Inside the tent, behind a curtain, sat Anna. She stared at herself in a broken bit of mirror. She was liquid-eyed, raven-haired, a genuine Italian beauty. She knew it. She had once had immortal longings in her. In her dreams since early childhood, she’d soar bodiless from one glorious theatrical role to another—a dove of unusual spirit lighting upon and entering and waking up the great dead characters of the stage so that they’d move and speak and inspire and in all the important matters, transform mankind once and for all.
Anna frowned into the mirror. She could hear Luigi, the barker, through the canvas of the tent. He’d be standing on the barrel, a slight Italian man with a voice three times his size, hawking the night’s entertainment.
“Vivaldi and Company—under the artistic direction of famoso impresario Luigi Vivaldi—who is none other than myself…”
He’d be bowing now, waving his hat.
“We present for your pleasure this evening—a selection from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. The famous death scene. The bard at his most sensual. A story of passion and intrigue. A delicious repast for the hungry soul and a feast, a feast for the eyes.”
Building the volume of his voice, he added, “Gentlemen, I bring you not one, but two—two members of the fair and gentle sex in the classic roles of Egypt’s queen and her lovely young handmaiden.”
Anna muttered into the mirror: “Pigs and goats.” She was wasted in this rude land of sex-craved men.
Her daughter Tonia plopped on a tatty Egyptian wig and made a face into the mirror over her mother’s shoulder. She was a sturdy looking girl of eleven—the kind of child whose cheeks, much to her distaste, were always being pinched.
“Don’t call them pigs and goats Mama,” she said. “I like pigs and goats; they’re nice.”
Outside, a pair of drunken miners supported each other as they wove their way out of the general crowd over towards the barker. “You sayin’ you got real live women in there?” one of them shouted.
“I got not one but, two—two members of the female classification.”
“Well then goddamnit, I want them to sing Sweet Betsy From Pike and shake their titties.”
A group of half-crazed men surged past Charley en masse and crowded around Luigi in their haste to buy tickets for the show. Coins and pouches of gold dust flew.
Charley, curious to see these two members of the female classification, bought a ticket for herself as well.
“Take it off, Cleo,” shouted one of the men as he entered the tent.
Anna heard it and grimaced. Tonia gave a short laugh. Others in the growing crowd had picked up the cry, “Come on out Cleo. Take it off. Take it all off.”
“Pigs,” muttered Anna. She began swearing dark words in Italian.
This, Tonia knew to be a very bad sign. Tonight she would have to be extra careful. Times like this her mother was known to skip most of the words and scream things at the men, curses that made Tonia blush. Those were the terrible nights Luigi refused to pay them and they had to beg for food. Not to mention, that when her mother misbehaved, she incited the audience and sometimes they had to run for their lives.
The crude stage was fashioned from crates, boards, and barrels. Anna entered as Cleopatra, head held high. She was dressed in a long golden dress, trim bodice cut low showing her full cleavage. The men roared, some of them throwing coins up onto the stage. Anna’s hair, curly and long, flowed around her shoulders. She moved her arm. The men roared. She began to smile. The men roared. Then she touched her fingers to her bodice in the general vicinity of her breasts. Roar upon roar. The men were beside themselves. Candles serving as footlights cast her body into relief. Her gestures got larger and larger.
Luigi, at the side of the stage made a signal that in Luigi talk meant: remember the bosoms. She tightened her lips for a moment but then recovered…pouted, pointed her toes and arched her back. Luigi responded with a big smile, nodding his head up and down, then rubbing his fingers together in the universal sign: money.
Anna tossed her hair back with disdain. This was not what she dreamed her life to be…but she continued.
Tonia, as Charmian the handmaiden, brought a basket of figs onstage and handed them to Anna. Anna flounced and preened.
She turned to her handmaiden, “Charmian, give me my robe, put on my crown…” She was hammering out the words, “…I have immortal longings in me.”
Tonia clumsily draped a worn velvet robe around Anna’s shoulders. She placed a painted crown, with several of the jewels missing, on Anna’s head.
Charley, who had been standing near the back of the crowd watching, thought, mother and daughter no doubt. Mother and daughter. A stab in her heart at the sight of the lovely pair, alive to one another. Charley was grateful for the darkness and the crowd. No one could see her face.
Anna reached into the basket and pulled out a pathetic-looking homemade snake. A miner gave a sharp whisper. “Here comes the titty part.” He threw a few coins onto the stage.
Anna then bent down to kiss her handmaiden, her eyes flickering warning to Tonia: don’t laugh. Sometimes Tonia would start to shake at this point, trying to hold in her laughter.
“Farewell, kind Charmian,” Anna proclaimed.
She raised up the sad looking snake, turned round in a kind of odd pirouette, and then writhed the snake around her. Despite herself, she became involved in her performance. She loved to die on stage. She held the snake in front of her face and narrowed her eyes.
“Come, thou mortal wretch…” she hissed. “With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate of life at once untie. Poor venomous fool, be angry, and dispatch!” The words of the Bard were drowning beneath her thick accent but no one cared.
With a grand gesture Anna plunged the snake inside her bodice. The miners in the front row strained to see.
“Titty,” shouted a man. A few more coins were thrown.
Tonia pulled a snake from the basket and applied it to her pale upper arm, made a face and fell to the floor.
“No. Titty,” shouted another. “Titty.”
“O eastern star…” cried Anna.
She swayed and also dropped to the floor. It still wasn’t over. She spoke.
“Peace, peace…” she intoned. “Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, that sucks the nurse asleep?”
A miner shouted, “Breast? I don’t see no breast.”
Anna moaned, “O Antony.”
She reached out to the last snake, spilled from the basket to the floor at her side, and applied it to the inside of her wrist. She shuddered on the floor in agony, rolled her eyes, sighed. She then died.
Pretty good tonight, Anna thought.
A hush descended over the crowd.
Then a single voice threaded itself through the silence. “We’ve been had.”
Another voice. “Take it off. Goddamn it, take it all the hell off.”
A chorus of drunken voices. “Take it off. Take it off.” Stomping in rhythm. Fists punching the air. “Take it off.”
Anna, still lying dead on the stage floor, the candles rattling before her, was seething. Her eyes were closed, but under the heavy Egyptian-style greasepaint, her skin was flushing red.
She sprang to her feet, rising from the dead, swearing a blue streak in Italian.
Charley, who’d been inching her way to leave, stopped and looked back in interest at the cursing woman.
Anna reached down with both hands grabbing the clay figs from the basket, and started to hurl them into the crowd, screaming now in Italian and English. Tonia, still lying on the stage, watched wide-eyed.
“That fucking whore hit me,” shouted a miner near Charley.
He picked up what remained of the offending fig and hurled it back towards the stage. The flight of the fig happened towards Tonia, who rolled away, dodging it. It smacked onto the floor and shattered
into powdery pieces.
Tonia was laughing, noted Anna with disapproval.
“Leave. Go,” Anna shouted at her. Tonia was still laughing, but obediently rose and left the stage.
The drunken miners were yelling obscenities. A few had started fighting amongst themselves. A full-on brawl was about to begin. Left weaponless, Anna had an instinct. With great flaming eyes, she grabbed the top of her bodice and with both hands pulled it down and then slowly back up again, revealing her lavish breasts to the men for a brilliant moment.
There was a breathless silence.
Anna, with calculated imperiousness, strode off the stage. She knew that her insolence had shut them up. Knocked them into a cocked hat.
Now that the stage was empty, the herd of men began to dissipate, in grumbling, cursing clumps. In one of those clumps was Charley.
Outside, extricated from the sour smell of male sweat, she could breathe the cool night air again. She looked round at the moonlit tent with the last of the subdued men stumbling out and disappearing into the shadows. She had seen something memorable tonight. In her defiant act, that lone woman against a crowd of drunken men, had gambled and had somehow won. That woman had won her applause.
Eight
Early the next morning as Charley was collecting the last tickets for the trip back to Sacramento from several miners boarding the stagecoach, Anna and Tonia, carrying a bag between them, ran up behind the coach.
“Wait driver. Wait for us,” shouted Anna.
Charley turned and saw Anna and the heat of a blush suffused her neck and rose to her face.
Anna saw the man turn lobster red. Ahh, one of the pigs and goats, she thought. He saw my play last night and he’s embarrassed in his behavior. Perfect. She was going to try to entice her way to a free ticket anyway…this would just make it easier. Anna smiled the smile that always got her her way.
“We’re running late and I’m full up,” Charley muttered. “Only passenger space left is up top with the baggage. If you want to get on, jingle your spurs lady.”
Nodding to Tonia to climb up top, Anna followed. How odd. Why was he being brusque with her? That was usually not the case with men who saw her acting. He must just be in a bad mood…he had not yet asked for their tickets either. Thank God.
Her voluminous petticoats made for a difficult ascent, and at one point she looked hard at Charley and Charley knew she’d have to give her a hand up. That was the manly thing to do. Charley held out her gloved hand, frowning.
What’s this sour look? Anna thought. What’s this? She wouldn’t have it. She paused to gather her skirts, revealing to Charley an eyeful of well-turned ankle. A miner inside the stagecoach caught the show, too. He leaned out through the open window and gaped. Anna saw him see. She threatened him with her parasol as she ascended to the top.
Charley looked up at her. “Tickets?”
Anna said, “I—I don’t have a ticket. We don’t have any money. Nothing.”
“Damnit woman. Why didn’t you say so before you climbed up top? You’re making us even more late than we already are.”
Taking on the most helpless tone she could muster, she whispered, “Can we…work something out?”
Fuck it, Charley thought. She’d deal with this woman later. She hopped up onto the driver’s box and grabbed the reins. She cracked the whip.
Anna, who thought perhaps he didn’t understand, began again—but her words were drowned out by the rattling rumble of the coach. She turned and smiled at Tonia and settled down into the least uncomfortable position she could find, her skirts spread like a puddle around her. She had gotten them a free ride, once again.
Soon after the horses started to move, a second stagecoach pulled up alongside Charley’s. The driver yelled out, “Hey, Parkie. You low down dirty thief. You stole my run. Now I’m stuck driving the fucking Mokelumne Hill route.”
“Naw, you lost your run ’cuz you were soused again Ben,” Charley hooted. “Why else do I always get your runs? Don’t give me your bullshit.”
“Bullshit? You don’t know dung from wild honey.”
The two coaches were moving at a slow pace abreast each other—the two drivers joking back and forth.
“Ben, your brain cavity wouldn’t make a drinkin’ cup for a canary.”
“Oh yeah? Well your face looks like a dime’s worth of dog meat.”
Both drivers were laughing almost uncontrollably now.
“Hey Parkie. I’m doing the coaching competition. What about you? The prize money is pretty good.”
“Maybe, but you ain’t no competition in my book.”
“You’re so full of shit. Let’s see what you’re made of. How ’bout a practice run?”
“We got passengers Ben. Otherwise, I’d catawamptiously chaw you up.”
“You scared? You turnin’ into a nancy-boy?”
Charley laughed. “Who you callin’ a nancy-boy? Fuck you. Let’s go. When I’m done with you pretty-boy, there won’t be enough of your face left for you to snore.”
“You’re on.”
“Hang on up top!” Charley yelled out. “Clear the way.”
The two whips cracked and the six-teams tore into a gallop. The roadway before them cleared, miners and livestock fleeing before the racing coaches. Charley let out a wordless shout of exaltation.
Wind tore through the hair of the mother and daughter, the black tendrils whipping across their cheeks. This was fun, Tonia thought, as she and Anna clung to the baggage rails.
Ben was laughing like a madman and so was Charley. They whipped in unison, and in unison each turned and glanced at each other for a moment with glowing faces, grinning.
But then the two drivers each looked ahead and saw the same alarming sight—something that each of them in their brainless buckery had known but forgotten. The road was narrowing, heading into a hairpin turn.
“Holy shit,” muttered Charley.
Anna turned forward, saw the road ahead, and shrieked. “Stop this coach this instant,” she shouted over the rushing wind. “Stop!”
At the sight of the narrow curve, Ben lost his nerve. He pulled back, dropping speed.
Worried she could not stop the coach in time, Charley screamed over her shoulder: “All passengers to the left of the coach when I give the word. Get ready.”
Anna and Tonia crouched to their knees, ready to move…Anna crying to God to save them.
The coach was starting to lift off the road onto one side. Charley bellowed: “Everybody left. Now.”
Inside the coach, the passengers followed the order. Up top, Anna and Tonia threw themselves over the bags to the left side of the coach, holding on for dear life to the rails. The sudden shift of weight balanced the coach just enough that the wheels steadied out, taking the turn.
“Madonna mia, mama protect us,” prayed Anna.
The coach finished the turn and then started to slow down.
Tonia’s face was filled with joy. She let go of the railing and raised her arms up to the sky, squealing with pleasure.
“Tonia, behave yourself,” shouted Anna.
The passengers all together released their desperately-held breaths.
Charley, heart pounding in her chest, was taking in great gulps of air. What in hell had gotten into her? She had never taken risks like this before with her passengers. It was as though she was behaving like some damn man.
The team was now trotting. The world was moving past the coach at a normal pace. Anna let go of her iron grip on the railing and dusted herself off. She moved back to her former position and arranged her skirts. She glared at the back of Charley’s head.
“Men,” she mumbled. “They’re such idiots.”
But Tonia looked over at Charley with the bright-eyed, dreamy expression of a young girl who has just found her hero.
N
ine
The coach arrived later that afternoon in Sacramento. As soon as Anna and Tonia’s feet touched the ground, Anna grabbed Tonia’s hand and tried to slip away before the driver could ask them for their fare again.
But Charley cornered her. “Ma’am, your fare…for you and the child?”
“I told you on the coach I have no money. I’m so sorry. The monster that runs our theatre company let us go without pay or food last night. Are you sure we can’t…work out some other kind of payment?”
Charley balked at the implication. “Thankee kindly, ma’am, but that’s quite alright.” She looked down at the bright eyed girl staring up at her. “Guess your mama got lucky this time.” She smiled at the girl, reached into her pocket and handed her several candies.
Tonia blushed. “Thank-you, sir.” She wasted no time unwrapping one of them and popping it into her mouth.
Charley turned back to Anna. “Alright ma’am, we’ll consider last night’s entertainment as payment. Next time though, you might not be so lucky.”
“Oh, thank-you. Thank-you,” Anna said. “Aren’t you nice. And you saw my performance? Well that horrible little man, Luigi, left us with nothing. We have no place to live. I thought maybe I could find work here in Sacramento.”
“To be honest, ma’am, there isn’t much standing-up-vertical-type work for a woman in these parts.” Charley chuckled but then regretted what she’d said.
Anna, feigning incomprehension, gave a blank look.
Charley rushed to add, “Unless you want to take in laundry. There’s never no shortage of dirty shirts.”
“I have two talents. I can act, and I can cook, Mr. …what is your name?”
“Charley Parkhurst, ma’am.”
“Well I’m Anna Schiavelli and this is my daughter Antonia.” She gave Charley a stunning smile. “Mr. Parkhurst, you are a kindly soul. Could I ask another favor of you? You don’t by any chance know of any family that we could perhaps stay with?”
Charley looked at her bewildered.
The Whip Page 14