A smile crept to my lips. I didn’t miss the politics of the magazine, one of the reasons I’d quit, but I missed my friends dearly. Not to mention, I was curious to hear about the new editor in chief, who’d been hired after I left.
I’d love to, I texted back. See you guys then!
I turned down California Street, walking toward Market, past women in black yoga pants carrying colorful leather handbags, coffee cups in hand, and countless men wearing backpacks or messenger bags over their button-down shirts. A cable car clanged its bell, and tourists hung from the handrails, awestruck as they looked up. As I passed Café Madeleine, the scent of freshly baked French bread filled the air.
On Market Street, bus brakes hissed, and notes of jazz from a street musician’s trumpet carried over the din of traffic. A bearded guy on a bicycle zipped by me, his basket full of farm-fresh flowers for delivery. I caught snippets of French as I passed two men, who pointed at Google Maps on an iPhone. Nearly everyone was on a call, speaking hurriedly into the microphones of their white Apple EarPods.
My mind wandered as I walked through the bustling Financial District. There was something about that study, like a breath that had been held for too long, that needed to be expelled. With so much history, there was no telling who’d passed through the halls of Havensworth Art Academy once upon a time. Or why that wardrobe in the study remained locked. Crossing over to Kearny Street, I stopped to wait for my bus.
The 30-Stockton wasn’t coming for another fifteen minutes. I sighed. Sitting down on one of the dirty benches, I pulled up the article I’d found in the archives of the Daily Alta California on my phone.
Though the bodies of neither Schaeffer nor O’Brien have been discovered, residents fear hearing cries of “Murder, murder, help, for God’s sake, help!” once again, should the killer at large not be stopped for these dreadful crimes.
Where had Margaret and Hannelore last been seen? After an hour of searching their names last night, I hadn’t found any follow-up articles regarding their disappearance. Yet their story tugged at me, refusing to let me go. My fingers tapped the screen, scrolling downward.
Four months past, a prostitute was found lying dead on the Northeast corner of Hinkley Alley and Dupont Street, before a house of ill repute that sits above the Tavern.
I didn’t recognize those street names. Had they changed? Pulling up Google on my phone, I did a quick search. Dupont Street was now Grant Street. And the Tavern, San Francisco’s oldest bar, was still standing.
My eyes flickered to the digital display on the bus stop. Shoving my phone into my back pocket, I stood up. The Tavern was only a fifteen-minute walk away, and I could always catch another bus.
I stopped at the corner of Fresno and Grant, looking up at a red clapboard building with yellow trim. Tucked away on an alley in North Beach, not far from the strip clubs of Broadway and the Italian restaurants dotting Columbus Avenue, the Tavern held its ground. Beneath the wooden street number, TAVERN, EST. 1863 had been painted on the window. I imagined seeing a mustachioed barkeep inside wearing a waistcoat. In all the years I’d lived in San Francisco, how had I never visited this place?
The bar was dimly lit and warm. A few locals sat on stools, drinking beer as a band set up their equipment on the stage. A dark wood bureau with a cracked mirror and large columns stood against the wall. My eyes moved to the layers of peeling paint and remnants of wallpaper from decades past. This place had existed when Hannelore and Margaret were alive. Had they ever come through these doors?
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked. With his weathered face, long ponytail, and leather vest, he looked like an aging Hells Angel. I checked out the two beers on tap and smiled. Pabst Blue Ribbon, my dad’s favorite.
I kept a framed photo of my parents, circa 1984, next to my bed. Mom had fluffy, blond Farrah Fawcett hair and wore a tight, striped tank top while Dad had a bushy brown moustache and held a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. His tanned arm circled Mom’s waist, and she was caught mid-laugh. In that picture, they were my current age, thirty, beaming with health and happiness. It was how I liked to remember them.
My mom had smelled like lemons and had an unmistakable midwestern accent. To her, “Up Nort” wasn’t a specific location, but anywhere near Lake Superior, the places we went camping and fishing in the summer. I felt my throat close up, wishing I could hear Mom’s voice again, or hear my dad telling me to load up the cooler.
“PBR, please,” I said to the bartender.
It was a poor man’s beer, now a hipster beer. But unlike most of the bars in San Francisco, the Tavern wasn’t the least bit pretentious. Not a single person tapped away on their iPhone or wore anything dressy. It was my kind of place.
Through the darkness, framed photographs on the wall came into focus. They were grainy sepia prints, images of the city 150 years ago. Horse-drawn carriages stood next to Victorian buildings. Women in black dresses held parasols along a wharf, while boys and men cast their fishing poles into the water.
“One PBR,” the bartender said, setting down a frosty glass.
I gave him a five-dollar bill and pointed at the photo. “Do you know where this is?”
“That’s Long Bridge.”
“Long Bridge?” I said, my eyebrows pinching together. “Never heard of it.”
He held his hands about a foot apart. “Long Bridge spanned the city from Fourth Street all the way to Hunters Point. It was like rapid transit for the workmen in the 1870s. But on Sundays it was where the working class would have fun.”
I picked up my beer and walked around, checking out the old photographs. There were women with severe middle parts in their hair and stern expressions. Their pale eyes stared off into space, though serious faces were the norm for that era. There were pictures of landmarks long gone, like the Cliff House on Ocean Beach, a restaurant resembling a haunted castle, perched on a headland above the water’s edge.
I returned to the bar and sat down on a stool, the cracked leather crinkling underneath me. “So is this really San Francisco’s oldest bar?”
The bartender coughed into his hand. “The bar was always here on the first floor, but the second and third floors operated as a whorehouse. The firemen were customers.”
He pointed to a black-and-white photograph of the bar, dated 1870. Four men stood in the doorway, each with a dark moustache and a cap.
“You see,” he said, his gravelly voice growing louder. “The building was burning in the aftermath of the 1906 quake, but the firemen had their priorities straight. They came to save the whorehouse.”
“Good thing they did,” I said. “Not many buildings left from before the quake.”
He jerked his head toward the stage. “Now we host live blues almost every night of the week. You should stay awhile to really hear the bands shred. The best acts go on after midnight.”
“Thanks. I can’t tonight, but maybe next time.”
I sipped my beer and tried to picture what this place had once been like. The piano in the corner probably had a musician playing on its worn keys, while men danced or got into fistfights. The bartender might have been here for a few years, but there had to be someone else who could verify if this saloon was once a whorehouse, someone who really knew its history.
Notes pierced the air as the blues band started to jam, first the wail of the trumpet and then the thrumming of the bass. A few bar patrons tapped their feet in time to the music. More people began to trickle through the door.
“Excuse me,” I called over the din to the bartender. “Could you tell me who owns this bar?”
“Mr. Kim. It’s been in his family for a long time.”
“What’s his first name?”
“Edward,” he said, pouring a shot of whiskey.
“Thank you,” I said.
I drained the dregs of my beer. How would I explain myself if Hunter found out I’d left the Art Academy this afternoon to go to a bar? He understood my anxiety well enough to let me quietly slip away fr
om social functions—especially kids’ birthday parties. But he didn’t know about the dark memories that kept me awake at night. I wanted to let him in, but the opportunity to be truthful had already passed.
I stepped out onto the street to walk toward the nearest bus stop. Or if I was in a hurry, I could always hail a cab or get an Uber. There was a reason I’d chosen to live in a city where I didn’t need a car. So far, it had suited me perfectly.
The fog had settled heavy and thick around the rooftops of North Beach’s Victorian apartment buildings, the peak of the Transamerica Pyramid lost in the swirling mist. I zipped my sweatshirt up to my chin, breathing in the fog’s faint ocean scent. But the shiver that ran down my spine was from more than the spring chill.
I had to find out what had happened to Hannelore and Margaret, or the wondering would haunt me forever. My mind buzzed with ideas. I could search the library and the California Historical Society archives. What if I abandoned my novel altogether and focused on a piece of literary journalism instead? Svetlana Alexievich had won the Nobel Prize in literature for her emotional books, her histories of women, men, and children affected by war, whose stories we wouldn’t otherwise know.
I admired her ability to tell a story through human truths, to portray a vanished way of life. What if I could present the story of Hannelore and Margaret not only with facts but also with human emotions? I chewed my bottom lip, thinking about how I would ask my graduate advisor if I could switch my focus.
Turning around, I looked back in the direction I’d come from. The street hummed with forgotten history. But was this truly a good idea? The walls of that old saloon held secrets. I’d held on to my own long enough to know what it felt like, and that dredging up the past could often reveal something ugly.
Chapter 4
Hanna, 1876
Ducking beneath the clotheslines strung between the wooden houses of Napier Lane on Telegraph Hill, Hanna dodged the articles of clothing that flapped in the breeze. She pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders, to ward off the winter chill.
Rocks pushed through the soles of her boots as she made her way down the slope. A goat bleated while the bells of Old Saint Mary’s chimed in the distance. Beyond the church steeples and streetcar tracks, the mansions of Nob Hill stood watch.
By the time Hanna reached Montgomery Street downtown, the dirt road had given way to a cobblestone thoroughfare lined with stately hotels and colorful shop fronts. Flower carts and newspaper vendors served patrons of the Palace Hotel, whose entrance beckoned with gas lamps that cast an inviting glow. Walking arm in arm, women in towering hats and large-bustled dresses flounced about like geese.
Hanna had vowed to sew herself a dress with a bustle if she ever had the money for that much fabric. But then she’d have the trouble of finding a whalebone corset, and a hoopskirt undercarriage to give the dress its fullness. Her cotton chemise and bloomers were likely far more comfortable than the undergarments of the fine ladies who’d passed her in the street, not giving her a second glance.
Waving from a few yards away, Margaret smiled. Dressed in a green day frock, she looked as pretty as wildflowers in springtime. When Margaret came closer, she tore off a piece of white bread from the loaf in her hand. Hanna’s stomach growled as she accepted the fluffy morsel. White bread was so rare it tasted like cake. Hanna couldn’t remember what it felt like not to be hungry.
“Margaret, how have you got bread?”
“Don’t you worry. Here.” Margaret reached into her coin purse, returning the money Hanna had lent her. “Finna’s right as rain now. I can’t thank you enough.”
Hanna smiled. “If my Kati fell sick, you would do the same.”
Hanna stuck out her elbow, and Margaret looped her arm through it. For a few precious hours on this Sunday afternoon, they would be free. No chores, no piles of dresses, no furious fathers. Martin was watching the children, and in return for good behavior Hanna had promised each a piece of hard candy. How Hanna wished to catch a glimpse inside the melodeons on Pacific Avenue, where Lotta Crabtree performed inside the music halls. But even the finest of those establishments wouldn’t be safe for young women.
On Long Bridge, families strolled alongside sailors and fishermen.
Crowds of men and boys leaned against the bridge’s wooden railing, elbow to elbow, fishing for smelt with bamboo poles. Horse-drawn carriages rattled down the wooden causeway, passing through the marshlands on their way to the Bay View racetrack. Circling overhead, the gulls cried. Men tumbled out of Gallant and Purdy’s halfway house, drunk on ale and shouting.
Margaret tugged Hanna’s arm. “Let’s get away from here, quick.”
They took refuge at the stall of a street vendor, where Hanna bought penny candies, one for each sibling. Unfolding the waxed wrapper, she held the treat in her palm, then popped it in her mouth. The mint was sweet against her tongue. Hanna counted the seconds as she sucked, willing it not to end.
“He’s a good-looking fellow.” Margaret giggled, smiling at a boy in a brown bowler hat and suspenders. Factory workers walked by and whistled.
“Would you kiss him?” Margaret asked, nodding at a different young man, wearing dirty coveralls.
“Have you got birds in the head?” Hanna wrinkled her nose, her cheeks burning at Margaret’s bold suggestion. The boy’s skin was as pale as the underbelly of a fish and dotted in freckles.
Margaret laughed. “You speak English like no one else. He wasn’t that bad looking.”
“Not for me,” Hanna said. “Will you marry an Irishman?”
Margaret tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, a faraway look in her eye. “I would . . . if I could.”
Margaret appeared so troubled, Hanna reached out to touch her friend, hoping Margaret would reveal the cause of her sadness. But before Hanna’s fingers could brush Margaret’s sleeve, Margaret’s mischievous smile had returned. “He doesn’t have to be Irish. I’d marry any boy if I loved him.”
Perhaps Hanna had only imagined Margaret’s distress. “If I knew a good German,” she said, “I’d introduce you. But they are stupid as cows.”
Margaret threw her head back and laughed.
“Excusez-moi.” A man holding a wooden box in the shape of an accordion had spoken, his English accented by his native French. “May I take your photograph?”
Hanna looked at the contraption. “Is that a camera?”
He nodded.
“Why’d you want to photograph us?” Margaret eyed him sideways. She was right to be wary of the man. Only vain women in fancy hats with little dogs had their photographs taken.
The man shrugged. “I am an artist. I capture what I see.”
“Let us do it,” Hanna said to Margaret. “We will act like fine ladies now.”
The man crouched down and adjusted the brass lens on his mahogany box. Hanna looped her arm through Margaret’s and they leaned against the wooden railing.
“Stand very still. Yes, like that. Un, deux, trois.” The photographer pulled a cord.
Hanna blinked. Had he finished? Margaret stood rigid as a tree, appearing unsure of whether she should change position.
“Can we see it?” Margaret asked.
The photographer shook his head. “It does not work that way, I’m afraid. I must develop the plate first. What are your names?”
“Hannelore,” Hanna said, her shoulders slumping. “And my friend’s name is Margaret.”
Perhaps some strange person would see her likeness, his curiosity piqued by the girl in the photograph. But Hanna would never know how she appeared—sullen, friendly, or frightened.
“Merci.” The man scribbled on a scrap of paper. “I am François. Good day.”
Margaret pressed her lips together in a frown.
“Good day,” Hanna said as François packed up his things.
A ferryboat let out a loud, low rumble as it pulled away from the pier. Sleek yachts cut across the bay like herons. Hanna turned around to see the two-tiere
d yacht club, narrowing her eyes against the late afternoon sun. Had they walked so far already? Clinking crystal and women’s laughter wafted on the breeze from the upper balcony. Craning her neck to see inside, Hanna took a step backward.
She collided with a man in a suit, causing his shiny top hat to fall to the ground. Bending down to pick it up, Hanna’s cheeks burned. “Oh! My apologies.”
When the man’s eyes met hers, his sky-blue gaze froze Hanna in place. Lucas. Her stomach lurched, like the first time she had ridden a horse, back on a neighbor’s farm in Bavaria.
Dusting off his hat, Lucas placed it back on his head. “Miss Schaeffer. Lovely to see you again.”
“Oh, sir, I am very sorry. Please forgive me my clumsy feet.”
His features softened. “Please, don’t be sorry. It’s quite all right.”
Next to Lucas’s wool suit and shiny black shoes, Hanna felt like a beggar, hatless and in her plain dress. Unlike Margaret, whose complexion was as pale and delicate as a lace tablecloth, that Hanna’s face had known the sun branded her as working-class.
“You’re from the dress shop, aren’t you?” Lucas asked, turning to Margaret.
“Yes, sir.” Margaret blushed, even prettier than usual, and a pang of jealousy hit Hanna like a dart.
Lucas frowned. “Remind me of your name?”
“Margaret O’Brien,” Margaret said.
“Have you enjoyed your afternoon?” Lucas asked, sweeping his arm toward the pier. “It is a fine day today.”
Two women holding lace parasols walked past on their way to the yacht club. They glanced at Lucas, then at Hanna’s feet, their words whispered like the swish of their taffeta gowns until they could contain their laughter no longer. Hanna looked down at her boots, sticky with horse dung. Her cheeks stung with pinpricks of heat. Flicking their tails, chestnut mares munched on hay while waiting for their carriage driver.
“Yes,” Hanna said. “The weather is fine. But I’m afraid we must be on our way.”
The door to the yacht club swung open and Robert emerged, a scowl on his face.
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