“Here’s the Palace,” said Herma.
The hotel itself was undamaged, but it was almost unrecognizable. The street was filled with rubble from other buildings, and there was an indescribable confusion of half-clad hotel guests, wagons piled with luggage, firemen, and curious onlookers.
The accompanist blinked at all this. He turned to Caruso, scratching his head.
“You all done with me for tonight!”
“Ah dio. But of course.”
“Think I’ll go back to the Grand and get some sleep.”
Caruso stared at him, the lower half of his face still wrapped in the scarf.
“But the hotel is on fire,” said Grasse.
“I don’t mind. I’ve got to get some sleep. I’m not used to this.”
He went off around the building. No one paid any attention now to the fact that he was wearing pyjamas under his overcoat. A little way down Mission a brick fell near him and he jumped like a cat. That was the last they saw of him.
19.
The lights were still on in the Palace, which had its own dynamos in the basement. There was nothing to worry about, the manager assured them. The building was fireproof and had its own water system. The walls were two feet thick and reinforced by iron rods, and were undamaged by the shock of the earthquake. It was important for everybody to keep calm and obey the instructions of the authorities, which he, the manager, would relay to them when the time came. He was a plump and self-important man in immaculate evening dress, with a white handkerchief showing in his pocket. He spoke to a small crowd of guests, fifty or so, in the Grand Court of the hotel.
The only thing was, he went on, that the authorities had ordered the hotel to be evacuated. There were a number of fires in the neighborhood, and the main line of fire, which had started in the tenements down south of the Slot, was moving toward Market Street and was only a few blocks away. He reiterated that the Palace was fireproof and that nothing would happen to it. Still, the authorities had their rules and they, the guests of the Palace, would have to obey the law just like everybody else. Later, after the authorities had the fire under control, they could come back and reclaim their baggage and other possessions.
Beckworth appeared in the crowd with Lucì in tow.
“Rico, we’re moving to the St. Francis. I’ve made all the arrangements.”
“The St. Francis?”
“It’s on Union Square. A brand-new hotel. It’s perfectly safe. The fire will never reach that far.”
“Beck,” said Caruso through the scarf, “my voice is gone.”
“Well, we’ll find it again. You’ve lost it before. Come on now. I’ve found a cab. It’s waiting outside.”
“But can I not take anything? All my possessions! My treasures!” He let the scarf fall and flung up his arms in anguish. “You there! Hotel manager. You great figure of authority. Can I not go to my room and get anything?”
“You can have ten minutes,” said the manager. “Only what you can carry in your hands.”
“Oh dio. I have a trunk with eighty pairs of shoes. Can I carry them with me in my hands?”
“I don’t think so,” said the manager.
“Hurry up, Rico. I can’t keep the cab waiting.”
“Oh dio dio.”
Herma took him by the arm and began running with him up the ornate marble stairs. Whether or not the elevators were working, the elevator boys had disappeared somewhere. When they got to the sixth floor Herma was panting a little, but Caruso was still seething at the same rate through his clenched teeth. Evidently for his powerful chest running up six flights of stairs was nothing. He unlocked the door and burst into the suite, leaving the door open behind him. Herma followed.
A thin young Italian in shirt-sleeves and a waistcoat was standing in the bedroom, holding a silver hairbrush in one hand and a pair of shoes in the other. It was Martino, Caruso’s valet.
“What are you doing?”
“I am packing, Signore.”
“Idiot! We have to leave immediately. We can take nothing.”
“Very good, Signore.”
He turned away to put the shoes in the trunk and pack the brush in a suitcase. Caruso unwound the scarf from his face and threw it on the floor. “La voce!” he muttered. “When the voice goes, Caruso is nothing.” He went into the bathroom, dampened a small towel, and wound it around his mouth in place of the scarf. He attempted to tuck it into place but it fell down. “Never mind! What shall I take?”
“Your money.”
“I have only the money in my pocket. Beckworth has the money. I never have the money.” Groping through a valise and throwing out neckties and socks onto the floor, he found a small revolver, which he slipped into his coat pocket.
“What’s that for?”
“It makes me feel better,” said Caruso, still seething through his teeth. “Right at the moment I don’t feel good. What else?” His eye fell on the silver-framed photograph of Roosevelt on the table and he took it. A box of Egyptian cigarettes: he slipped it into the other coat pocket.
“Excuse me, Herma. Because I don’t feel good, I have to make a call to nature. I will meet you in a minute. Wait at the door.”
He disappeared into the bathroom. Herma hesitated for a moment, then she went out the door and raced down the flight of stairs to her own suite. She was carrying a small silver mesh handbag with her handkerchief and cosmetics in it. Into this she slipped her toothbrush and the coins from the locked dresser drawer in Fred’s room. There were still a few of the Double Eagles derived from the pawning of Ernestine’s brooch. The silver dollars she left behind—too heavy. She didn’t possess a revolver, so there was nothing else to take.
She slipped the mesh bag into the pocket of her cloak and started back up the stairs to the sixth floor, but met Caruso coming down. He was still carrying the photograph in its silver frame. The damp towel had fallen down around his neck and looked like a baby’s bib.
“Do you feel better?”
“La voce,” he gritted as though to himself. “The voice is everything.”
They hurried on down the stairs together. The Grand Court was almost deserted now. The manager was waving his arms as though he were herding ducks, trying to get people to leave the building. Grasse, Lucì, and Beckworth were waiting by the registration desk.
Caruso made his grimace at them. He still kept his teeth clenched together. “Amici,” he said morosely, “I’ve lost my voice.”
“Well, let’s go have some breakfast,” said Grasse. “You’ll feel better then.”
“You are insane! Do you understand what I am saying?”
“Will you please hurry up, everybody? The cab is waiting.”
Somehow Beckworth managed to get them out the door. The cab was standing at the curb on Montgomery Street. It was not really possible for five people to fit into one cab, but they managed it somehow. Lucì sat on Grasse’s knees, and Herma with her slim hips fitted into a corner of the seat beside Beckworth.
It was six-thirty now and a ghoulish sort of daylight was beginning to creep over the city. They drove through a scene that might have come from the imagination of a Gustave Doré, all in grays, like an etching. A pall of smoke hung in Market Street at the level of the tops of the buildings. A few fires were burning here and there in shops, and the fire companies were making half-hearted attempts to put them out. But the water mains were broken and there was no water except for what they could bring up in their tank wagons. A short way down Market the Call Building, that indestructible marvel built out of poured concrete and steel, was burning fiercely, with flames coming out of the salt-shaker holes in the dome high at the top. To the left, in the flat expanse of tenements south of the Slot, immense towers of smoke stood in the air, rising to a thousand feet or more and then flattening out into anvils. In places the columns had joined together into a solid wall of smoke, with pink and orange flashes showing now and then at the bottom of it. The fire had advanced considerably in the few minutes th
ey had spent in the hotel. No one seemed to be doing anything about it, or to be particularly concerned. Two men came out of a doorway carrying a large oil painting, set it on the sidewalk, and stood trying to decide what to do with it. Other people stood on housetops, looking at the fire off to the south.
“Dio dio.”
“The fire will never cross Market,” said Beckworth. “Calm down, Rico. We’re going to the St. Francis and have a nice breakfast.”
“Che dice?” asked Lucì.
“Che stiamo al sicuro. L’incendio non arriverà fino al St. Francis.”
“Ah bene.”
“I wish I could believe you,” said Grasse. “Look, parbleu. There’s a curious sight. It’s like a stage set.”
At a hotel a short way down Market the entire front wall had fallen away, leaving the rooms intact with all their furniture. Unmade beds, bathrooms with all their fixtures, and neatly furnished but dusty parlors passed by their frame of vision. In one bedroom a man still in his nightshirt was sitting gloomily on the bed with his hands folded, watching the cab as it passed. On the sidewalk in front of the hotel a cat wound delicately through the heaps of rubble, holding its tail in the air. Then it turned, presenting the small and immaculate pink eye under its tail to the watchers in the cab. Herma saw what the cat was looking at: a large gray rat had come out from the rubble and was looking for a chance to scuttle a little way down the sidewalk toward a naked foot protruding from a heap of bricks. Caruso saw it too and pulled the damp towel up over his mouth. The towel was to keep death from his voice, not dust.
They turned the corner onto Powell. From there it was only a few short blocks to Union Square. As promised, the St. Francis was intact and doing business as usual. The cab wheeled up in front of the hotel, where the doorman was still on duty. They all got out except Beckworth.
“The rest of you go in. There are rooms reserved in your names. I’ve got another piece of business to do.”
He went off in the cab in the direction of Market, where the smoke was now looming higher.
They looked at each other. Caruso shrugged. “Beck always says that he does not understand artists. But sometimes I do not understand Beck.”
They went in through the door into the almost deserted hotel, and were quickly seated in the restaurant at a table with silver service and immaculate white linen.
“It’s Mr. Caruso’s party,” called the headwaiter. “Step lively there, you others. What is your pleasure, ladies and gentlemen?”
“Breakfast, and lots of it,” said Grasse.
“How could anyone eat a mouthful?” said Caruso.
Lucì caught Herma’s eye. She seemed uneasy.
“Ma cosa facciamo?”
Herma smiled. “Prendiamo la colazione. Hai fame?”
“Molto. But what is all this?” She waved her arm around her, to indicate everything that was happening.
“Ma è un terremoto.”
“Ah. Cosi.” Now that Lucì knew it was an earthquake she seemed relieved. There was no telling what she thought it was before. Perhaps the end of the world.
A platoon of waiters came up with the breakfast. There were eggs sunny-side up, a dozen or so rashers of bacon, a mountain of toast, and a piping hot silver pot of coffee. They devoured all this. Their appetites were incredible, considering the supper they had all had at Delmonico’s only a few short hours before. Even Caruso did his share. He ate a piece of toast, cut up a rasher of bacon and delicately ate it with his knife and fork (Herma ate hers with her fingers), and sipped a little black coffee. He still seemed depressed. He said little, and kept glancing out the window as though he expected to see the fire appear any minute behind the glass, or some other Beast of the Apocalypse he had not anticipated.
“Food,” said Grasse shrewdly with a sidewise glance at him, “sustains the voice. I always eat a good breakfast.”
Caruso took another piece of toast, spread it with butter, and began eating it. When he had finished it to the last crumb he licked the butter from his fingers, and then he held his hand before his face and looked at it. “La voce,” he said absently.
Grasse lit a cigar. The waiters were clearing the table. Caruso reached mechanically into his pocket to pay for the breakfast, but at that moment Beckworth arrived.
“Come on, everybody,” he said briskly. “We’re going to Oakland. The ferries aren’t running but I’ve engaged a launch. I have compartments in the first train leaving for the East.”
“I thought we were staying at the St. Francis,” said Caruso.
“Not anymore. The plans are changed.”
“Have you had your breakfast, Beck?”
“The Devil with my breakfast. Hurry up. The launch won’t wait forever.”
“Dio dio. Well, let’s go. Are Grasse and Herma going too?”
“No, just you and Lucì. Moellendorf will meet us at the Embarcadero.”
“Well, Grasse and Herma can come to see us off.”
“There’s not room in the cab.”
“Not room? But we all fitted in the cab before. We can do it again.”
Beckworth lifted his shoulders in a helpless gesture. “Well, come on then. But hurry.”
No one had paid for the breakfast. The waiters bowed them out, all smiles and ceremony. Outside on Powell Street they all squeezed into the cab as before, Caruso still clutching his photograph in its silver frame.
“Embarcadero,” said Beckworth.
“Oh no,” said Caruso. “Beck, I have to go back to the Palace.”
“Out of the question.”
“But all my things.”
“Forget it.”
“To the Palace!”
“Wait till you see it,” said Beckworth.
The Palace was not as fireproof as the manager had contended. As they came down Market they saw that the wall of fire proceeding up from the south had crossed Mission and Jessie and was licking at the rear wall of the hotel. Flames were curling from windows on the lower stories, not only on Jessie Street but around the corner on Montgomery. Jets of water were spouting from hoses on the roof. There was a great clutter of fire engines, wagons, and motorcars around the side entrance on Market.
“To the Embarcadero,” Beckworth ordered. “Go on past. Drive around it.”
“No, no,” said Caruso. Taking advantage of the traffic which caused the cab to stop momentarily, he leaped out and strode across the sidewalk toward the hotel.
“Rico, you madman.”
Beckworth got out and followed after him, and Herma came along too. Grasse and Lucì stayed in the cab.
Inside the hotel the Grand Court was filled with smoke. Almost nothing could be seen. An orange glow pulsed from the restaurant down the corridor toward Jessie Street. It was there that most of the smoke was coming from. It billowed out in great clouds, rising up toward the glass roof seven stories overhead.
“Rico!” called Beckworth.
Caruso had disappeared somewhere in the smoke. The Grand Court was piled high with guests’ baggage. There were trunks, packing cases, and crates of liquor and wine. There were no guests in sight. The manager was also missing. A crowd of Chinese servants milled about through the piles of baggage, gesticulating and arguing. Now and then a pair of them would pick up a trunk and run off with it toward the entrance onto Market. The scene was Dantesque. Sometimes the Chinese were obscured in the smoke, at other times they could be seen in the pink light of the fire, gibbering at one another and pushing at the baggage.
Caruso reappeared, disheveled and perspiring. “They’re stealing my things,” he cried. “Al ladro! Thief! There!”
He pointed to a pair of Chinese who were disappearing toward the door with a trunk.
“It is the trunk with my shoes! Ladri! Mascalzoni!”
He followed after them for a few paces, then came to a halt, took the revolver from his pocket, and raised it.
“Stop! I will shoot.”
Herma ran up and seized the arm with the revolver. Beckworth was
only a few steps behind.
“They’re stealing my trunk.”
“I see they are, but what are a few shoes compared to a human life?” said Beckworth. “Think of your voice. This building is on fire, Rico.”
Caruso pushed the damp towel up over his mouth. “My shoes,” he said in a muffled tone.
At that moment the intrepid Martino came down the stairs with flames surrounding him, carrying a small trunk.
“Non vi preoccupate, signore, I have taken care of everything. This is the last of your trunks. The others are being loaded onto a wagon.”
“What?”
Martino went off with the trunk. They followed after him. Outside on Market a wagon was in fact waiting, piloted by a phlegmatic driver who did not seem to feel there was anything unusual about the circumstances. He was chewing a toothpick and looking with detachment at the smoke pouring from the upper stories of the Palace. All of Caruso’s trunks were piled on the wagon, and Martino was securing a rope around them.
“Where are Lucì and Grasse?” said Caruso. “We must all go on the wagon, otherwise they will steal my things.”
He still had the revolver in his hand. Herma decided against an attempt to relieve him of it or persuade him to put it away. Grasse and Lucì were discovered in the cab only a few yards away, hidden in a cloud of smoke.
“Hurry, for the love of God,” said Beckworth, in a tone more of exasperation than of alarm. They all climbed onto the wagon, arranging themselves on the trunks. Grasse helped Lucì on. She smiled, a little dimly. The wagon went off, followed by the cab driver who was explaining that no one had paid him. Beckworth threw him a silver dollar, and then another. He caught them and disappeared in the smoke behind.
They looked back at the Palace. There were flames at almost every window now.
“What happened to the pumps?”
“They’re pumping water onto the roof. It’s the inside that’s on fire.”
Herma Page 38
