Shaken to the Core

by Jae

  She nearly skipped up the gangplank behind them, still tightly holding on to Giuliana so she couldn’t change her mind at the last second. How lucky they were to get the last places on the ferry! Soon, all of them would be crossing the bay, safely on their way to their summer home—and Giuliana was with her!

  The ferryman blocked their way before she and Giuliana could set foot onto the rear deck.

  The blood rushed from Kate’s head, leaving her dizzy. Had he changed his mind about letting all four of them board the ferry? She planted her feet. If he sent Giuliana back, she’d refuse to go too.

  “No baggage,” the man said.

  “What? I don’t have any—” Then she realized what he meant. The carrying case! Her finger tightened around its handle. “No! I can’t leave it behind.” That little suitcase held her camera, her photographs of the disaster—her future!

  He gave her an impatient glare. “No baggage. We don’t even have room for all of the passengers. It’s either this”—he pointed at the carrying case—“or her.” He gestured toward Giuliana. “Choose. But do it fast.”

  The ferry’s whistle echoed across the water.

  A roaring started in her ears. Giuliana was saying something, but she had no idea what it was. She couldn’t hear anything—or see anything other than the black leather case. She squeezed her eyes shut and took several gulping breaths. With her jaw clamped shut so tightly that her teeth ground against each other, she raised her trembling arm and held out the carrying case. “Take it.”

  “Kate, no!” Giuliana clung to her arm.

  Kate didn’t look at her. Tears blurred her vision. “Take it,” she repeated harshly.

  Just as the ferryman was about to take the carrying case from her, Giuliana’s hand slid from Kate’s and she jumped back onto the dock.

  “Giuliana! What are you doing?”

  “I cannot let you leave your…suitcase.” Giuliana stood on the dock with hanging shoulders and a forlorn but determined expression.

  The ferryman shoved Kate onto the rear deck. “Stand back, everyone!” He bent to pull up the gangplank.

  With wide eyes, Kate looked down at Giuliana, who stood rooted to the spot while the people jostled around her.

  Their gazes met.

  Kate didn’t look away, not even as her father put his hand on her shoulder from behind.

  “She’ll be fine,” he said and tried to pull her away from the railing and Giuliana.

  No! Every muscle in Kate’s body locked. She couldn’t leave Giuliana behind. Gripping her carrying case, she rushed forward and pushed the ferryman out of the way.

  He’d already pulled up the gangplank, and the ferry’s paddle wheels started to move, but Kate didn’t stop.

  Eyeing the growing gap between the ferry and the dock and the lapping waters beneath, she took a deep breath—and jumped.

  “Kate, no!” her mother shouted.

  Too late. Kate was already in mid-air.

  The crowd surged back to give her space, but Kate’s forward momentum stopped much too soon.

  Darn! She wouldn’t make it. The gap was already too large, so she would crash into the harbor, camera, glass plates, and all. Her precious photographs would be lost.

  Just as she prepared for a wet landing, a pair of hands gripped the front of her shirtwaist and pulled.

  Kate was catapulted forward onto a warm body. They both landed on the rough planks at the edge of the dock.

  Breathing heavily, Kate stared down into Giuliana’s eyes from just inches away.

  “Madonna mia,” Giuliana muttered, just as out of breath. “Why did you do this?”

  Kate brought her free hand up and touched Giuliana’s cheek, pale beneath her olive complexion. “I couldn’t leave. Not without you.”

  Giuliana opened her mouth as if preparing to answer but then just licked her lips. They looked at each other. Shadows of emotions darted across the brown irises too fast for Kate to identify, but for one wonderful second, she was entirely sure that Giuliana felt the same way she did.

  Then the piercing whistle of the ferry reminded her of where they were. She rolled off Giuliana and sat up. “Are you all right? I didn’t crush your ribs, did I?”

  Giuliana lay still for a moment longer and just blinked up at her. Then she shook her head as if to clear it and sat up too. “I am good. You are not so heavy.”

  Kate waved at her parents, who stood on the rear deck, clutching the railing. “Don’t worry,” she shouted across the water. “I’ll be fine.” We’ll be fine. Just her precious glass plates might not be so fine. Had they survived the rough landing on the dock? Her fingers shook as she opened the carrying case. She didn’t dare peek in, afraid to find her photographic plates shattered.

  “Let me do this.” Gently, Giuliana took the carrying case from her and looked inside.

  Kate held her breath and gazed just at Giuliana’s face, not at the contents of the carrying case. “Are they…?”

  Giuliana beamed. “They are good. All of them.”

  Kate pitched forward, right into Giuliana’s arms. “Oh, thank the Lord!” She enjoyed the warm embrace for a minute longer before slowly letting go.

  “Oh, wait.” Fine lines formed on Giuliana’s forehead as she peered into the carrying case. “A little corner broke from one.” Her lips pressed together, she pulled a glass plate out of the carrying case.

  It was one of the glass negatives she had already developed and then shoved into the carrying case before rushing from her smoldering home. And it wasn’t just any negative.

  Giuliana squinted at the negative image. “Is that…me?”

  Heat shot into Kate’s chilled cheeks. She quickly took the glass plate from Giuliana, put it back into the carrying case, and closed it. “It’s one of the photographs I took that day in North Beach,” she said as lightly as she could, as if the photograph of Giuliana held no more meaning to her than the image she had captured of the men playing bocce ball.

  Giuliana said nothing.

  The crowd around them slowly dispersed, as people walked away to find other ways out of the city.

  Side by side, Kate and Giuliana sat on the damp dock and watched the ferry with Kate’s parents grow smaller in the distance.

  CHAPTER 18

  Ferry Docks

  San Francisco, California

  April 20, 1906

  “What do we do now?” Giuliana asked after they’d been sitting in silence for a while. “Wait for the next boat to Belvedere?”

  Kate immediately shook her head. “No. They’d ask me to leave the camera and my photographs behind too. I won’t do that, no matter what.”

  Yet Kate had been willing to relinquish her carrying case so Giuliana could get on the ferry with the Winthrops. Never before in her life had anyone sacrificed that much for her. She didn’t know what to say.

  A piercing whistle drowned out the calls of the seagulls circling overhead. Giuliana placed her hand above her eyes to shelter them from the wind as she gazed out over the bay.

  Another ferry was chugging toward them.

  Giuliana hastily got up before the crowd surging toward the edge of the dock could stumble over her.

  Kate followed suit. She stared toward the white ferry. “I think it’s the one that goes back to Oakland. If you want to catch a train to New York City, now that you can’t stay in Belvedere after all…”

  Her voice and her expression were carefully neutral. Even now that Giuliana had gotten to know Kate well, she couldn’t read her.

  When Kate had jumped back to the dock and landed in her arms, a feeling of euphoria had swirled through Giuliana. Kate wanted them to be together! But now a nagging worry crept into her mind. Was that really what Kate’s desperate jump back to the dock meant? Maybe Kate hadn’t wanted her to stay behind alone, but that didn’t necessarily mean she wanted them to stay together, did it? Was there even a way to make that happen in the long run?

  “Do you think is a good idea to go to New York?
” Giuliana asked, gesturing toward the approaching ferry.

  “I can’t leave the city, not without having to give up the carrying case. But you…you could leave all this behind.” Kate swept her hand toward the smoke drifting over from the north. Her voice was still carefully even. “You’re first in line. Should be easy to get a place on that ferry.”

  Giuliana nodded.

  Kate shifted her carrying case from one hand to the other. Her lips were pressed together so tightly that the blood was draining from them and they were turning white. “I mean…if that’s really what you wanted.” Now a tiny tremor entered her voice, and a bit of emotion leaked through. “Or you could go back to Golden Gate Park.”

  “What good would this do? There is nothing there.” Giuliana forced a crooked smile. “Only rats.”

  “I would be there,” Kate answered, her expression serious.

  Their gazes seared into each other.

  Was Kate asking her to stay with her, to throw their fates together, no matter what happened to their burning city? Giuliana found the answer in the blue depth of Kate’s irises. But was it really what Giuliana wanted too? She knew she should want to leave. There was no money to be made in San Francisco. New York City was the place to be if she wanted to take care of her family, which had always been her highest goal.

  But for the first time in her life, she wanted something else too. Something for herself. She was no longer sure whether she wanted to stay or go.

  Yes. Yes, you are. You want to stay; you’re just too scared to admit it.

  When Giuliana remained silent, Kate repeated her whispered words, “I’d be there.”

  For how long? the realist in Giuliana wanted to say. Until your parents return and rebuild their mansion? But she was too scared of the answer to ask.

  The ferry to Oakland was so close now that Giuliana was able to make out the face of a sailor standing at the railing, smoke curling up from his cigarette.

  The people behind her pushed and shoved against her back, trying to gain a few precious inches on the rest of the desperate crowd.

  Giuliana didn’t shove back. Why fight for something she didn’t really want? “If we stay,” she said and gestured at the crowd behind her, “we can give our places to these people.”

  “Yeah, do that!” someone behind them shouted.

  Giuliana had to smile.

  Without another word, they reached for each other’s hand, squeezed through the crowd, and crossed through the ferry building back to Market Street.

  * * *

  “So, where to now?” Kate asked when they left the ferry building behind. She felt as if she could finally breathe again—not just because she was no longer trapped in the crowd but because Giuliana had agreed to stay.

  “To the park?” Giuliana answered, making it sound more like a question than an answer.

  Kate tilted her head. “We could do that. Or…would you mind some exploring? I’ve got three unexposed glass plates left, and I’d like to use them before this”—she swept her arm in a wide circle, indicating the ruins and the smoke hanging over the rubble—“is over.”

  “Can we go to Italy Harbor? I like to check on the boat of my brother.”

  “You still have it?”

  “I wanted to sell it and send the money to my family, but…” Giuliana stared down the street, toward the horizon, and let out a long sigh. “I cannot.”

  Kate put her hand on Giuliana’s arm and rubbed softly. “I understand. I still have Corny’s bicycle.” Her hand froze on Giuliana’s arm. She squeezed her eyes shut, but that didn’t help to keep out the pain. “Or rather, I had it. It was in the former stable, where we kept the automobile. By now, I guess it’s just a pile of melted metal.”

  “Oh, Kate. I am very sorry.” Giuliana put her hand on top of Kate’s, which still rested on her arm.

  They stood like that for a minute, their fingers tangled, just looking at each other.

  The blackened bricks and the splintered poles all around Kate seemed to vanish. Instead of the dirty gray color of the sky, the only thing she saw was the warm brown of Giuliana’s eyes.

  Then a trunk, mounted on roller skates, rattled over the cable car tracks and made her aware of what was going on around them. She looked up and patted Giuliana’s arm one more time before letting go. “Come on. Let’s go take a look at your brother’s boat.”

  * * *

  The smoke became denser with every step along the avenue cutting diagonally through the other streets. Giuliana couldn’t tell where it was coming from; it seemed to be everywhere. Were they walking right into another inferno? At the next street corner, she paused, rubbed her burning eyes, and looked back at Kate. “Do you want to go back?”

  Kate peered north toward Italy Harbor and hesitated. “No,” she finally said. “Let’s keep moving.”

  “Are you sure?” Giuliana didn’t want Kate to risk her life for a stupid boat. As much as that vessel might mean to her, Kate meant more. It was a truth that she could acknowledge to herself, even though she didn’t yet dare voice it to Kate.

  “I’m sure.”

  They continued up the avenue that ran through Washington Square. The park where she and Kate had spent the nicest afternoon Giuliana could remember was now filled with hundreds of refugees. Tents had been set up, covering every available inch of grass. Most flaps were pushed back, revealing empty tents. Had the refugees moved on once morning came, looking for a safer place to stay?

  People rushed past them, but they weren’t heading for Washington Square. They hurried past the tents and continued toward the northern waterfront, where hundreds of fishing vessels were bobbing on the waves, probably transporting refugees.

  At the next intersection, just a few steps down the side street, lay the trattoria where they had eaten bucatini con le sarde less than two weeks ago. Luigi was rolling a barrel of wine out onto the street.

  It seemed he had survived the earthquake without injury. Even the house looked intact. Giuliana smiled.

  “What’s he doing?” Kate whispered and looked around. “Doesn’t he know that the mayor banned the sale of alcohol? It was in the proclamation we saw the day before yesterday. If the soldiers catch him, he’ll have the wine poured out—or worse!”

  Giuliana didn’t want an overeager young soldier to shoot her friend, so she hurried toward Luigi and told him what Kate had just said.

  He pulled the stopper out of the barrel and straightened. “Sell it?” he repeated in Sicilian and laughed, a sound bare of any humor. “I wish. No. I’m using it to put out the—”

  “Hey, you!” a harsh voice yelled.

  Giuliana and Luigi whirled around.

  Two soldiers marched toward them, holding rifles with mounted bayonets. “Give me that!”

  For a moment, Giuliana thought they were talking about the wine barrel, but the older soldier pointed at something else.

  When Giuliana turned her head, she froze.

  The soldier was talking to Kate, who had pulled out her camera, probably to take a photograph of Washington Square or of Luigi rolling the wine barrel out of his house. “We’re under strict orders not to allow reporters with cameras in the city.”

  “Reporters?” Kate giggled, sounding like the silly rich girls that had sometimes come to the harbor to buy crabs. “Oh, no, Colonel, we’re just two women. Whoever heard of female reporters?”

  Maybe this routine had worked for Kate before, but not this time. The soldiers gave her blank stares. “It’s Corporal, not Colonel, and I don’t care who you are. You’re taking photographs, and I can’t allow that. Give me the camera.”

  Kate raised her chin and hid the camera behind her back.

  “Give—me—the—camera!” Each word sounded like a clap of thunder. The two soldiers leveled their rifles at Kate.

  Every muscle in Giuliana’s body went rigid. Cold sweat broke out along her back. “Kate…”

  One soldier cocked his rifle. The sound echoed down the street, almost
sounding like a shot already. His eyes, slightly narrowed, held no mercy.

  No, no, no. Not again. Giuliana clenched her good hand into a fist. This time, she didn’t have a weapon to defend Kate. The revolver was in the carrying case, which sat on the ground next to Kate. If she tried to take the weapon out, she’d be shot. “Please,” she said to the soldiers and extended a hand in their direction, as if that would stop the bullets. “She did not mean no harm. We can talk about this, no?”

  “Nothing to talk about.” The soldier gave his rifle a little jerk, making Giuliana fear that it might go off by accident. “Destroy the photographs—now.”

  “Diu miu!” Luigi paled. With a shaking hand, he dipped a ladle into the wine barrel, completely ignoring the soldiers and what they might do if they saw him hand out alcohol. “Focu! Fire!”

  “What are you talking about, mister?” one of the soldiers asked. “What fire?”

  “Are you blind?” Luigi pointed at something in the distance, behind the soldiers.

  Giuliana followed his gaze. A sharp gasp escaped her.

  Flames tore up the avenue, consuming one wood-frame house after the other in rapid succession. Cigar stores, Italian delicatessens, trattorias, pastry shops, and corner groceries went up in smoke before Giuliana’s eyes.

  The fire rushed toward them even though the wind was blowing in the opposite direction. The hot air seemed to create its own draft, like a cyclone that preceded the flames. It sucked up roof shingles, tore loose pieces of metal, and whirled them upward.

  “It’s a firestorm!” one of the soldiers shouted. “God help us all!” He swung his rifle over his shoulder and raced down the street toward the piers. The other soldier threw one last glance at Kate before cursing and following him.

  “Run,” Giuliana shouted at Luigi over the roaring of the approaching fire.

  “No! The trattoria is all I have,” he said in Sicilian. “It’s set back from the avenue a little, so I might be able to save it.”

  That was madness. “You don’t have water!”

  “I have wine,” he yelled back and ladled out wine onto towels, drenching them.

  Giuliana shook her head at him. “If it contains too much alcohol, it will feed the fire, not put it out,” she said in Sicilian.