Herma

by MacDonald Harris

  “It’s only a few steps onto the ferry.”

  “Allow me.”

  In a masterful way he lifted the two suitcases. He hadn’t anticipated their weight and they made him stagger a little. His pale face became slightly paler, and a film of sweat appeared above his mustache. He began lugging the suitcases down the ramp and onto the ferry, while Herma followed at his side.

  “You’ve got a lot of luggage,” he couldn’t help saying.

  “One belongs to my—manager.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance. “You’re an actress?”

  “A singer.”

  “Where’s your manager now?”

  “He’ll be along.”

  He didn’t seem to care for this idea very much, although he went on being outwardly pleasant. It was precisely this, Herma now saw, that made him seem lightly sinister: he smiled and spoke politely, but one had the impression that these were not natural impulses but only contrived means to an end, which might be quite other than smiling and polite. It was a crocodile smile. Yet he seemed to be a very respectable person. His serge suit wasn’t shiny like those of most of the other men on the ferry. He set the suitcases down next to a polished wooden bench with a curving back. Then, still smiling in spite of his perspiration, he raised his derby to her and took his own seat—not next to her as she expected, but on the bench across from her, so that he stared directly at her from a distance of only five feet or so. Herma smoothed her skirt and sat primly with her hands in her lap, one suitcase on either side of her feet.

  Although the ferry was more than half full now, there were only two other passengers on the pair of facing benches occupied by Herma and the bony young man. One was a weary female who looked as though she might be a charwoman going to work, and the other was a policeman in a blue uniform with brass buttons, not wearing his helmet but holding it resting on his knees, perhaps as a symbol that he was not yet on duty. The policeman had a broad red face and small suspicious eyes. The part of his forehead covered by the helmet when he was wearing it was white. He had one of the most inexpert haircuts that Herma had ever seen. It looked as though it had been done with a butcher knife by a child. The policeman stared from Herma to the bony young man and back again. It was clear that he saw that Herma and the bony young man were not yet friends, but that the bony young man hoped for them to be. He disapproved of this. He fixed his little eyes on them beadily. The charwoman also observed the drama, wearily.

  “Your manager has evidently missed the ferry.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Herma.

  It was true that the ferry was trembling and humming underneath now. The walls of the long shed were slowly beginning to move backwards, and the great paddle wheels, as high as a two-story building, were turning slowly. Then they increased their pace until the spokes blurred, throwing up two torrents of white water behind them. The ferry gathered speed out into the Bay. Here on the Oakland flats the water was still shallow and muddy. A few fish traps went by, consisting of reed fences held up by poles stuck in the mud. The bony young man leaned forward from his bench. He crossed his legs, in a manner indicating that he was about to speak again.

  “He did miss the ferry, so I’ll have to help you on the other side.”

  Herma said nothing.

  “I’ll be glad to do so. Where are you going?”

  Herma averted her glance, caught the tiny eyes of the policeman, and looked in the other direction.

  He bent toward her. “It’s difficult for a young lady in a large city. I’d better accompany you to—to where you’re going. I can see you settled. You see, I’m a clerk at the Crocker Bank, but the boss is a friend of mine and I don’t have to be there before ten. My name,” he added at the end, still leaning toward her confidently, “is Mr. Riemer.”

  The red-faced policeman wrinkled his nose. Herma had the impression that he was taking note of the name. Perhaps, she thought, he had a kind of imaginary notebook in there behind his nose, and the name Mr. Riemer went in there and was recorded until he had time to write it down.

  “And I’m off at four o’clock,” continued Mr. Riemer, “so perhaps, if you have nothing better to do, we might take tea at the Palace.”

  The policeman took another nasal note. The charwoman chewed the inside of her lip and regarded Herma thoughtfully.

  From this point Herma resolved to say nothing to Mr. Riemer at all, neither did she meet his glance. She simply pretended he wasn’t there.

  “And afterward, dinner at Delmonico’s. It’s very discreet. They have private rooms.” If he leaned forward any farther, Herma thought, he would fall off his bench. “So that your manager, in case he ever happens to catch his ferry, would never find out about it.” Here he uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. “Oysters,” he proposed in a kind of a croak, “and champagne.” Before he had only smiled, but now he grinned. His lips parted. His teeth were slightly yellow.

  Herma stood up and seized the two suitcases. She found that she could lift them after all, with a little extra effort. Swaying a little and supporting them an inch from the floor, she made her way to another bench. Unfortunately the only free places were in the row exactly behind the one Herma had been sitting on, so that the policeman and the charwoman, by looking over the tops of the benches, could still stare at her.

  Mr. Riemer got up, came around the benches, and sat down opposite her, between a mother with her little girl and a businessman reading the Chronicle.

  “I’ll bet you haven’t got any manager at all,” he said. “You just made him up. Or if you have,” he conjectured further, “he’s given you the slip. He’s a cad, is what he is. He’s left you in the lurch.” A trace of moisture appeared at the two ends of his smile. “I’ll bet he’s got some money of yours, hasn’t he? I know these managers. I can tell you for certain, he’s got a flossie in a flat in North Beach. That’s where your money’s going. He didn’t meet you in Oakland because he’s in North Beach with his flossie.”

  At this point his tongue came out and lapped away the moisture, which was on the point of slipping down the corner of his mouth. Then he was able to smile again. He did so very slowly, without taking his eyes from her.

  Herma stood up and wrenched the suitcases off the floor again. With a feeling as though her arms were being stretched by some torture machine, she made her way around the kind of island that filled the center of the ferry, with machinery clanking inside it. She passed one door that said “Captain,” another that said “Employees Only,” and a third that said “Gents.” Mr. Riemer, she saw, was following behind her. Moist and intent, leaning slightly toward her, he had a hand ready to take one of the suitcases in case she permitted. She came to a third door marked “Ladies.”

  The door was very narrow. When opened, it had a tendency to swing closed again, owing to the very slight and gentle rolling of the ferry on the waters of the Bay. Herma managed to get the large tapestry portmanteau inside. While she was doing this, she was unable to prevent Mr. Riemer from helping her with the other. He passed it to her through the door, leering significantly at the brass sign “Ladies” and at the porcelain fixtures quite visible inside the tiny compartment. She shut the door brusquely, almost amputating his smile.

  When Fred came out a quarter of an hour later there was no sign of Mr. Riemer. Carrying the suitcases, he went to the empty bench across from the policeman and the charwoman and sat down. He was wearing a smart checked jacket, a pair of beige pants, and yellow pigskin shoes. On his head was a stylish derby with a curved brim, only a little bent from being packed into the horsehide suitcase with socks stuffed into it. The policeman, without moving a muscle, stared at him even more beadily than before. His eyes seemed to contract, and the well-developed sphincters drew his mouth tightly against his teeth. Fred, glancing down, saw that a piece of pink satin was protruding from the opening of the tapestry portmanteau. There never was a woman, he thought, who knew how to pack a bag.

  He considered going off to buy a c
igar, but decided it would be better not to leave the suitcases. At this point he caught sight of Mr. Riemer. He was roaming around the deck of the ferry, circling the machinery island in the center, bent slightly forward and rising on his toes with each pace. His keen unwinking eyes swept around like a searchlight. He had gone around three times, in this identical manner, before he caught sight of the two suitcases on the floor in front of Fred.

  He stopped, but continued to lean forward. He had a remarkable and in fact unique sort of equilibrium, Fred thought. It was as though he were immune to the laws of gravity, or had the center of weight in a different part of his body than other people. He was able to lean forward at the angle of a stepladder without falling or losing a trace of his aplomb. Perhaps he had some kind of trick shoes. But he could do it sitting on a bench too.

  Poised upright in this diagonal way, he stared at Fred and the suitcases. They were the same two grips, no doubt about it. Did he notice the scrap of satin sticking out of the portmanteau? The policeman certainly did. He hadn’t taken his eyes off it since Fred sat down. But Mr. Riemer was more interested in Fred. The crocodilelike glance was not now that of a crocodile fixed on some succulent morsel like a baby, but that of a crocodile warily studying another crocodile.

  The great paddle wheels slowed. Fred could see the city coming up now across the water, only a half mile or so away. The Ferry Building with its famous tower, an image included in every family’s collection of stereoscope slides, was directly ahead. Fred stood up and lifted the suitcases. The policeman stood up too, holding the helmet upside down as though it were some kind of ceremonial vessel. His eyes flicked rapidly from Fred to the scrap of satin in the portmanteau and back again, eight or ten times. Slowly and heavily, he began moving in Fred’s direction.

  Fred went nonchalantly off with the suitcases, turned the corner, and opened the door with “Gents” on it. He threw in the two suitcases, followed himself, and shut the door. After he had opened both suitcases there was no place for him to stand, or sit, but on the toilet. He rearranged things, putting the opened portmanteau on the toilet and the leather suitcase on the floor in front of it, leaving him room enough to stand. Luckily there was a mirror, just as there was in Ladies. The two facilities were identical except for a urinal in this one, which decreased the available space even further but gave him a place to set his hat when he took it off. He packed everything away in his suitcase, the hat last with the socks in it. Then, stark naked, he projected his willpower into the mirror.

  The thing was accomplished at last, but with some difficulty. Herma, with distaste, began taking her clothes from the portmanteau on the filthy toilet. As much as possible she avoided looking at the other fixtures in the tiny cubicle. She dressed hurriedly in the plain skirt and blouse. There was a lurch and a bump, and the sound of the engines stopped. The ferry had arrived in San Francisco.

  She straightened the skirt around her waist, passed a comb briefly through her hair, and turned her attention to the portmanteau. It wouldn’t shut, naturally, since it had far too many things in it. And, resting as it was on the top of the toilet, she couldn’t stand on it. There was a noise of shuffling feet; people were leaving the ferry. She tried sitting on the portmanteau and bumping up and down with all her weight. The clasp still refused to shut; the two brass parts were half an inch apart.

  She slid the thing down off the toilet onto the floor, which was also not very clean. In this way she was able to stand on it if she bent her head a little under the low ceiling. The place was tiny and hot and smelled like the lowest corner of Hell. The two halves of the clasp met. She bent down rapidly and snapped them.

  She opened the door and pushed the two suitcases out onto the floor outside. When she came out after them she found the policeman contemplating her from twenty feet away. He had his helmet on now. He was in San Francisco and he was on duty.

  She stared back at him pertly.

  “How do I get to the Larkin Hotel?”

  “Yer want to get a whore scab,” he growled.

  3.

  The horse-cab was easily found. There were a dozen or more of them waiting out in front of the Ferry Building, and the driver even helped her with the two bags. He was a round-faced fellow of forty or so, wearing a battered top hat with a greenish sheen to it. He hardly even seemed to give her a glance; he snapped his reins to turn the horse around and set off briskly up Market Street. But he must have noticed her, because as soon as they were on their way he said without turning his head around, “First trip to town?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Santa Ana.”

  “Never heard of that one. Must be one o’ them Spanish towns down by L.A. How do you like Frisco?”

  “I just got here.”

  “Beautiful, ain’t it? We’ve got the finest climate in the world.” It was in fact a beautiful morning. The sun was shining brightly through the last remnants of a fog that was dissolving in little wisps over the hills to the west, and there was an exhilarating crispness to the air. He went on pointing out the sights, as the cab clop-clopped its way up the busy street filled with people and vehicles and lined with buildings taller than Herma had ever seen.

  “That’s the Wells Fargo Bank there on the right. Biggest bank in the west. And that there’s the Crocker Bank.” Where Mr. Riemer worked, Herma thought, gazing at it with a distant little smile. “That there’s Newspaper Row. Chronicle Building on the corner. That there’s the Grand Hotel, and right there next to it’s the Palace. Cost seven million dollars, covers two and a half acres, and took five years to build. Has eight stories and one thousand four hundred and twelve rooms. Each room has its own fireplace, clothes closet, and private toilet, and every two rooms has a bath. Seven hundred bay windows. Special drawing room for ladies, and it’s got its own fire system that holds six hundred and thirty thousand gallons. Where you puttin’ up, by the way?”

  “The Larkin.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s a nice hotel too. Time was when it was the best hotel in town. That was before the Grand was built, and the Palace. Still,” he added, “it’s a nice enough place to put up. If you can afford it.”

  “I can afford it.”

  “That there’s the Call Building,” he said, pointing it out with his whip. “Tallest building west of Chicago. Ain’t a brick in it. Made of poured concrete reinforced with iron rods. It would take something, I tell you, to bring that building down. It’s solid as the Rock of Gibraltar.” It didn’t look much like the Rock of Gibraltar. It was a high square tower with a dome on the top perforated with many windows, so that it looked like a saltshaker. “Nothing like that down in Santa Ana, I’ll bet. Right up there on yer right is Union Square. City o’ Paris Department Store. Plenty of skyscrapers up there and they’re buildin’ more. That’s the Press Club and that there’s the U.S. Mint, and we’re just comin’ to the Larkin Hotel.”

  This whole travelogue had taken only ten minutes, since the pony had trotted briskly, even though they had come halfway up Market Street and the Ferry Building was lost in the distance behind. The Larkin, as the cabman had said, was elegant but a little old-fashioned. A boy in a pillbox hat appeared and seized her two bags. Herma gave the cab driver fifty cents, which seemed to please him. He advised her not to take any wooden nickels, told her she was a real looker, reiterated that Santa Ana must not seem like much now that she’d seen Frisco, and wheeled off down Market Street toward the Ferry Building in search of another fare.

  The bellboy had the same breezy and informal air as the cab driver. Chattering a mile a minute, he led the way into a lobby decorated with red plush upholstery, velvet hangings, and gilt scrolls and filigrees. “Even got our own theayter. You can go in it from inside, right through that door there, or around the corner on Tyler. First trip to town? What do you think of Frisco? Take a look at that clock there. Built by Tiffany’s of New York. Not only tells the time of day in hours, minutes, and seconds but the turn of the tides, the phases
of the moon, and who’s got yer umbrella. Cost twenty-five thousand dollars. What name, please?”

  “Miss Herma.”

  “Room for Miss Herma!” he bawled at the top of his voice, flinging the bags down by the desk.

  “What name?” said the clerk.

  “Herma.”

  “What other name?”

  “Just Herma.”

  “See what I got here.” He thumbed through a bunch of cards in a box on the desk. “First trip to town? Sure are a looker, I’ll say that for you. Where you from?”

  “My room, please.”

  “Well, don’t fly off the handle. I’ve got your reservation right here. Who’s Fred Hite?”

  “My manager.”

  “Well, he made the reservation all right. Boy! Number 602.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  He looked up from the registration card on which he was scrawling the number 602. “H’mm?”

  “What kind of a room is it?”

  “Sixth floor, Market Street, with a bath and its own bay window.”

  “I require two rooms, with separate entrances and a connecting bath.”

  “Connecting bath?”

  “A bath which can be entered from either room, each room with its own entrance from the corridor, and both rooms on Market Street.”

  “A bay window in both?” inquired the clerk with light sarcasm.

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, we ain’t got it.”

  “You mean you have no such rooms, or you have no such rooms for me?”

  “From your point of view, what’s the difference? We ain’t got it. Tell you what. You take 602 for the time being. I get off at five o’clock, and we’ll have a cosy little supper in the Las Flores room and talk about it. That appeal to you?”