Bones of the Barbary Coast (Cree Black Thrillers)

by Daniel Hecht

  Cree puzzled at the face, trying to decide why it seemed so familiar. Not the hair, which was pulled tight around her head and probably gathered in a bun in back; not the round forehead and plain straight nose. The resemblance to someone she knew or had encountered teased her until she decided it was less the anatomical features of the face than its expression: open, genuine, somehow frightened yet determined; in the eyes, a keen, questing light not entirely suppressed by a desire to harmonize and serve.

  Oh, her, Cree realized. The person in the mirror every morning.

  She smiled at the woman, intrigued, then flipped the frame over to see if there was any inscription on the back.

  Lydia Jackson Schweitzer, 1888.

  So Hans had married, and, unless there was a remarkable coincidence here, he'd married the girl next door.

  She studied the face more closely, searching for details that might be instructive. Lydia looked to be in her mid- or late-twenties, but her stiff pose and the straight, serious line of mouth made it hard to tell. She wore only small, discreet earrings, not the ostentatious medallions Elvira Pierce apparently preferred. Cree couldn't see enough of her clothing to make anything of it; the background was out of focus, anonymous.

  Not much to learn beyond the name. And a sense of the person, which was surprisingly profound.

  Jackson and Schweitzer, two houses, a marriage. She wasn't sure just how that might be of use to her research, but she felt a rising excitement as she looked at the other two items. There was nothing of interest, but the feeling stayed with her as she put the photos away and rewrapped the desk. Could Lydia be the piece she needed, the link to the past, to the wolfman?

  Lydia Jackson Schweitzer, she kept thinking. Who were you? What do you have to tell me? Did you have anything to do with the wolfman we found in your basement? Did you even know he existed?

  II

  CREATURES IN PERIL

  21

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1889

  MY NAME IS Lydia Jackson Schweitzer, and I am writing what is to be the secret accounting of my days. I begin this record after many years of quiet deceit because events have taken such strange turns of late, and such urgency, that I feel compelled to give voice to what I have witnessed. It must be secret, because though what I shall record should surely be generally known, it would bring shame and difficulty to those I love if they were aware of the whole round of my life. I do love my husband and believe he loves me in return; I know he is a good man who has made great accommodation for my rebelliousness and contrariety; likewise, the men and women of our church. But I can speak to none of them about these things, lest I shame them and they come to abhor me.

  Conceivably I could say nothing to anyone: I could write nothing, perhaps, and bear no risk of discovery for my unusual circumstances and thoughts; yet I am also sure that if I do not tell it in some way, if I do not let some of it out of me, I will surely burst from the fullness of such a life, such events. So I speak to these pages, in solitude and secrecy, and do not burst but only overflow.

  It is my belief that we are each given a unique and singular life; we are each in many ways the sole inhabitant of a unique and singular world. No one can know, from a face any more than from the exterior of a house, what transpires on the inside; yet there is, there must be, some merit in knowing, that we may each feel less alone and gain wisdom of our own life by glimpsing another's. So I record these events, writing with the outlook of a castaway seafarer who rolls a message into a bottle and flings it into the waves. There is some comfort in imagining that perhaps one day this secret accounting, having traversed a broad sea, will be discovered and read by a sympathetic eye, and be of interest or benefit to its recipient.

  I have decided to write only in the lower parts of the house and only in the very early mornings, before Hans or Cook awakens. I have always been an early riser, despite my late evenings, and given the day's undertakings it is the only hour when I can safely expect solitude. I would prefer, I think, to write from the lovely bay window of our bedroom, where I could look down the hill and where the great scope of the water and mountains would inform my thoughts with some special insight; or perhaps from my old window in the other house, where the street makes an interval and opens the Golden Gate to view. But I am not discontent writing in the pantry. From its rear-facing window, our little garden is a lovely microcosm, all perfect and proportionate despite its diminutive size. A wedding garden, I consider it, for the fine stonework and plantings were Hans's gift to me upon our marrying, and the sight of it never fails to warm me.

  The pantry is also convenient, because it is in the cavity beneath the lowest cabinet drawer that I have decided to secrete this journal, most convenient if Hans or Cook should awaken early. I must write in snatched moments, an ear always attentive to the sound of someone stirring. Being so old, Cook makes a good shuffling and puffing when she starts her day, and Hans is so large he creaks the floorboards above. But in case either should appear unexpectedly, I have taken the additional precaution of writing in a ledger that is identical to the one in which I keep our household accounts (also full of deception), one I can easily snap shut upon their arrival and incur no suspicion.

  "Up early," I would say briskly, "and thinking of the shopping. We will be needing molasses, I think." Or such.

  I am not a deceptive person by nature, and in fact I abhor the world's deceptions, which seem to me the source of much cruelty and error. And yet I came to our marriage with years of practice at it. It is as if there are two of me, one kept for the world's viewing and one kept out of sight. At times I take pleasure in imagining that Hans has glimpsed through to the secret one, and his real love, just as secret, is for her. But it is more likely that the woman Hans married was only Lydia Jackson, the proper niece and ward of his respectable neighbor, Mr. Franklin Jackson, formerly of Mobile, enterprising importer of cotton and wool cloth, active in church and civic affairs; Lydia Jackson, the only child of Franklin's brother Richard, who perished with his wife in the tragic ferry accident of 1873; Lydia, adopted by her kindly uncle.

  That Lydia must have appeared to him as a young woman of good deportment and education, and, like Hans, deeply faithful and active in the church. When my uncle died, three years ago, leaving his house to me, I no doubt seemed a promising candidate for wifehood and motherhood: Though perhaps past the bloom of youth at twenty-six, I was, as he thought, financially self-sufficient, educated, Christian, holding property, in good health, and virtuous.

  Within a year of my uncle's death, Hans began courting me, and did so with sincerity and persistence and what struck me as a charming old-world courtliness, derived perhaps from his German accent, his formal and slightly foreign manners. And, in truth, though I was not close to my uncle—I had deceived him as I deceive Hans and the church fathers—his death was deeply upsetting to me. He had, after all, sheltered me; he had seen that I received the best schooling a woman might in this new city; in his own way, he had cared for me. The loss of my uncle, my last mooring in society aside from the church, was difficult; when Hans made his intentions apparent, the prospect of living with another human being, after a year alone in that empty house, had great appeal.

  I knew Hans first as our neighbor who dined with us from time to time, and so I knew his history. He had come here from a small German village in 1859 to seek his fortune. Only a decade earlier, as a child, he had heard that in California any man could become rich just for the effort of picking up gold nuggets from the ground; and with the famous discovery of the Comstock Lode, silver promised wealth for all who came. He was the son of a rigid patriarch and to this day maintains that aspect himself, and yet he must have been a rather daring and rebellious young man, for he was only eighteen when he left his home and sailed to America. The real circumstances of the silver mines disappointed him acutely, and he retreated, penniless, to San Francisco to pursue whatever work he might find. In this he was like many thousands of others; but, unlike most, he had apprenticed as a
stone mason and therefore was highly skilled at a trade much in demand. Being also upright of character and a man of powerful determination, he did very well. After several years as a laborer, several more as a fine mason, he had gained sufficient reputation to hire helpers, whom he trained to high standards; within a dozen years, he had become a prominent contractor, operating several crews of men. Within a few more he was wealthy enough to buy the large, fine house in the fashionable district of Pacific Heights, next door to Franklin Jackson and his respectable, orphaned ward.

  In intimate moments, when he lies beside me flushed with the heat of his exertion, he looks upon me with a possessive glow of pride in his eyes. He tangles his rough fingers in my hair and confesses that he considers me a fortunate match. For a foreigner of modest birth who had come with the silver rush, consorted with the roughest of men, who began in San Francisco as a menial laborer, a giant, rawboned man upon whom even tailored suits have never hung comfortably and whose massive, leathered hands will forever betray his beginnings, young Lydia Jackson seemed a prize.

  Which is not to say his feelings are limited to the proprietary, as opposed to the passionate. He does love me, far more than I deserve, and I love him in return. Once, he admitted that he was drawn also to my solitude, which he feels he shares: An only child, with all my relatives dead, I share his experience as a man whose family was long ago left behind in the old country.

  "Now you are my only family," he told me soberly, "and I am yours." Then, growing bold, humorous, and affectionate: "At least until we make ourselves a flock of fine children!"

  At that my heart threatened to break, for again I was confronted with the awful extent of my deception.

  Yet it is to protect him, as much as myself, that I deceive him. Were he to know the truth about this prize, I am afraid his love would falter; for he is a moral man and would find the truth deeply repugnant. He also loves his respected position, and takes pride in it, as well he ought, and would correctly judge that what I am and what I do daily jeopardizes it.

  Yes, dearest Hans—whose heavy footsteps I now hear upon the floor above and from whom I must hide away my confessions for another day. I will go to him and meet him on the front stairs, where I will take one of those great, rough hands in my own and lead him gratefully to his breakfast.

  THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1889

  Despite my urgency, I was not able to write this morning, for Hans awakened early with a stomach upset and asked me to attend to him, which I was pleased to do. When at last he went to his office, I concocted errands for Cook that have left me alone in the house for some minutes before my other obligations intrude.

  I am anxious to relate the events of two days past, and in fact spilled them out onto the page moments ago. Then I read my own scrawl and saw only its insufficiency. I could hardly read or understand the words, let alone grant them credibility, and ripped out the page to begin again with less impatience. For this castaway's message, I must first record my latitude and longitude, as well as I can discern them. That is, I must compose this recounting so it can be understood by one unfamiliar with any aspect of my life; unfamiliar, also, with this city and that district, because unless one has seen it first-hand, I doubt anyone could truly know what I do, with what sort of people I work, or in what sort of place I spend my days.

  Our occasional visitors from Ohio or Indiana express astonishment at the excesses of the Barbary Coast, for which their wholesome towns have no equivalent. One Pennsylvania minister thought it an exact replication of Sodom and Gomorrah; another, educated in the fine arts, said it recalled to him the representations of Hieronymous Bosch. Even visitors from New York and Chicago, no strangers to squalor and depravity, express shock at what they see on their chaperoned carriage rides through the Devil's Acre—and this in daylight! Were they to witness it at night, as I do, their sentiments would be vastly amplified. (Even so, Deacon Skinner smiles as he recounts their responses, for he is pleased that a short carriage ride, with no other persuasion, begets such generous donations in support of Merciful Shepherd Mission!)

  My duties at the mission occupy me every day but Wednesday and Sunday, beginning at one o'clock. By then I shall have completed the housekeeping, done the purchasing if I have not assigned it to Cook, completed my correspondence, given the gardener his tasks and the washerwoman hers, taken my lunch, and perhaps discussed Scripture with a group of other wives of the congregation. When these errands are complete, already dressed in the many layers a proper woman must wear, I cover myself with a mouse-gray, hooded cloak and leave the house.

  There is a Pacific Avenue cable car, but I prefer the Union Avenue line, which is more direct and allows me to enjoy the steep downhill walk. If the weather is fine I swing my arms and raise my face to the sun, taste the sea-air, and delight in the broad freedom of the sky. When the wind is from the right quarter, it rises beneath my skirts and billows them wide, and I become aware of myself as a naked woman and take secret pleasure in it. I imagine the delight it would bring to wear just my skin, not only in the bath or in Hans's arms but in the sunshine, moving about freely. Then I chasten myself: What, are even my clothes a deception? Am I no different from the poor whores I care for, wanton and careless? Yet I cannot but think there are different kinds of nakedness; surely while some are corrupt and indecent, others are innocent and good: We are, after all, born that way and surely enter Heaven that way. But about these things I cannot speak to Rev. Wallace or any church member, not even to Deacon Skinner, though I know him to be a forgiving and fair-minded man.

  I bear down the pavement in my broad skirt like some gray ship under full sail, and swing my arms as if I were a bird about to take flight. I skip, too, and frame in my mind mischievous arguments against the disapproval of the church matrons, were they to see me: Gravity bids me descend, Gravity is certainly the Lord's law; should I not surrender joyfully to it?

  There is always something new to observe on these walks, because this is in so many ways an unfinished city. In the downtown districts, we boast fine public buildings and noble homes, orderly streets, and every system of public convenience. Yet here on the periphery, wherever one turns one sees new development, making of roads and civic places, houses being built. Industry is everywhere: digging, leveling, filling, streets furrowed as cable lines are laid, drays loaded with soil or building materials, the redwood bones of buildings rising airily amid the clatter of hammers. Our neighborhood has only recently become a popular district, and many of the lots are still empty, or just now being dug for construction. Here is an open hillside still furred with its pelt of native grasses, brush, and wildflowers; here, abruptly, a solitary fine house in an island of perfectly tended garden, lawn, and paved walks; there, a row of several narrower houses built close upon each other, illogically, as if there were not expanses of untouched ground on all sides. It makes for a motley and ever-changing landscape.

  At last I come to the relative flat of Union Street. Some days I pay my nickel for the cable car, taking great pleasure in the wind in my face, which sustains my illusion of flying. On other days, I meet Deacon Skinner, whose route brings him near and who comes with his carriage at our appointed time.

  On this Tuesday past, he greeted me with, "You are looking especially lovely today, Sister Lydia," as he invariably does.

  He has a twinkle in his eye as he says it, as if he knows some pleasing secret about me. At those moments I think that he, too, might guess my secret nature and accept it of me. If I am lovely and he is not just making a mischief, it is the walk down the hill, the flush it must bring to my cheeks, the wind loosening my hair from the tightest of chignons. I have just billowed down like a ship under full sail, have skipped and swung my arms and pretended to be flying, and the effects of doing so do not leave me immediately.

  "And you look like Uncle Sam on his way to a funeral," I retorted. He is hook-nosed, long-limbed, and gaunt, and could be the very man from whom the caricature was derived, except for his attire which is very somber
. (Tomorrow, I shall think of another witticism; perhaps I will press a nickel into his hand, tell him he has saved me the fare, he can give it to the poor.) He laughed and helped me mount the carriage, and then we trotted off to do the Lord's work.

  To spare the horse the difficulty of Russian Hill, Deacon Skinner stays close to the shore, and there our conversation remains gay. But as we turn south and begin to approach our destination, we both grow serious. In a few minutes more, we enter the narrower streets and cannot help casting our eyes about for signs of carnage from the night preceding. More than once we have read in the newspaper of a murder that occurred near the mission, and then have seen the blood stains on the spot. In these circumstances, our talk turns quickly to philosophy, for that aloof moral reasoning offers a slight palliative for our grave concerns. And soon thereafter our conversation retreats to the last and only real redoubt, Faith, which, unreasoning, holds out and above a golden ideal of better things.

  When he established Merciful Shepherd Mission, Rev. Wallace was determined it should be at the very center of the evil it was to combat. In this he certainly succeeded. The storefront once housed a seaman's supply store; then a brothel; last, a bunkhouse or doss-house for those indigents who could afford a few pennies for a pallet. It is a narrow, two-story wooden building among others like it, in an alley that joins at one end the larger streets and at the other weaves into a cramped labyrinth of lesser ways, where innumerable hovels are hidden between the blocks. It is one of many enclaves where the poorest women sell their services from shacks and rough men hawk grain spirits from carts or crates, where abandoned babies and corpses are regularly found in the street, and many other unspeakable things transpire. Though our building is freshly painted and our sign proudly announces soup and redemption within, during daylight it offers only a meager relief from the weary and sordid look of its surroundings. At night, when the darkness and fog fill this warren, it is more remarkable because its windows are the only ones that are lit; on either side, the occupants cannot afford gas or lamp oil, or prefer to conduct their affairs in darkness.