Galveston (24 page)

“Yes, looks like a Gypsy camp out there,” said Rubin. “But at least I don't think there were many people hurt. No deaths, I don't think, though who would know at this point?”

“Oh, Claire, you should have seen the sight up close. The flames were the biggest I've ever seen and all the wildfowl—geese, ducks, sea gulls—were circling back and forth above like vultures over a dead man.”

“Course it would have never spread so far except for the wind,” said Rubin. “The wind carried sparks and pieces of burning wood over the housetops so that it was virtually impossible to extinguish what was already afire and catch up with the progress of the blaze at the same time.”

“What about the fire department? Was it effective?”

“As much as could be expected,” said Charles, “though God knows they're going to be verbally massacred because the fire reached such great proportions. The water supply's at fault, not the firemen. But there were enough people around the city who were against changing over from the volunteer system so that the new paid department is bound to become the scapegoat. That's the way people are, I guess.”

“What about your office, Charles?”

“No damage there that I know of. But then I didn't cover the whole area. I heard somebody say the new public school building went down.…”

“Yes, and the Exchange Hotel. They say that the fire spread to the rear of the courthouse, but the building was saved.”

“And there were some homes destroyed on Broadway further down from where Pete lives.”

“There's no way of getting a full account of it now,” said Rubin. “Last night it was sheer mayhem, nobody stopped long enough to ask questions.”

“When was the thing finally put out?” I asked him.

“Must have been six-thirty or seven.”

“Lord, better than five hours of burning,” I said, only then realizing the degree of seriousness of the fire.

It was several days after that we began to learn the full details. The fire's source was thought to be in a furnace inside the Vulcan Foundry which had been left burning Friday night. Apparently the winds, which reached a velocity of thirty miles per hour during the night, stirred up the flames and sent sparks flying out the vent. Of course, from there the fire went wild. Probably because of the fact it started early in the morning when no one was awake, the fire alarm was not sounded immediately. By the time the badly understaffed fire department arrived, they had a king-size holocaust on their hands.

The fire covered not twenty but forty blocks of Galveston, and it left twenty-five hundred people homeless. The whole city was immobilized by it, and five days later there was a meeting called at noon in the Cotton Exchange Building, for considering how best to help those who suffered and rebuild what was destroyed.

Charles and Pete, Lucien and also Rubin were in the audience. Charles told me upon his return that the meeting had been presided over not by Mayor Fuller, but by George P. Stanley, one of the principal stockholders in the Wharf Company. Mayor Fuller and other members of the Wharf Company sat up at the head table. I could see by Charles's expression that afternoon he was disturbed by the meeting.

“They've assessed actual damages in dollars at something over a million, but I don't know … somehow that seems a little low because it must be too early to tell. Anyway, they've set up several subcommittees to handle the work involved in getting necessities to the families who were put out of their homes.

“Then there's the task of doling out the money that's been pledged. That's where the trouble comes in. It seems that offers for help came from cities all across the country—Dallas, Memphis, St. Louis, Boston, New Orleans, to name a few. And do you know what Fuller did with most of them? He flat turned them down. I remember one particular letter from some group in Boston was read aloud. Fuller had replied, ‘Thanks—but our affluent can take of our poor.' Those exact words, I'll never forget them.

“When I heard that, I was livid. Doubtless Fuller expected a great round of applause for his illustration of faith in Galveston's ability to solve her own problems. But I thought it was unforgivably crude and stupid, and I stood up and told him so.”

“You did?”

“I told him I had no idea that Galveston—or any other city—was so self-sufficient it could exist through any circumstances without benefit of outside help, but I thought before he so cavalierly, and, I might add, curtly, turned down offers from people who only wanted to help us, he might well have checked with a few of those people who lost everything they owned in the fire. They might just have felt differently.”

“Then what happened?”

“Oh, there was some applause, I guess … and I was sorry I had said anything because it looked like I was playing to the gallery, when I really wasn't.”

“Did the mayor answer your statement?”

“He said in his most well-oiled tones, ‘My appreciation for your thoughts, of course, Mr. Becker, but might I remind you, you are not mayor yet.'”

We weren't sure how Charles's outburst would affect the campaign, but then, once again we had the
News
on our side. An editorial entitled “Facts and False Pride” came out shortly after the meeting, calling the mayor's action a bad blunder and reminding the members of the relief committee that every hour was bringing more proof that the seriousness of the calamity had at first been underestimated, and we could most assuredly use all the help we could get. The exchange between Mayor Fuller and Charles was not mentioned, a fact for which Charles was thankful. He felt the fact he had made his feelings known and that the
News
agreed with him was more than sufficient.

By Christmastime the city still labored under a cloud of sadness and hopelessness brought on by the fire. To drive downtown was a miserable experience; seeing acres and acres of charred ruins reminded me of accounts I had read of the burning of Atlanta during the war. No one doubted eventually that part of the city would be built again; still, it gave one a helpless feeling to know that in one swift, deadening stroke, the lives of hundreds could be affected. I only drove down to see it once. I couldn't bear to look at it again. Madame LaRoche's place had been burned to the ground, and she had left the city for good, saving only the clothes on her back and a box of family treasures, a few jewels which had been handed down to her from ancestors in Louisiana. Faye told me of her leaving, but did not know where she had gone, and we have never found out.

We kidded ourselves it was the fire to be blamed for the slim showing of people at the Christmas Eve service at St. Christopher's. This service traditionally filled the church to capacity. Every family came—even those whose attendance at other times of the year was sporadic at best.

This year, however, was an exception, and I still imagine part of the reason was that some St. Christopher's families had suffered by the fire. But there were not enough such families to have made the great difference that Christmas Eve, and we might not have known the main reason for the sparse attendance except that one of the vestrymen, Marvin Goethe, told Charles that over the past few months, around fifty families had notified Rubin they were transferring their membership from St. Christopher's elsewhere. Many of these worked for, or were somehow connected with, the Galveston Wharf Company.

Rubin would have never said. He is that kind of man. Charles was aghast at the news, and both of us knew well what was happening at St. Christopher's. Christmas Day he spent some time talking privately with Rubin, and I fully expected him to walk out of their talk ready to give up running for mayor, but he did not. Not then.

Chapter 6

It was a time for unusual events: a time of manipulation by things beyond our control. Charles's first campaign speech for the new year's thrust was slated for January eleventh. Sometime during the early morning hours of January tenth, snow began to fall.

“If I hadn't seen it myself I would have never believed it,” he said, looking out the window on the morning of the tenth. The ground was already covered with a white carpet of snow; the fences looked as though they'd been sprinkled with sugar, and children were outside playing, throwing snowballs and building their snowmen. “If this keeps up, I guess I'll have to cancel the rally tomorrow night.”

The snow was a beautiful sight to behold, more beautiful in Galveston—with the houses close together and the snow along the fences forming a sparkling chain, linking all of us together as a unit—than in Grady, where snow comes a sight more often, and only adds to the bleakness of the sparsely populated landscape out from town.

“Look, there's Janet,” I said. She'd come out on the lawn with Serena, both of them bundled up from head to toe, enjoying the experience of snow together.

“Lord, she stays cooped up so much lately, I guess I hadn't realized how big she was getting,” said Charles.

“Her time is near.”

“You know, I've a good mind to go out there too. Look at Serena—she's having so much fun. I could help her with that snowman.”

“Go on if you want. Maybe you can persuade Janet to act as though she has some common sense and get back indoors. In her condition, really …”

The snow continued for three days, and while I did not get out and Charles only went as far as the yard, we read in the newspaper that snowfall had been measured at some points on the island at twelve to fourteen inches deep. Water in Galveston Bay was frozen, and huge tentacles of ice hung from the sides of oyster boats and schooners docked there.

Galveston has no facility for snow; nor do her people have the means of conducting normal business during a snowfall. There are no sleds, of course, though a few people pulled in small boats and used them for gliding up and down the streets. As a result, the town's serious business took a holiday, just as it had following the fire, only this time the whole atmosphere was one of pleasure seeking. “It might just be the lift all of us needed since the fire,” said Charles. “Sort of a release for all the pent-up frustrations.”

At any rate, it seemed good medicine for Charles and Rubin. They built two snowmen for Serena, and wound up having several free-for-all snowball fights along with neighbors from up and down the street. I stayed inside by the parlor fire most of the time. I couldn't seem to stay warm, and had the feeling in my stomach a good bleeding spell was about to come. I prayed not; I hadn't been through one in such a long time, and if I were to go through another one, I wished most earnestly it would wait until after the election in March.

Charles's first campaign speech for the year was rescheduled for the eighteenth of January, and he had to wear heavy coat, boots, gloves, and woolen neck scarf. “I am not sure whether I'm going to the Union Club tonight, or up to the mountains in North Dakota,” he said, half jokingly and half in irritation. Charles hates to bundle up.

The snow had been slow in melting because the sky had failed to clear, and now the streets were filled with a soup of dirty mud and slush. There was a sparse turnout that night, but it was more than made up for during the speeches which followed in the next couple of weeks. “It's hard to get a second wind, though,” Charles said one night. “I almost wish the election had been done with at the end of the summer.”

“It's just the cold. By election time the weather might be prettier, and all of us will feel a lot better if it is.”

“That reminds me, have you heard from Janet or Rubin?”

“Not in the past couple of days. I saw Rubin once, and he told me he's sticking close by. Janet hasn't been out of the house since that morning she played in the snow with Serena.”

“Is Serena going to stay with us for a few days after the baby comes?”

“No. I believe Mrs. McCambridge from the church is coming. Her husband is on a boat right now, and she has time on her hands. She'll watch after Janet and Serena, and cook for the family.”

“Oh, I was hoping Serena would stay here.”

“You'll have enough on your hands without worrying about a child.”

“She wouldn't be any worry.”

One afternoon in mid-February a man whom I had never seen came to our door. He was slightly built, carrying a satchel, and wearing a big coat and a black derby. He inquired in the politest tones whether Charles was home.

“Not yet, though I do expect him any minute. Is there something I can do for you?”

“My name is Marcus Keyroy, and I'd like to see Mr. Becker if I may. It concerns some private business.”

“Do come in. Warm yourself by the fire, Mr. Keyroy. Will you have some coffee? Let me take your overcoat?”

“No thank you. I won't be staying long,” he said. He stood in front of the fire, warming his hands and looking above the mantel at a landscape Janet had painted for us one Christmas.

“Nice painting,” he remarked finally. “Galveston in summertime. Warms one to his very soul on a day like this.”

I agreed with him—this was one of my favorite of the paintings Janet had done for us—and before I could tell him she had painted it, I heard Charles enter the back door. “Oh, there he is now. Ill just fetch him and tell him you're here.”

“Many thanks, Mrs. Becker. You're very kind.”

Yet Charles didn't recall the man's name. “Oh well, I've met so many people the past few months, I'll probably remember when I see him,” he said.

He went into the parlor while I hung up his coat, and then I heard the two of them walk into Charles's study and close the door. They were closeted in there for such a long time that eventually I ate my supper alone and left Charles's plate on top of the stove. Finally, I heard the doors open and waited to see if Charles would invite the man to stay and eat. But then I heard the front door open and shut, and Charles's footsteps back into the parlor.