, no incense, no paintings of tigers or dragons to frighten them away. Nothing was right. Nothing would ever be right again. Dai Yue knew she had ruined everything by running from her uncle's shop. He would not forgive her for her disobedience. Her ancestors would not forgive her.

“Dai Yue!”

She heard the boy's voice and felt her heart ease a little. A moment later she saw him, carrying a parrot cage that was nearly as tall as he. A Fon Kwei woman in a loose, flapping dress followed him, her face too pale, too pink.

Dai Yue strengthened herself against false hope. There was no reason to assume this boy would help her. He had been angry when he left.

She watched him as he went by, barely nodding. She had to blink back tears. He carried the birdcage to the corner. She was sure that within a few seconds, he would pass out of sight, and she would be truly alone. But he set the cage down and stood talking to the woman. When he finally started back toward Dai Yue, she began to cry.

“I'm sorry I left you here,” the boy said when he got closer.

Dai Yue nodded, wiping at her face, ashamed of her weakness. “I not afraid.”

The boy smiled. “Of course not. And my old man never touched a drop of whiskey in his life.”

Dai Yue searched his eyes. She had understood most of the words, but couldn't see what his father's drinking habits had to do with anything. His earnest eyes were on hers. Their pale blue color made him look dreamy and strange, like a very old man who could not see far.

Dai Yue hated being this close to so many Fon Kwei. “We go now?”

The boy seemed not to hear her. “There are fires starting up everywhere, I bet.”

Dai Yue glanced up at the tall buildings. Most of
them were brick. Would they burn? She shuddered, thinking of her uncle's wooden shop, the plank buildings on either side of it that had been built so close that the walls touched.

She looked up the street, wondering which way she should go to find her way home. The buildings were close together. There were business offices on the lower floors, but there were curtains, not signs, in the upper stories. People were poking about the doorways like ants after their hill has been kicked apart.

Dai Yue closed her eyes against the whirl of thoughts. She had to get home now, but she had no idea which way the wagon had brought her. How could she have been so foolish?
But,
a voice whispered in her mind,
if you go back, you will have to marry Chou Yee.
She shuddered.

“Are you sick?” The Fon Kwei boy searched her face. His blue eyes looked like glass. “I think we'd better go.”

Dai Yue nodded. She tried to move, but her feet would not obey her. The boy took her hand. He pulled, gently, and she found herself able to follow.

“Got yourself a friend?” A tall, leering man leaned
toward them as they passed. His back was against a brick wall, a bottle in his right hand. He grinned at Dai Yue's glance. She quickly looked away. Her eyes skipped over a dead cart horse, a weeping woman, a tree split down its center, the white inner wood laid bare.

“I have to get something from St. Mary's,” the boy was saying. “You can wait for me, though. I won't be long.”

Dai Yue nodded, hoping she had understood. Maybe by the time they got to the Fon Kwei church, she would find her courage and be able to go on alone. The church was on the edge of Chinatown. Everyone knew its square tower, the slender crosses upon it.

“Oh, God, my baby!”

The Fon Kwei boy hesitated at the sound of the desperate voice. Dai Yue turned to look.

“My baby is in there. She's crying!” A heavyset woman pounded on a closed door, then spun around, scanning the crowd on the sidewalk. No one responded. Perhaps no one had heard. The streets were noisier now, jammed with people intent on their own troubles and destinations. The woman turned back to the door.

“Why doesn't she just go in?” the boy whispered.

Dai Yue looked at the house. Something was wrong with it, but it took a moment for her to figure it out. When she did, she nudged the Fon Kwei boy. “The house . . .” She searched for the words. “Not straight up. Door not open.”

The boy looked puzzled, then his eyes lit. “The frame is crooked?”

Dai Yue did not understand the word “crooked,” but she nodded, sure he had gotten her meaning. As if to illustrate her thoughts, the woman had taken hold of the door handle and was jerking on it, sobbing, frantic.

The Fon Kwei boy squeezed Dai Yue's hand, then released it and stepped off the sidewalk. “I'll be right back. Stay here.”

Dai Yue watched him go, the cold fear seeping back into her stomach. She did not want to be alone. Making a sudden decision, she followed him across the street.

“My baby is in there!” the woman shouted as they got closer.

“Maybe I can help,” the boy called.

Dai Yue watched the woman. Her tear-streaked
face was desperate. “Some other men tried. They tried and they couldn't. They said they would come back, but they . . .” Her voice trailed off.

The Fon Kwei boy walked up the steps and tried pulling on the door handle. He braced his feet, then heaved backward. He tried twice more. Giving up, he stepped back, lifting his chin as he looked upward.

Dai Yue followed his gaze up the brick wall. There were three windows on the second story. A business sign with the crawling-bug writing of the Fon Kwei blazoned across it hung beneath the open window that faced the street. Dai Yue watched the boy. She saw him measure the distance to the window with his eyes, then look at her.

“If I stood on that,” he said slowly, pointing at the heap of rubble from the collapsed building next door, “I could climb up, I think.” He gestured at the window.