The wagons rolled down the street and stopped at the edge of town, followed by a parade of men titillated by alcohol and the recent contest between the bull and the bear. Eliza followed along to have a close look at this novelty. She realized she would not have many customers for her letter writing and would have to find another way to earn her supper. Taking advantage of the clear day, several volunteers offered to unhitch the mules and help unload a battered piano that they set on the grass, following the orders of the madam, whom they all knew by the delicate name of Joe Bonecrusher. In a thrice, a strip of land had been cleared; tables were set up and as if by magic bottles of rum and postcards of naked women appeared. There were also two boxes of pornographic books, advertised as “bedroom novels with the hottest scenes in France.” They sold for ten dollars apiece, a bargain price, because with them you could get excited as many times as you wanted and lend them to your friends as well; the books were a much better investment than a real woman, Joe Bonecrusher explained, and to prove it, she read a paragraph while her public listened in sepulchral silence, as if to a prophetic revelation. A chorus of “Hot damns!” greeted the end of the reading, and within minutes there wasn’t a book left. In the meantime, it had grown dark and the party had to be lighted with torches. The madam announced the exorbitant price of the bottles of rum, but you could dance with the girls for only a fourth of that. Did anyone here know how to play the fucking piano? she asked. That was when Eliza, whose stomach was growling, stepped forward without a moment’s hesitation and sat down at the out-of-tune instrument, invoking Miss Rose. She hadn’t played in ten months, and did not have a good ear, but the years of training with the metal rod and the knuckle-rapping of her Belgian professor came to her aid. She attacked one of the naughty songs Miss Rose and her brother, the captain, used to sing together in the innocent days of the musical gatherings, before fate lashed its tail and Eliza’s world was turned upside down. To her surprise, her clumsy playing was well received. In less than two minutes, a rustic violin materialized to accompany her, the dancing heated up, and men grabbed the four women to prance around the improvised dance floor. The ogre in the wolf skins whipped off Eliza’s hat and plunked it down on the piano with a gesture so determined that no one dared ignore it, and soon it was filling up with tips.
One of the wagons was used as headquarters and dormitory for the madam and her adopted son, the little boy with the drum; the rest of the women traveled jammed together in the second, and the two towed vehicles were converted into bedrooms. Each was fitted out with colorful scarves; a four-poster bed with canopy; a gold-framed mirror; a porcelain pitcher and washbasin; faded, slightly moth-eaten, but still exotic oriental rugs; and candlesticks with fat candles for light. This theatrical decor incited the customers and disguised the dust of the roads and the wear and tear of use. While two of the women danced to the music, the other two hastily performed their business in the covered wagons. The madam, whose fingers had a magical touch with the cards, never left the gaming tables or her duty of collecting in advance for her doves’ services, selling rum and encouraging the revelry, her eternal pipe clamped between her teeth. Eliza played all the songs she knew by heart, and when she exhausted her repertoire began with the first again, without anyone’s noticing the repetition, over and over, until she was giddy with fatigue. When the colossus saw Eliza was flagging, he called a break, scooped the money out of the hat and stuck it in the piano player’s pockets, then took her by the arm and practically carried her to the first wagon where he placed a glass of rum in her hand. Eliza pushed it away weakly; to drink that on an empty stomach would be like being hit on the head with a hammer. The man then dug through a clutter of boxes and baskets and produced bread and some sliced onion that Eliza attacked trembling with anticipation. When she had devoured that, she looked up and saw the giant in the wolf skins studying her from his tremendous height. His face lighted up with an innocent smile filled with the whitest, most even teeth in this world.
“You have the face of a woman,” he said, and Eliza started.
“My name is Elías Andieta,” she answered, putting her hand to her pistol as if ready to defend her name with gunshots.
“Mine is Babalú the Bad.”
“Is there a good Babalú?”
“There was.”
“What happened to him?”
“He met up with me. Where are you from, boy?”
“Chile. I’m looking for my brother. Haven’t you heard talk of Joaquín Andieta?”
“I haven’t heard about anyone with that name. But if your brother has his balls set right, sooner or later he’ll come visit us. Everyone knows Joe Bonecrusher’s girls.”
Business Dealings
Captain John Sommers anchored the Fortuna in San Francisco Bay, far enough from land that no hothead would be bold enough to jump overboard and swim to shore. He had warned the crew that the cold water and the currents would do in a swimmer in less than twenty minutes, in case the sharks didn’t get there first. This was his second venture with ice, and he felt more confident. Before sailing into the narrow channel of the Golden Gate he had opened several casks of rum and generously distributed the contents among the sailors; once they were drunk he drew a pair of large pistols and ordered the men to lie facedown on the deck. The mate fastened shackles around their feet, to the shock of the passengers who had come aboard in Valparaíso and who when they witnessed the scene from the upper deck did not know what the devil was happening. In the meantime, the Rodríguez de Santa Cruz brothers had sent a flotilla of boats to ferry the passengers and precious cargo to the dock. When it was time to ready the ship for the return trip the crew would be freed, after being given more rum and a bonus of double their salaries in good gold and silver coins. While that didn’t compensate for not being able to strike off inland to look for the mines, as nearly all had planned to do, at least it was some consolation. The captain had used the same method on his first voyage, with excellent results: he prided himself on having one of the few merchant ships that had not been abandoned in the gold madness. No one dared defy that English pirate—son of a whorish mother and Francis Drake, as they described him—because they had no doubt that he was capable of emptying his blunderbusses into the chest of anyone who rebelled.
The produce Paulina had shipped from Valparaíso was stacked on the docks of San Francisco: eggs and fresh cheeses, the vegetables and fruit of a Chilean summer, butter, cider, fish and shellfish, superior sausages, beef, and a variety of poultry, stuffed and ready for the oven. Paulina had commissioned nuns to make their colonial sweets—custards and flaky pastries—as well as the favorite dishes of the Chilean kitchen, all of which had been transported in chambers of blue ice. The first shipment had been snapped up in fewer than three days at such an astonishing profit that the brothers neglected their other dealings to concentrate on the miracle of the ice. The blocks of iceberg melted slowly during the sailing, but there was enough left that the captain intended to sell it at a usurer’s price in Panama. It was impossible to keep the phenomenal success of the first trip quiet, and the news that some Chileans were sailing with blocks of a glacier onboard spread like wildfire. Soon companies were formed to attempt the same with Alaskan icebergs, but it was impossible to enlist a crew and obtain fresh produce that could compete with those from Chile, and Paulina was able to steam ahead with her business, sans rivals, during the time she obtained a second steamship to expand her empire.
Captain Sommers’ erotic books also sold in the blink of an eye, but under a mantle of discretion and without passing through the hands of the Rodríguez de Santa Cruz brothers. Whatever else, the captain wanted to avoid rousing virtuous voices, as had happened in other cities where censors had confiscated the books for being immoral and burned them in public bonfires. In Europe, they circulated secretly in deluxe editions among wealthy gentlemen and collectors, but the greatest profits came from editions for popular consumption. The books were printed in England, where they were clandestine
ly sold for a few pennies, but in California the captain earned fifty times that price. In view of the enthusiasm for this type of literature, it had occurred to him to add illustrations since most of the miners could scarcely read newspaper headlines. New editions were already in print in London with bawdy drawings, in the long run, all that appealed to the buyers.
That same evening, John Sommers, seated in the dining room of the best hotel in San Francisco, supped with the Rodríguez de Santa Cruz brothers, who in a few months’ time had recovered their gentlemanly appearance. There was no trace of the hairy Neanderthals who only months before had been prospecting for gold. The real fortune was right there, in clean transactions they could carry out in plump hotel easy chairs with whiskey in hand, like civilized folk and not ruffians, they said. Added to the five Chilean miners they had brought with them at the end of 1848 were eighty peasants, humble and submissive people who knew nothing about mining but who learned quickly, followed orders, and were not rebellious. The brothers kept them working on the banks of the American River under the command of loyal overseers while they themselves looked after the ships and the business. They bought two vessels to ply the route from San Francisco to Sacramento, and two hundred mules to transport merchandise to the placers, merchandise they sold directly without involving middlemen. The fugitive slave who had worked as a bodyguard turned out to be a wizard with numbers and he now did the bookkeeping, looking, like his employers, the grand lord with top hat and cigar despite the grumbles of whites who had no tolerance for his color but had no choice but to negotiate with him.
“Your wife asked me to tell you that she is coming on the next voyage of the Fortuna and bringing the children, the maidservants, and the dog. She said for you to be thinking about a place to live, because she doesn’t plan to stay in a hotel,” the captain communicated to Feliciano Rodríguez de Santa Cruz.
“What a ridiculous idea! This gold rush will come to a dead stop and the city will go back to being the sleepy town it was two years ago. There are already signs that the gold is about mined out; they’re not finding those boulder-size nuggets anymore. And who will care anything about California when that happens?”
“When I first came here it looked like a refugee camp, but it’s become the kind of city God had in mind. Frankly, I don’t think it will dry up and blow away: it’s the gateway to the Pacific.”
“That’s what Paulina says in her letter.”
“Follow your wife’s advice, Feliciano; she has a sharp nose for business,” his brother interposed.
“Besides, there’s no way to stop her. She’s coming with me on the next voyage. Let us not forget that she owns the Fortuna.” The captain smiled.
They were served fresh Pacific oysters, one of the few gastronomic treats of San Francisco, and doves stuffed with almonds and pear preserves from Paulina’s shipment, which the hotel had immediately bought up. The red wine also came from Chile and the champagne from France. Word had spread about the arrival of the Chileans with the ice, and all the restaurants and hotels in the city were filled with customers eager to indulge in fresh delicacies before they were depleted. The men were lighting cigars to accompany their coffee and brandy when John Sommers felt a clap on the back that nearly knocked the glass from his hand. He turned and found himself staring at Jacob Todd, whom he had not seen for more than three years, when he had delivered him to England, poor and humiliated. Todd was the last person he expected to see, and it took a moment to recognize him because the former fraudulent missionary was now the caricature of a Yankee. He had lost weight and hair; two long sideburns framed his face; he was wearing a checked suit, snakeskin boots, and a jarring Virginia planter’s hat; pencils, notebooks, and sheets of newspaper protruded from the four pockets of his jacket. They embraced like old comrades. Jacob Todd had been in San Francisco for five months writing articles on the gold fever that were regularly published in England as well as in Boston and New York. He had come to California thanks to the generous intervention of Feliciano Rodríguez de Santa Cruz, who had not tossed the old debt he owed the Englishman out the window. Like a good Chilean, he never forgot a favor—or an insult!—and when he learned of the Englishman’s straits he had sent money, a ticket, and a note explaining that California was as far as his friend could go without beginning to start back the other way. In 1845 Jacob Todd had gotten off Captain John Sommers’ ship with renewed health and energy, eager to put behind him the shameful incident in Valparaíso and devote himself body and soul to establishing in England the Utopian community he had so long dreamed of. He carried a thick notebook, yellowed by use and sea air, filled with ideas. Every detail of the community had been studied and planned down to the smallest detail; he was certain that many young people—the old would not be interested—would abandon their dreary lives to become part of an idealistic brotherhood of free men and women under a system of absolute equality, without authorities, police, or religion. Potential candidates for the experiment were not as quick to respond as he had expected, but after a few months he had two or three willing to give it a try. All he needed was a Maecenas to finance the costly undertaking, which would require a sizable piece of land because the community was to live apart from the aberrations of the world and yet must satisfy all its wants. Todd had initiated conversations with a crackpot lord who had a large estate in Ireland, when rumors about the scandal in Valparaíso caught up with him in London and dogged him till he had no breathing room left. Again doors closed to him and he lost his friends and disciples; his nobleman disclaimed him and his dream of Utopia went down the drain. As once before, Jacob Todd sought consolation in alcohol, and he sank into a swamp of devastating memories. He was living like a rat in a third-rate boardinghouse when the lifeline thrown by his friend reached him. He did not think twice. He changed his name and set sail for the United States, hoping to find a bright new destiny. His one goal was to bury his shame and live in anonymity until the time he could revive his idyllic project. First and foremost he must get a job; his income had been reduced and the glorious days of idleness had come to a halt. When he reached New York he had introduced himself to a couple of newspapermen, offering his services as a correspondent in California, and then had made the trip west across the isthmus of Panama because he didn’t have the heart to go by way of the Straits of Magellan and find himself back in Valparaíso where his shame awaited, undiminished, and the beautiful Miss Rose would hear his name besmirched once more. In California his friend Feliciano Rodríguez de Santa Cruz helped him find a place to live and employment on the oldest newspaper in San Francisco. Jacob Todd, now Jacob Freemont, started working for the first time in his life, discovering to his amazement that he enjoyed it. He wandered the region writing about anything that caught his eye, including Indian massacres, immigrants flooding in from every corner of the planet, uncontrolled price gouging by merchants, the miners’ quick justice, and vice in general. One of his articles nearly cost him his life. He described, not naming names but with perfect clarity, the way some gaming houses operated with marked dice, oiled cards, watered liquor, drugs, prostitution, and the practice of getting women dead drunk and then for a dollar selling them to as many men who wanted the right to make sport with them. “All of this protected by the same authorities who should be combating such vices,” he wrote in conclusion. He was threatened by gangsters, the chief of police, and politicians, and sometimes had to lie low until tempers cooled. Despite that misstep, his articles appeared regularly and his was becoming a pen people respected. As he told his friend John Sommers, in seeking anonymity he was finding celebrity.
At the end of the meal, Jacob Freemont invited his friends to see the sensation of the day: a Chinese girl whom one could watch but not touch. Her name was Ah Toy and she had sailed on a clipper with her husband, an elderly merchant who had the good taste to die at sea and leave her free. She lost no time in a widow’s laments and to enliven the rest of the journey she became the lover of the captain, who turned out to be a generous m
an. When she debarked in San Francisco, showily gowned and with a heavy purse, she noticed the lustful gazes that followed her and was struck with the brilliant idea of charging for those looks. She rented two rooms, cut holes in the dividing wall, and then charged an ounce of gold for the privilege of looking at her. Jacob Freemont’s friends followed him in good humor, and with the bribe of a few dollars they were able to jump the line and be among the first to enter. They were led into a narrow room thick with tobacco smoke where a dozen men stood elbow to elbow with noses pressed to the wall. They peered through the uncomfortable peepholes, feeling like ridiculous schoolboys, and saw in the next room a beautiful young woman dressed in a silk kimono slit on both sides from waist to toes. Underneath it, she was naked. The voyeurs groaned at each of the languid movements that revealed part of her delicate body. John Sommers and the Rodríguez de Santa Cruz brothers doubled over laughing, unable to believe that hunger for women could be so consuming. Afterward they went their separate ways, and the captain and the newspaperman left to have a last drink. After listening to the account of Jacob’s voyages and adventures, the captain decided to confide in him.
Daughter of Fortune Page 28
