Lily Cigar

by Tom Murphy

  “A year and a half, though it hardly seems so, and fit as a fiddle, thinking Mrs. Baker’s her mother, which is just as well.”

  “Her mother is the most beautiful woman west of the Mississippi, and maybe east of it too, for all I know.”

  “Her mother,” said Lily matter-of-factly, “is a whore.”

  He made no reply to this, although many were the times during the past year when Stanford had offered to make her his full-time mistress, to set her up in a little house of her own somewhere, or a fine apartment.

  And Lily would have none of it, hating whoring as she did, liking Stanford as she also did.

  The last year had been one of discovery and sorrow for Lily, of success and self-loathing. Many of the things she had learned were things she would rather not have known.

  She learned how to smile when she felt more like screaming in anger, how to use charm as though it were a honed and polished weapon, how to handle men who were drunk or savage or both. For not all of her customers were like Stanford, not by miles.

  She remembered the meek, bespectacled, almost clerical-looking man who followed her upstairs and locked the door behind her and pulled out a deadly-looking razor. Lily froze.

  “Now, what,” she said quickly, keeping her voice light, praying it was some kind of joke, “would you be doing with that, Mr. Williams? For surely you have shaved already.”

  He advanced toward her, his eyes glittering. His mouth hung open. His pale, thin tongue slowly traveled the full distance around his gaping lips. A drop of spit hung trembling from his tongue, then fell to the carpet. He grinned. Then his face became a mask of righteousness, and he spoke slowly in a flat low tone that increased its intensity until it was something like a scream. “Daughter of Satan! Despoiler of youth! Corrupter of the innocent!”

  The razor glittered in the candlelight. Lily slowly backed away from him. The emergency bell was behind her, near the bed. She must keep him away from her until she rang it, until Juan could get up here. She tried to think what might be a weapon. She decided to try words, for they were nearest at hand.

  “Surely, sir, you knew what kind of house this was before coming here. No one forced you.”

  He stopped and lifted both hands toward the ceiling, threw his head back and laughed a terrible laugh. Lily backed against the wall and leaned on the bell, hard. She rang it again and again, praying there was someone to hear, that the bell worked, for she had never had an occasion to use the thing before. The man’s mad laughter died down, and he looked at her again, his eyes more baleful than before.

  “I am the avenging angel of the Lord Jesus!”

  “Surely the Lord Jesus forgives sinners,” said Lily breathlessly. “Think of Mary Magdalene!”

  “Magdalene! Jezebel! Filth. Corruption. It must go. It must be eliminated!”

  He was ranting now, and there was actually a pale froth at the corner of his mouth. He waved the razor wildly about his head, then seemed to realize where Lily was and to focus his attention again. He took another step toward her. She darted sideways. He lunged. She ducked. The razor tore a wide gash in the drapery. Lily dived over the bed, rolled, landed on her feet on the other side, and ran for the door just as Juan’s strong fists began pounding on the other side.

  Juan quickly subdued the maniac, and soon the police were taking him away for questioning. It turned out that he had murdered three prostitutes in as many weeks, in different sections of San Francisco and Oakland.

  The next day Lily asked Stanford Dickinson to teach her how to use a gun. He did that, and presented her with a small, beautifully cased revolving pistol that she kept in her night table, fully loaded, from that time on.

  Lily had other adventures, for even Sophie’s house was far from immune from violence. Compared to coarser places, the El Dorado was a palace, but the men still had quick tempers and guns at hand, and some were so rough that to them a slap was hardly different from a caress. There were good nights and bad nights, and nights so humiliating that only the thought of Kate kept Lily sane. During this year, two things grew steadily: one was Lily’s bank account at Wells Fargo, and the other was her respect for her own ability to survive. She was more determined every day to quit the business of selling her body, and to become respectable in her own eyes, the eyes of the world. To this end Lily devoted all her energies, and sometimes she surprised even herself.

  Lily studied the other girls and learned from them. She was friendly but made no friends, for there wasn’t a girl in the place she truly cared for. As a lot, Lily found them dull, selfish, and lacking in imagination. They drank and they drugged, some stole, most of them fought, and nearly all of them were whoring to support idle lovers. None of this had an ounce of appeal for Lily. When she wasn’t with Kate or with Sophie, Lily tried to improve her reading. She still sewed constantly, and she made most of the alluring gowns that life in the El Dorado required. From Sophie Lily learned all she could about running the house, about the management of the kitchen, and all the thousand details that went into making the El Dorado the showplace it unquestionably was. Always reserved in private, Lily slowly learned to be more free in public.

  This did not go unnoticed. Her price rose from a hundred and fifty to two-fifty, and then to five hundred and finally to a thousand dollars for the night, and Sophie promoted her to the undreamed-of honor of being the only girl in the house who took all-night customers exclusively.

  It was during this first year, too, that Lily got the name “Lily Cigar.” The name came to her almost by accident, one night in Sophie’s parlor when Lily lit a cigarillo for Stanford Dickinson and teasingly took a puff first. The sight of such a slender, white-gowned sprite of a girl smoking teased good-natured Polly, who immediately played a dramatic chord on the piano and giggled: “Lily Cigar!” The name stuck, although in fact Lily smoked but seldom. At first she hated the name, but in time she began to feel more comfortable with it. There were other girls named Lily: there was only one Lily Cigar. The name set her off, and the name plus her price, plus her beauty, began to make her a legend.

  Stanford was her most frequent client, and the thousand-a-night aspect of this only amused him, although he groaned comically every time he paid. Lily was fond of the man, but fondness was not loving, and this was a distinction that never escaped Lily. Stanford took her for drives in his fine landau, caring not a whit that he be seen in company with the town’s most famous prostitute. Stanford repeated his offers to make her his mistress, and each time he offered, Lily politely, gently, yet firmly turned him down. For to be Stanford Dickinson’s mistress was neither more respectable nor more profitable than plain whoring, and when Lily stopped whoring, she intended that it would be for good and forever, and for an entirely new and respectable life.

  On a fine afternoon in March, Stanford took her driving out to see Kate in San Mateo. The welcome, as ever, was warm. Lily, as always, brought presents, and not just for Kate, but for all the Baker children, two boys and a girl. Kate was toddling about on plump little legs, wearing hair of the same red-gold as Lily’s and an almost perpetual smile, and every time the child called Mary Baker “Mama,” something inside “Aunt” Lily cringed and seemed to wither.

  She was quiet on the ride back, thinking that the time was none too soon to start making real plans for her future, instead of the formless dreams that had been teasing her ever since she had set foot on the Eurydice two years ago. There was nearly twelve thousand dollars in her account at Wells Fargo now, and growing fast. Her long-ago dream had been for a shop, and maybe that was still not such a bad idea, for good shops flourished here, there was a shortage of nearly everything, and everything fine commanded the highest prices. Yet Lily loved the countryside too, and often found herself dreaming of a little farm someplace. Silly goose! And what do you know about farming? Well, she’d decide on something soon—before the year was out!

  The landau pulled up before the El Dorado. Lily thanked Stanford, invited him for tea, but he declined. She k
issed him lightly on the cheek and climbed down. Heads turned on both sides of the street, but Lily had long since stopped noticing such things.

  Lily had tea, bathed, took a short nap, and then got dressed for the evening. Pale lavender she wore, trimmed with ivory lace, a color Sophie had thought of, that worked surprisingly well with the copper hair and the pale skin. She looked at the small gilt-bronze clock on the mantel: eight-fifteen. Soon the bell would summon her down to Sophie’s parlor. There would be a half-hour or so of mingling with the assembled clients, a glass of wine, some laughter, a quiet introduction to the man of the evening if she didn’t know him already.

  She inspected herself in the mirror. Not bad, thought Lily. It is a becoming color, after all. This was the first time she’d worn the lavender gown, after many misgivings in buying the thing, for it came from the City of Paris and was far from cheap. She twirled a bit and smiled at the girl in the mirror. It had taken Lily many months to accept the fact of her good looks, to learn a touch of vanity about her appearance, but this was a thing she would always have to force herself to remember, because none of the primping and fussing and posing came naturally to her. Sophie’s taste, thank God, was excellent, and Sophie took an interest. “If we’re asking a high price for the merchandise, Lily my dear, then we must display it most attractively, however tedious that may seem to you. For it’s the cologne and the lace they’re buying as well as the loving. It’s the smiles and the wine they’ll remember as much as whatever happens between the sheets. Clean sheets in themselves are a new and exotic thing for some poor man who’s been up in the camps for months at a time.” There was no doubt about it: working for Sophie Delage was many kinds of an education.

  The bell rang. Lily put down her month-old copy of Godey’s Ladies’ Book, which had arrived just today via the overland route from Kansas City, and walked down the stairs.

  Sophie’s parlor was far more than a marketplace for the girls and gamblers and drinkers of San Francisco. The El Dorado attracted the cream of the fast set, men of business and politics, clipper captains and visiting dignitaries; it had evolved into a jovial and rather exclusive club where men could meet as if by chance, where deals could be sealed with a handshake and a glass of Sophie’s excellent French wine, where political careers could be furthered or destroyed. The El Dorado had cachet. It did a man good to let the world know he had the taste—and the hard cash—to spend a night at Sophie’s place with the fabulous Lily Cigar.

  And Lily herself found it fascinating. If she had a choice, she would have spent all her time in this parlor, smiling, and listening, and learning.

  The parlor was well-filled this early October night in 1858.

  The talk was, as always, half of politics and half of business. The big news was about the supposedly bottomless gold strike at Fraser, in British Columbia, which just last April had men leaving town by the thousands, plunging the city into a temporary panic, abandoning perfectly good gold claims, some of them rushing north as they had earlier rushed to California, chasing the elusive dream and finding that the dream eluded them still in the far, frozen north. There was indeed gold at Fraser, but not very much of it, and now the men were trickling back, beaten, to make a start again. Lily had never given much thought to Fraser Fever, as it was called. This town was hers now, and for as far ahead as she could imagine. Frazer Fever or not, the El Dorado had remained busy, her price went up and up, and in San Mateo Kate thrived. Let who would chase after gold, as long as enough of it found its way back to San Francisco, to the El Dorado, and into Lily’s account at Wells Fargo.

  Lily took the smallest possible sip of her champagne and listened attentively to an old man in hot debate with a younger man about the prospects of the proposed transcontinental railroad.

  Suddenly the door opened and a hush fell on the parlor. Lily noticed this and turned toward the door.

  A man stood there, a tall, good-looking young man who seemed at the same time fierce and expectant. There was an air of danger about him, of recklessness. For a moment Lily wondered if they were going to be robbed or otherwise assaulted.

  Then she looked closer. Slowly, as if being drawn on strings, she moved toward the stranger.

  His hair was dark red. His eyes blazed green across the big room.

  He was Fergus Malone, Junior.

  Lily closed her eyes, sure that when she opened them again the apparition would be gone, for surely he was dead, surely this was a ghost, or some cruel trick!

  She came up to him, and for a moment they both stood speechless, staring, hardly breathing, hardly daring to blink an eye.

  In the end it was Lily who broke the reverberating silence. “Fergy?”

  Her question hung on the air like a drifting feather, unsure of itself, vulnerable to every current of fate’s wind.

  There was no way to measure the time it took for him to reply.

  Lily looked deep in his eyes, and it was like looking in the mirror. But his eyes had a hardness to them that was not in hers, and she knew without being told that those eyes had seen terrible things. Yet he was beautifully dressed, expensively, perhaps a bit flashily. Lily looked up at this stranger who must be her brother, and thought: He’s come to me, he’s come back all the way from the dead, all the way from the bottom of the ocean.

  And still he said nothing, eating her with those eyes, as if speaking might make her vanish into the night.

  “Fergy?” Lily’s question was more of an answer now, for she was convinced of the truth in it.

  When he spoke, it was like a faraway sigh. “Lily, oh, my Lily! It’s fair to being a miracle, Lil, for I’d long given up ever seeing you again.”

  Then he wrapped his long arms around her and squeezed her to him and laughed loud and happy.

  For a moment she simply rested in his arms, and felt safe, truly safe, for the first time she could remember.

  Lily held him tight, and closed her eyes, and felt his arms around her, as though those strong arms were part of her—and they were part of her, sure, for this was Fergy, flesh and blood of the Malones, her own Fergy, come to rescue her just like he always said he would, and give her a coach and seven footmen. Well, brother, it doesn’t matter about the footmen, what matters is that you’re here, not at the bottom of the ocean, and I shall never feel alone again!

  Then she pulled back and smiled and led him to Sophie. “A miracle’s happened, Sophie. My brother has returned from the dead.”

  Sophie took it in good part, and kissed Fergy herself, and bought champagne for everyone in the room. They laughed and talked for a few moments longer; then Lily felt herself growing shy with this stranger, her brother. She whispered her excuses to Sophie, canceled the night’s appointment, and took Fergy upstairs.

  Lily had more champagne sent up, and a supper table for two was already laid out in her room. She motioned him into the big chair by the wood stove, filled his glass, and sat on a padded footstool at his feet.

  “Now,” she said, brimming with pure joy, “tell me all of it. From the minute you left St. Paddy’s.”

  He waited for a short time that seemed to Lily like hours. Fergus sipped the golden bubbly wine and began talking. His voice was low, and while it had changed very much from the street boy’s chatter she could only vaguely recall, Lily could still hear the echoes of Dublin in it, small fragments of their father’s merry brogue, a touch of their mother’s softness.

  “I never believed in miracles, Lil, until five minutes ago. I thought I’d had all the rotten luck a fellow could have, divil take it, and then I saw one of those pictures of you they’re selling, and even in the black and white of it, there was something. I asked, and they told me where to find Lily Cigar, and here I am.”

  “Here we are, Fergy. But tell me about you, about the Indian Belle. Seven years just disappeared, Fergy. Where were you?”

  “Where was I not? The Belle went down off Valparaiso some ways out at sea, a terrible storm it was, Lil, all hands lost but for three of us, drift
ing on a spar for four days. Only God knows how we got out of that one. Tied ourselves to the damned spar, there was just enough rope. And after four days of blazing sun and freezing nights, a New Bedford whaler picked us up, just at the start of their voyage they were, outward bound for cruising all the far South Pacific. If I never see a whale monster again, it’ll be too soon. Three long years we sailed with the Sandra Manne. At first we were glad to be alive, and maybe I still should be. But what a stinking, rotten job it was, and cold, and lonely, flensing the poor great beasts, boiling down the blubber for whale oil, blood everywhere all the time, the decks slimy with it, clothes stained red, stinking. Well…” He paused, drank, and continued. “Three years they had us out. That was the price of our rescue. Early in 1855 we got back to New Bedford, and you can bet I kissed the dirt of good old America, Lil, and thanked all the stars in heaven.”

  “You never wrote.”

  “There was no place to write from, Lil, for all we ever got in the way of ports was some nigger island where you couldn’t be sure of anything, let alone a mail drop. I did write, from New Bedford. Didn’t you get it?”

  “No. No, I didn’t.”

  Lily spoke softly, and touched his arm as she rose to refill their glasses. And what might not have been different if, in 1855, I knew you were alive, Fergy, if I’d known I wasn’t altogether alone? But it was too late for recriminations. Luck was a wild thing, wild as any storm at sea, and if it tossed up a treasure or a curse, what was the point in questioning the thing, the force of it, of shaking an impotent fist at the gods of fortune?

  “I wrote to St. Paddy’s. I meant to come down and look for you, Lil, but…well, to make a long story short, I got in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Bad trouble. I had to run away.” He looked into the glowing red windows of the iron stove as he spoke, avoiding her eyes, guessing what she’d be thinking.

  Lily said nothing. Of course, she thought that’s how we solve a problem, isn’t it, Fergy? We run away, we just pack up and leave and hope we can run faster than trouble. Only, trouble has wings, Fergy dear: trouble moves quicker than thinking. Lily thought of many things to say, and said none of them.