by Ciji Ware
“What are your names? Have you still no drinking water in Chinatown after all this time?” she asked, handing each a mug. They clasped the containers gratefully as if they held ambrosia—though she was certain that Chinese green tea would have been vastly preferred to her English blend.
“I am Loy Chen,” announced the elder of the two. “Foo here, is my cousin. Laundry shop burn up. No water. No money. No can live.”
Amelia deliberately kept her gaze steady. “And so you were siphoning our water. To use at your laundry? I thought everything where you live was burned to the ground.”
“No one here at night, so I take water,” he shrugged. “I do laundry in hole at old shop in Chinatown.” He squinted at her doubtfully. “This your water?”
Amelia had to laugh. “No… it belongs to the owners of the hotel we’re rebuilding.”
“Lady rebuilding hotel?” he asked, plainly skeptical.
“Yes. Two ladies and lots of gentlemen, working very hard, and we need our water.”
“Water in ground,” Loy said firmly. “Belong to everyone. And more come later, when misters need it, right?”
Amelia suppressed a smile. “You have customers for your laundry?”
“Oh yes, missy! City very dirty. Everybody need clean clothes!”
Amelia thought of her own soiled garments that she transported on the ferry to Oakland so that Aunt Margaret could wash them.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said with a sigh. “Clean clothes are a necessity.”
Loy cocked his head and inquired, “You want me wash clothes? I do that—if you give water. I wash all clothes you need, yes?” He shifted his gaze to the small iron stove and the tin of burnt bread resting on top. “I cook for you too. I be houseboy for you—if you give me water!”
Amelia could only imagine the desperate straits suffered by the thousands of Chinese who had been displaced. After the half-hearted attempt to banish the Asians to the periphery of San Francisco, a shadowy consortium of Chinese and Caucasian businessmen had sprung into action. Based on reports in the Call, now publishing out of Oakland, several brothels and opium dens had already reappeared, with City Hall turning a blind eye—and perhaps turning a profit, as well, Amelia thought cynically. She remembered the little man in the ill-fitting suit who had not-so-subtly suggested he could supply workmen approved by city officials. When he was rebuffed at the Fairmont, he’d probably moved on to Chinatown to extort for the mayor and his sidekicks. Amelia had witnessed how hard men like Loy were willing to work—yet were prevented from seeking “white men’s jobs”—and felt a great deal of sympathy for him.
“For the time being,” she said, “and until the waterworks return to Chinatown, you may take what you need. At night.”
“Oh, missy, you very nice lady!” Loy crowed. He beamed triumphantly at little Foo, who, by this time, was so sleepy he was about to topple over onto Julia’s daybed, where the senior architect was known to rest after a long day. “We make good dinner for this lady every night, yes, Foo? We make laundry very white!”
“For your own safety,” Amelia insisted, realizing suddenly that she had made a decision without consulting Julia, “you must come only late at night, after everyone here is asleep, do you understand?”
Amelia noted that Loy had listened carefully to her admonitions as to when he could come onto the property. “Oh yes, missy. We come when very dark.”
She wondered what her strict employer would think of this scheme, not to mention the Law brothers. Even though Julia’s health had improved, she tended to prefer returning by ferry to her own bed in Oakland each night while Amelia continued to sleep on a cot in the Fairmont’s basement. The mains in Chinatown were due to open soon, so Loy’s borrowing water from the Fairmont’s cisterns a few times was unlikely to come under scrutiny. At least she hoped so.
“This is only temporary, you understand? Just for a few days.”
“We come only when okay. Men who work here no like Chinese.”
Amelia sighed and gave a brief nod of agreement. She gazed at Foo who was now dozing while sitting upright. He couldn’t be more than six or seven years old. “Let him sleep, Loy. If I hold the hose for you, you can fill your buckets and transport them to—where? Is anything left of your family’s laundry?”
“All gone ’cept hole on Clay Street.”
“You do laundry in what’s left of a basement?” she asked, thinking of J.D. Thayer, who’d had to live for weeks in what was left of his underground lair before the Law brothers offered him temporary shelter in the Fairmont’s basement while the Bay View was first under construction. The disaster had certainly been a leveler of society. Many in the city were still living like moles. “What about the other members of your family?”
Loy hesitated and lowered his gaze. “Mostly gone now.”
“Back to China?”
“No. Dead. In quake or in fire.”
“All of them?”
“Most. Seven dead. Trapped in house when fire came.”
“I am so sorry.”
She was struck by the unbelievable loss so many had endured, yet people like Loy Chen and J.D. Thayer soldiered on, regardless. It made no difference what nationality or color or sex or class a person was. The suffering was the same.
Amelia gently removed the mug from little Foo’s hand, seized by the memory of Ling Lee’s arm protruding from the rubble on that fateful day. In her mind’s eye, she could still see dead horses and cattle lying in the street, wheelbarrows full of injured children, and the terrible vision of her father with the gaming table and lighting fixture heaped on his shattered body.
These unwanted memories came suddenly, unpredictably, and she found herself choked with emotion over the many deaths she had witnessed, including scores as a volunteer nurse at the Presidio.
For several moments she struggled to regain her composure, then rose from her seat and gestured toward the door. “Come, Loy, we’ll leave Foo here to sleep while I help you siphon some water from the cistern. Then, you must take this child home.”
Home? A burnt-out room among hundreds of burnt-out basements housing the city’s unwanted. It was simply wrong to treat the Chinese so shamefully.
And then Amelia told herself she had her own problems to attend to.
“Let’s work quickly, so we can all get some rest,” she said.
***
J.D. and Amelia stood side-by-side surveying the enormous pile of debris littering the site of the short-lived Bay View Gentlemen’s Gambling Club. Hammers rang out next door as the last floor of the Bay View was about to be enclosed against the elements. J.D. had already moved into a room off the unfinished lobby and was urging Amelia to do the same in order to be on site full time from now until the hotel’s completion.
“When we hook up the water, I mean,” he amended.
“Well, the old cistern’s probably located about… there,” Amelia said, relieved that the issue of her sleeping quarters was postponed for a while. A mountain of the building’s remains would have to be removed before the well would be uncovered.
“What about your grandfather’s safe?” J.D. pressed.
Amelia eyed the debris for a moment and then pointed.
“I expect it’s about twenty feet to the right, under where the bar used to be.”
He heaved a disappointed sigh. “Oh.”
Thayer had not allowed her access to the safe to gather her grandfather’s papers after she’d lost the court hearing. “What’s in the safe, anyhow?” she asked, fighting off a stab of resentment. “The deed to the place?”
She immediately regretted her arched tone and wished she had better control of her emotions when it came to ownership issues of the Bay View.
It’s finished… just accept that and be grateful for what you have…
Instinctively, she slipped her right hand into her pocket and slid her fingertips across the smooth surface of three playing cards she kept close as a strange touchstone to the past.
“Meaning you wouldn’t have to gamble or go into further debt with Ezra Kemp?”
He turned and gave her a measured look, as if weighing the advantages and disadvantages of taking her into his confidence. “It’s bad enough Kemp’s the only source of decent lumber,” he said, “but having to pay nearly double for him to advance it to me on credit is worse, and… if I’m not soon able to pay as I go, he could ultimately end up my partner, which is something I’d like very much to avoid.” He shook his head with an air of discouragement. “The biggest hurdle to getting this lot cleared is that there’re just not enough workers available for this kind of back-breaking labor.”
For a few moments, Amelia and J.D. silently scanned the charred, splintered boards and mounds of broken glass and crumbled concrete.
Finally, Amelia proposed quietly, “I can probably get workers to clear this out.”
J.D. turned and stared.
“How?”
“A Chinese crew.”
“Amelia, don’t be absurd!”
“I think I know a man who can supply you as many workers as you need.”
“Right, and every white laborer I’ve managed to bribe to work here will walk off the job.”
“Not if we build a high fence around the property and the Chinese work from midnight until an hour before the deliveries arrive.”
“So you’ve given this idea some thought?” he asked, regarding her closely.
“Yes, I have.”
A look of skeptical hope filled his eyes. “And you say you can supply these men?”
“I believe so. At any rate, I can ask. Are you willing to take the chance?”
A voice inside Amelia’s head called out… and what kind of chances are you taking? What would Julia Morgan say to this dangerous scheme, proposed without her knowledge or consent?
J.D. regarded his architect for a long moment. “I’ve discovered since you returned from Paris that you’re a woman not to be underestimated, Amelia Bradshaw.”
She ignored the feeling of pleasure that washed over her.
“It’s a very risky proposition, Mr. Thayer.” She wondered if she’d gone slightly mad even to suggest such a scheme. “Dangerous, in fact, for you, for me, and certainly for the Chinese workers. Angus would definitely think we’re completely daft.”
“Angus McClure can be a world-class fussbudget.”
“And we must inform Miss Morgan, of course.”
“No!” he said firmly. “She’d have to advise against it, and I don’t want an argument over this.”
“You do realize that I jeopardize my own position, don’t you? I promised Miss Morgan to keep her informed about everything I do.”
“Then why did you offer to supply Chinese workers when you know your employer would most likely disapprove?”
Amelia flashed him a faintly sheepish smile. “Because I would like nothing better than to see this hotel open on the anniversary of the quake—alongside the Fairmont. We need to rebuild the cistern so we can get our plumbing functional as soon as possible. And,” she added with some vehemence, “I detest Ezra Kemp.”
J.D. paused, his dark eyes revealing nothing. “Well, mostly I’d prefer to beat the Fairmont in this race. But you’re right… hiring Chinese to work at night to clear out this mess appears to be about the only way I can see for both the Morgan firm and the Bay View Hotel to get out from under Kemp’s thumb and finish this hotel on time.”
Amelia remained silent for a moment. Kemp and his ilk were fast acquiring a stranglehold on the recovery of San Francisco. Just as with the cruel discrimination against the Chinese people, their domination of the building trades was increasing by the day. It just wasn’t right!
“So you’re willing to take this risk?” she asked.
“To get the money out of that safe, I’m willing to risk almost anything. But no one must know, Amelia. Not Kemp. Not Miss Morgan. Not the Committee of Fifty. And certainly not Dick Spitz and his men.” He turned, seized her hand, and gave it a conspiratorial squeeze. “I give you my word, we’ll succeed in this, and do it right under their noses!”
Well, now, she thought, enjoying the warmth of his touch, I’ve just shaken hands with the devil.
Chapter 17
A few evenings following Amelia’s late-night visitors outside her basement quarters at the Fairmont, she was again awakened by the muffled sound of the cistern being opened and the low, sing-song chatter of voices. Outside, wispy fog half-obscured the figures of Loy Chen, little Foo, and a third person—all gathered around the open well.
Amelia watched from the basement door as Loy inserted the hose into the cistern. Then he seized the other end and trailed the simple siphoning device down the slope to the huge jug positioned in the wheelbarrow that he used for transporting the water to his makeshift laundry establishment.
As the group wrestled with the unwieldy hose, Amelia realized that the newcomer was a young woman in her late teens with black hair cut in a chin-length bob and shiny as a patent leather shoe.
Amelia returned to her room and reached for her boots—now kept in her satchel at night to avoid their becoming nests for homeless rats. She donned the woolen coat acquired from donations at the Presidio’s Red Cross shelter when she’d served as a nurse, and hurried outside.
“Here.” She smiled at Foo who looked suddenly apprehensive. “Let me give you a hand. Your end of the hose seems to have a mind of its own.” The young Chinese woman helping the child to keep the hose in place darted a fearful glance at her co-workers. “Hello, Loy,” Amelia called softly. The enveloping fog invited whispers. “How’s business?”
“Good!” he replied cheerfully, manning the hose at his end. “Everybody like clean clothes. You up early. How’s hotels?”
“Good,” she echoed. “Everybody wants them to open on time. The workers are doing their best to see that it happens.”
When the enormous jug in the wheelbarrow was filled, the trio at the cistern pulled out the hose and jumped back to avoid getting splashed. Loy smiled. “Thank you, missy. You work hard too.”
“And who is this?” She nodded in the direction of the young woman.
“Cousin. Family dead.”
Even in the diffused light of near dawn, Amelia could see the girl lower her gaze. The skin on her right cheek was scarred, as was her right hand and, Amelia suspected, the arm shielded by her right sleeve.
“What is your name?” she asked gently. Barely out of childhood, the young woman looked up, wide-eyed, and cast a questioning glance at Loy. “Does she not speak any English?” Amelia said to Loy.
“Tell name,” he directed his cohort.
“Shou Shou,” the girl replied, barely above a whisper. She pointed at the laundryman. “Loy save me.”
“From the fire?” Amelia asked, concerned by the scars disfiguring an otherwise lovely young woman.
Shou Shou nodded emphatically. “Locked in—”
“We go now,” Loy interrupted. “Like missy say—need sleep to work.” He bowed from the waist and herded his charges down the hill without a backward glance.
“Wait, Loy—”
But Loy kept walking down the slope, calling over his shoulder, “I bring you dinner. Fish and rice. Seven o’clock. Workers gone then. Thank you, missy.”
Amelia ran a few steps and caught his black silk sleeve.
“Please… I have something to ask you!” She lowered her voice a few notches. “Can you supply fifty men to clear rubble at the Bay View Hotel?”
A look of undisguised joy lit Loy’s features. “Sure, Missy! When? Tonight?”
“No, not tonight,” she replied hastily. “Call on Mr. J.D. Thayer tomorrow and he will discuss arrangements. The men will have to w
ork at night—”
“Oh, Mr. Thayer very nice man! He friend of Ling Lee. She friend to Shou Shou and me. I like work for him. No one see us there, promise! Everything be fine, missy. I go tomorrow. See boss at Bay View.”
Amelia was startled by the news this young man had known J.D.’s concubine, Ling Lee. Before she could say anything further, Loy Chen whirled on his soft slippers and in a twinkling, the three residents of Chinatown and their wheelbarrow full of water disappeared into the misty morn.
***
J.D. inserted a finger between his neck and the freshly starched collar attached to his spanking new dress shirt. He noted with pleasure how good it felt to be wearing formal evening clothes again after so many months dressed in virtual rags. His new wardrobe was only the first of many improvements in his life, now that his father’s banker friends on the Committee of Fifty had released the first funds of the loan they’d granted him for the reconstruction of the Bay View. The last of the money he’d had in his pockets the day of the earthquake now could be spent on a few luxuries, like some decent clothes.
A shipping carton containing the rest of his order from a New York haberdashery sat on the new brass bedstead, delivered earlier that day and set up in a room with only a raw wood floor and joists. He felt lucky, though. At least he and Barbary were no longer living like gophers in an underground burrow. Of course, the draft would continue to whistle through the plywood walls until the insulation and lathe and plaster were installed on the first floor level. But it was a damned sight better than a tent in the Presidio or a stone cold basement at the Fairmont.
Progress… he thought. Progress.
Amelia’s brigade of Chinese workers were whittling down the mountain of debris behind the fence they’d built. His daytime crews had gone about their business, and if they’d noticed a change when they worked on the upper floors of the hotel and looked down at the land where the gambling club had stood or the lot next door he’d bought adjacent to his own land, no one said anything to him about it. J.D. had concluded that the chore of breaking up and hauling out the rubble was too lowly a task for Spitz’s men and they just ignored it.