Outrun the Moon (15 page)

“I have to make sure they're okay.”

She starts to say something, and I think she's going to try to stop me again. She glances at the departing girls and then back at me. “I'll come with you.”

I protest, but she is already marching down the street.

AS WE DESCEND TOWARD DOWNTOWN, each block toys with my emotions. The damage is minimal on one block and I go back to thinking that the earthquake only hit the corner of the world on which St. Clare's stands. But one street later, an entire row of wooden houses lies in shambles—foundations sunk and piles of rubble standing where walls used to be—and I'm back to fearing the worst.

A woman paces on her front lawn, hugging a hatbox, while her husband packs a valise full of bric-a-brac such as wax flowers and conch shells, even a brass cigar box. I can't help being fascinated over what folks deem worthy of saving in an emergency. For once, I'm glad that my only possessions are the ones on my person—my Chinese clothes, and Jack's penny. Less to worry over, less to carry. Mrs. Lowry's book is gone, but I'll always have the words safely tucked in my mind.

A woman in a dressing gown clutches at Francesca. “Please help me find my Lula!”

Francesca passes me a questioning glance.

“How old is your daughter?” I ask the woman.

“She's my parrot,” she says hoarsely.

I shake my head. “I'm sorry.” Birds can take care of themselves.

Dust is everywhere, making us sneeze and cough. Francesca holds a handkerchief to her nose, while I shield my face with my hands, trying to ignore the raw, chalky feeling in my throat. I remove my quilted jacket and tie it around my waist, wishing I'd had a drink of water before I left.

We pass countless broken store windows and, in some cases, entire front facades lying in heaps. I'm hit by the scent of sausages as we pass by a store with a green awning. Strands of bratwurst hang in the window, and barrels of sauerkraut line the walls, ten cents a pound. The glass storefront burst and the roof slid backward, but impossibly, the door remains intact. Bottles of sassafras lie in a broken pile among the shattered remains.

I spot an unbroken bottle gleaming in the morning light. Francesca stops beside me.

“Would it be stealing if I swore to return one day and pay for it?”

“Under the circumstances, I think that would be okay.”

I think Mrs. Lowry would approve. The only way to survive in business is to survive, first and foremost. I pick it up.

“There's no bottle opener,” Francesca points out.

“We don't need one.” Tom was always looking for ways to pry off bottle tops.
A simple solution is always on hand for those who search,
he loved to say. A metal ring on a hitching post does the trick, and it only takes me three tries. I offer a drink to Francesca. She takes a few sips, then lets me guzzle the sweet liquid. We trade sips until the last drop.

We press on toward downtown, not speaking because to do
so would waste the moisture in our throats. Traffic thickens and the unmistakable odor of burning wood adds to the soup of dust in the air. The destruction forces us to take a circuitous path.

With every step, it becomes sickeningly clear that the earthquake cast a wide net, and any hope that Chinatown was spared fizzles away. I feel for Jack's penny, entreating it to bring me luck, to somehow keep Jack and Ma safe.

“You should go back.”

“Only if you do,” Francesca retorts.

We turn onto Market Street and stop short.

“Oh my God,” Francesca moans, reaching for my hand.

It's as if someone picked up one end of Market Street and shook it like a rug. Whole buildings have been leveled, and the road lies fissured and swollen, with bricks flung about in heaps as far as the eye can see. The debris forces the masses of moving people and animals—even a cow or two—into the streets.

Farther down, I see that flames have overtaken the right side of the street, and plumes of smoke make it impossible to pass. Even from a hundred yards away, the heat licks at my face. Despite the heat, a brass sign for Fourth Street remains unscathed, mocking me.

I shiver. Today is the fourth day of the week, Wednesday, in the fourth month of the year, April.

“This way,” I say grimly.

Francesca nods, and rivulets of sweat streak down her sooty face. We backtrack a street, then change course, winding our way north to Chinatown. The frantic beat of my heart is compounded by our frustratingly glacial pace. Streets are broken
pipelines of rushing humanity, pushing us backwards. One more block, and then another.

“—the Call's on fire, too—” I hear one man tell another as we hurry by.

The newspaper building? The San Francisco Call was our city's tallest building, fifteen stories. If that one goes, its neighbors, Mutual Bank and the Chronicle, will fall, too. Then what hope is there for our shabby tenements?

“Francesca, wait.” I retrace my steps after the men, hoping for more news.

“—wait 'til the firemen get here. We've got the best brigade in the country.”

“Then where are they? Whole goddamn place is gonna burn.”

“They'll be here.”

“Excuse me!” I call loudly to their backs as people swarm by. “But do you know if Chinatown was hit?”

One of the men turns to answer me. I watch his mustache move. “Don't know for sure. But I wouldn't hold my breath.”

Francesca has come up beside me, and she grimaces. A baby screams at my back, and I step aside to let through a woman holding her infant. By the time I turn around again, the men are lost in the crowd.

I continue toward Chinatown, only to be met with a new horror scrabbling toward us on tiny, clawed feet. Rats. So many it appears that the floor is moving. Francesca and I grasp each other as they spill and run over our boots, emitting shrieks of terror. I never knew rats could scream.

“Good Lord,” moans Francesca.

When the stampede thins, I shake her off. “Go back to the park!” I say hoarsely. She can do nothing for me now and will only get herself trampled, or catch the bubonic plague.

Then I set off at a run, zigzagging my way up street after ruined street, dying a thousand deaths each time I spot a child Jack's age who doesn't turn out to be him.

The earth begins to tremble again. People scream and grab onto whatever or whoever is closest. I fall to the ground, cutting my hand on glass.

The trembling stops. I am in Union Square surrounded by the smoldering remains of its former occupants, metal skeletons for smoke to seep in and out of. Winged Victory still holds her head up high, and her stony gaze seems to order me to dust off my sorry bloomers and get moving. I rise, ignoring the pain. The anxiety that wends through my chest is slick and reptilian, stirring me onward.

Finally, I reach California Street, one of the main avenues into Chinatown. The smoke here is thick enough to hold a bottle in place. The faces turn Chinese, all hurrying in my direction as I approach.

I stop a man holding a picture frame. “What of Chinatown?”

He doesn't want to stop, and so I tag along after him. “Burning! It's all burning!” he spits.

A bolt of panic shocks me in the chest. “Burning?”

“
Hai.
”

I set off at a run toward the smoke, tears running down my face. They must have escaped. They had to.

“Mercy!” I look frantically toward the sound of my name. A thin man in dark pants and a jacket like mine waves at me.

“Ah-Suk!” I cry, collapsing upon him and almost knocking off his skullcap.

Tom's father holds me steady with one hand. The other is holding a suitcase.

I blurt out, “Ma—?”

He shakes his head.

“
Dai-dai
?” I whisper the word, not able to say Jack's name aloud.

He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, they are wet.

“Their building was one of the first to go. I am sorry—” he begins to say in Cantonese.

I tear away from him, continuing on toward Chinatown.
No! It can't be true.

“You cannot go that way, Mercy! The fire is still hungry. Your clothes will melt off!”

After running half a block, I hit an invisible wall of heat that my body refuses to push through. Chinatown lies just a block ahead, though it's no longer the scene I remember, but a searing spectacle of hot yellows and reds.

I find myself kneeling on the ground, and then I crumple, burying my head into my lap as if I could disappear inside myself forever.

Oh, my baby brother. I wish I had never left you. If I had known your time had such short measure, I would have spent every second watching you grow. And, Ma! You predicted your own death, but of all the times you had to be right, why now?

I sob and sob, so hard I think my heart may give out from the effort. I imagine the flames licking at Jack's tiny feet, his terrified voice calling, “Mercy!”

Someone pulls me to my feet.

My limbs have gone numb, and nothing can shake me from my stupor. I barely register the screaming people, the fire trucks whose horses have run off, the wagons pulling away the dead. Fires roar, and children wail, but all pass over me as if I am in an impenetrable glass bubble.

The only sound I hear is the voice of my regret, like a howling wind in my ears.

WHEN BA PLACED JACK IN MY ARMS FOR the very first time, I decided that he belonged to me. If anything deserved to be called “perfect,” it was this warm bundle, with his round pearl of a head and starfish hands. He hardly cried, and when he slept, sometimes fourteen hours at a time, I longed for him to wake so I could tickle his feet. Jack's birth proved to me that God exists.

People are like boats, always coming and going. Sometimes never returning. Now that his boat has sailed, the sea is empty for me.

Someone pats my shoulder. I'm covered with a blanket, and there's a pillow under my head. The smell of dirt and grass is all around me. Maybe I've died of grief, and they're readying my plot. During my time at the cemetery, I never saw grief kill a body, though I've seen plenty of mourners try to throw themselves into the grave. Surely the pain I feel is worse than a shot to the heart, powerful enough to send me where I want to go.

Strangely, the thought comforts me. I will see Ma and Jack
again, maybe in a city like this, though on a higher plane where we can look down and watch the living.

Of course, Ba might still be alive.

And Tom. Do earthquakes affect the ocean? My insides clamp with worry.

With a groan, I open my eyes. Katie hangs not a foot from my face, staring at me with her green eyes. “Hi.” She sits back on her haunches and beckons someone over. “She's awake.”

Soon, Harry and Francesca are also staring down at me. Beyond them, Georgina—the only senior I see—braids Minnie Mae's hair. The Southerner's puffy face is as red as the sun. I must have been sleeping all afternoon.

I wiggle out of the tight blanket. Vaguely, I remember stumbling to the park, aided by Ah-Suk and Francesca. I meet Francesca's warm eyes. “Thank you.”

She gives me a smile so full of concern that I almost break down. I swallow the hot ball in my throat. “Where's Ah-Suk?”

“The man who brought you back? He's over there.”

I push myself up, but the pain in my hand makes me wince. My stomach bucks, and every muscle aches as if I have been treading water for hours. Francesca puts a steadying hand on my back.

I must talk to Ah-Suk. A hundred paces closer to the eastern border of the park, I see him squatting by his suitcase, twisting and pulling another man's shoulder to open blocked energy gates. Behind him, the unruffled dark waters of Alvord Lake stretch half a city block. The shoreline teems with people, with their soot-stained clothes and traumatized expressions.

In the opposite direction, I recognize the section of the park
called the Children's Quarters. The stone pavilion of the carousel looks intact from three hundred feet away, but the adjacent brick building has lost its crisp edges.

Francesca combs the hair from my forehead. “I'm sorry about your family.”

Harry holds out a fruit jar filled with water, her glassy eyes big with sympathy. I take it gratefully, noticing as I do that someone has bandaged my hand in a strip of fabric. The water tastes flat and muddy, and I only drink enough to soothe my throat.

Katie's face crumples in sympathy. “What was your brother's name?”

“Jack. He was six.”

Francesca and Katie coo and cluck over me, and for once, I wish they could be more like Harry, who sits quietly like a peace lily. Ma says peace lilies are good plants to have in one's home because they neutralize any negative energy.

Francesca fluffs Harry's pillow and wedges it behind me. I want to scream for her to stop. It isn't fair that I should be sitting here so comfortably when Ma and Jack suffered such unspeakable deaths.

I belt my arms around my knees, willing the tears from spilling. I have cried enough today to put out several fires, and more tears would be an indulgence. “How is everyone else?”

“The staff and all the teachers left to find their own families. Most of the other girls are local and got picked up by their parents, except—” Francesca looks to where a lone figure sits with her back against a pine tree, the pearly purse by her side a strange contrast to the natural setting.

Elodie's gaze connects with mine, and she opens her mouth as if to speak. But instead, she hugs her knees. I guess certain boundaries can be smudged, but not entirely erased, even by death. Despite my dislike of her, a new wave of sadness pulls at me. Her father is in New York and won't claim her anytime soon. I wonder if she knows her mother died. Katie shakes her head as if reading my mind.

Cruel world, do not leave this task to me.

Francesca continues, “A few left by car. Those with family outside the city.”

“What about you?”

“I'll wait here for my brother to come back. If there's anything we can do for you—”

“What will you and Harry do?” I ask Katie, remembering that Harry doesn't have family.

“Wait for Gran. She'll be heaps worried once the news spreads.”

Katie's words return to me.
As long as you have someone worrying over you, you'll be okay.
I worried over Jack and Ma, but that didn't do a whit of good.

The ancestors have turned their backs on my family, even after all those offerings we made. And Ba's Christian God—the caring, all-powerful one—He has been the most disappointing of all. Though I am not speaking to Him anymore, I still plead with Him to let me find Ba soon.
It's the least You can do.

“Are you comfortable?” Katie pulls a leaf off my hair.

“I'm fine. Please don't worry.” Mourning should be done in private.

“Of course we're worried. When my parents died, I crawled into my tree house and wouldn't come down until it started to snow over a month later.”

Francesca gives my arm a squeeze and tells Katie, “She's in shock. Leave her be.”

Katie nods but doesn't look offended. “I wish we could give her some tea,” she whispers to Francesca. “Or something to eat. I wonder if pinecones are edible.”

Their voices sound distant to my unfocused ear.

“Their nuts are edible after you roast them,” Francesca says. “If it weren't so dangerous, I would take her to the restaurant for
spaghetti alla gricia
. It's my specialty.”

“Ain't spaghetti just spaghetti?” asks Katie.

“Goodness, no. There are many ways to cook a noodle.”

Several paces away, Headmistress Crouch directs men to set crates of supplies under a sprawling hemlock. The men trot off to dispense more crates from their horse-drawn wagon, and I hear her call after them: “We've been here almost eight hours, and that's all you can give us?”

Though I'm tempted to sit and wallow, it will only lead to me imagining the awful way that Ma and Jack died—burned, but hopefully suffocated first so they did not feel the flame. And Ba, what if he was
 . . . 
?

Hot tears form in my eyes again. I shake my head, willing my thoughts back in their cage. Getting to my feet, I fold the blanket in quarters and hang it on a branch.

The park is a perfect oasis of trim lawn, punctuated with evergreens and poplars. If it weren't for the ashy sky, and of
course all the refugees, you would never know an earthquake had happened.

Francesca and Katie stop talking. I can feel them watching me as I walk away.

I pull Jack's Indian head penny from my pocket, wanting to throw it as hard as I can. Useless, unlucky piece of copper. But it's the only thing I have left of Jack. I return it to my pocket.

Help me find my way, little brother. I am lost.