Read Waltzing In Ragtime Online
Authors: Eileen Charbonneau
Waltzing In Ragtime (49 page)
A hand reached over the ledge. Olana knew the hand. The last threads holding her ankle broke and she helped her husband inside.
“’Lana, you are …?”
“Yes. But oh, Matthew,” she lifted her hand from his freshly bleeding side, “you’re not.”
“Gran will fix it, a few stitches.”
He lifted the rope of tied-together bed linens from his back and fastened one end to the window frame. Olana threw out the length and it glided down the front of the house. Below, she saw the mattresses piled to ease their escape further. She placed the porcelain dancing couple in her pocket. “Ready,” she whispered. Matthew kissed into her palm.
Cal Carson bounded from the pantry’s swinging door, a loaf of bread in one hand, a dull green bottle in the other. “No!” he shouted pitching the bottle. It smashed into the window frame.
Ezra came through the door, complaining. “Hey, Cal, I thought you said I could have at her first —”
His brother smiled. “Apparently there’s yet unfinished business with our persistent ranger before we take our pleasure.”
Matthew kept Olana behind him as he turned to face the brothers. “Stay,” he whispered, releasing her hand. He swayed, then staggered around the sofa.
Ezra laughed, signaling his brother closer. “What’s the matter, Hart?” he asked. “Tough climb? You’re not looking well, not at all well. Tell me. Are there two of us? Or four?”
Matthew passed his hand in front of his eyes, then fell to his knees. Olana screamed his name, but his whispered “stay” kept her rooted.
“Get her,” Cal Carson instructed his brother, who grinned wide. “He can watch.” As Olana groped for the splintered glass, Matthew sprang. The dense bulk of Ezra Carson went catapulting over her husband’s shoulder and through the window frame, splintering the sash. They heard a dull thud on the street below, over the louder roaring sound.
Olana felt her wrist caught in a vice hold. Cal Carson yanked her over the sofa and flung her to the floor. “Filthy bitch!” he screamed. She tried to crawl, but had not gotten to her knees before he turned, then pinned her beneath his full weight. He
took her neck between his hands and pounded her head against the scattered sheet music, the floor. Olana gripped the jagged glass and sliced a path from his eye down his neck. His hands finally released. Then his weight lifted off her. Matthew swung him into the wall, then out the window. The insane chattering had so intensified they didn’t hear him hit the street.
took her neck between his hands and pounded her head against the scattered sheet music, the floor. Olana gripped the jagged glass and sliced a path from his eye down his neck. His hands finally released. Then his weight lifted off her. Matthew swung him into the wall, then out the window. The insane chattering had so intensified they didn’t hear him hit the street.
Matthew eased the glass from her bleeding fingers, helped her to her feet. They stumbled to the windows together and looked down. The Carson brothers had landed on a mattress. Matthew and Olana watched, astonished, as the two men rolled to their feet. They laughed, dusting themselves off like circus entertainers.
“Jesus Christ, I can’t kill them,” Matthew said, defeated.
Then, the hot wind joined the approaching sound. Olana felt Matthew’s grip on her tighten as they both struggled to inhale the blasting air through the terror of their own fear. A vent a few hundred yards down the street blew out a tongue of flame. The flame took on a life of its own. It advanced ahead of the roar of the main fire that was still blocks away. The darting blaze had its own sound, a popping and crackling. Like Chinatown on festival days, Olana thought. The Carson saw it too, because they stopped laughing. They stood stock still, staring.
The crackling got louder, madder, even when Olana pressed the heels of her hands against her ears. Below them, the tongue of flame currented through the Carson brothers, transforming them into dancing balls of fire. Olana heard herself make a small, astonished sound. She felt Matthew tuck her head against his shirt. She closed her eyes. But he continued to look, Olana could tell somehow, from his rapidly beating heart. He needed to know that if he couldn’t kill the men who’d plagued them for so many years, something could. There was no triumph, only exhausted finality left in his voice when he bent down and kissed her forehead.
“It’s over,” he said.
Olana raised her head, released her ears. The chattering was in the distance now. The flame bounded down another street. She
looked at the still, smoldering black heaps lying side by side.
looked at the still, smoldering black heaps lying side by side.
“Matthew,” he breathed. “What was that?”
“I don’t know, love. But we’d best go now. Go and find ourselves some green.”
“Matthew, stay still!”“Leave it alone! Where are my pants?”
“Sidney, pour,” Annie Smithers instructed.
“Delighted.”
Matthew knocked the bottle from Sidney Lunt’s hand. “You’re choking me, goddamn it!” he roared, cuffing his friend and sending a spray of champagne into his grandmother’s face. She threw down her cloth.
“That’s all,” she announced.
Outside the tent, Olana sat between her parents. Her mother rubbed her back gently, her father held her undamaged hand. She felt a twinge of fear when Annie Smithers drew back the tent flap, stood with her hands fisted at her hips, and yelled her name. Olana leapt to her feet.
“Get in here,” Annie demanded.
“What’s happened?” she pleaded, the small scream in her voice.
The old woman’s eyes softened. “Nothing’s happened. I need you, is all.”
When he saw her, Matthew bolted up as far as Sidney’s hold across his shoulders would let him.
“Damnation! I told you not to let her in until you’d finished.”
His grandmother raised one finger skyward. The gesture had hushed him since he was a boy. “And I decided not to honor your request,” she proclaimed.
Matthew looked in Olana’s frightened eyes and felt an avalanche of remorse. “Hello, darlin’,” he said softly. “Come sit beside me?”
As his grandmother pierced his skin with her fired needle, his grip on Olana’s hand tightened, and his teeth ground audibly.
“Breathe, Matthew,” Annie Smithers instructed, without looking up from her work.
“Yes’m.” He turned half his face into Olana’s skirts. She cleared the damp hair back from his brow. “Sidney, read,” she commanded.
“Read?”
“From your account of the saving of Russian Hill,” she said.
“But it’s still in first draft —”
“Read it!”
“Oh, oh, of course.” He fumbled with the handwritten pages. “Listen, Matt. Between this and Alisdair’s photographs, we’re bound to be the definitive disaster edition! ‘It was a victory fought for home ground,’” he began. “‘It was a brave, roistering fight fought by an Irish prizefighter and an Italian peasant, a Russian coat finisher and an American lumber baron. Its weapons were rugs, blankets, an artist’s canvas, and a cellar full of the finest French champagne …’”
Matthew turned his face out again. “It worked?” he whispered.
“The whole block was saved,” Olana told him.
“The whole block.”
“Then we wasted the last drops of that champagne on you in one of your surly moods,” Sidney added.
“Everyone’s safe?”
“Yes, we’re all together now,” Olana assured him.
“If I may continue?” Sidney asked them pointedly.
“Sure, go ahead,” Matthew granted, putting his wife’s hands
to his face and breathing in the clove oil scent.
to his face and breathing in the clove oil scent.
Sidney Lunt finished his account of the rescue of Russian Hill simultaneously with Annie Smithers’ sewing.
“There,” she said, wiping her needle. “Fewer stitches than I had to put in Mrs. Millard after her eleven-pound girl, you great baby.” But her eyes softened when she looked into her grandson’s beaten face. She glanced away. “Clean him up,” she instructed his attendants, “then put him to bed.”
Matthew lifted his hand to his three-day growth of beard. “Jesus,” he marveled at Annie Smithers’ command, “I must look awful.”
“You do,” Olana let out all her remaining fears in a bubble of laughter. “You really do.”
“Shave and a haircut?” Callahan popped up at the other side of the bed with all the necessary equipment.
It was early morning. Matthew could tell, there, where he lay on a salvaged iron bed under the great oak. He didn’t need to look at Farrell’s watch, chained to him now, by Basil’s wedding present. He inhaled the same burnt air they’d been breathing for three days. No, the air was somehow different. It was charged with promise. Or perhaps it was delayed birth exhilaration he was feeling. Or the comfort of his family around him, safe.
Olana stirred. Matthew danced his right hand down her strong, beautiful back. She brought his left to her belly, where he felt a tiny ripple. “Hey, Possum,” he called, easing his daughter over his bandaged side to feel the baby’s movements with him. She yawned.
“He’s hungry,” she said.
Olana giggled. “‘He’ is it?” Matthew asked.
Possum propped her elbows on his chest. “Yes, he. Gran says this one’s a boy. But don’t worry, you’ll have more girls, too.”
“Who told you that?” Olana asked.
“Sister Gertrude. In my dream last night. I’ll get you and your baby some food, Olana.”
They watched Possum’s strong limbs carry her toward the small, careful campfires of the morning. Olana sighed. “I hope this child has dreams, too,” she said. “It will be hard enough for him to keep up with you two.”
Olana nestled under his arm and the sense of well-being washed over Matthew again. He reveled in the luxury of having his bride alone in bed for the first morning since their marriage. It almost didn’t matter that they were under an open, soot-infested sky, with half the population of San Francisco awakening around them. He closed his eyes, and began to drift back to sleep. He was vaguely angry at himself for not waking, as there must have been a need — to check Olana’s healing fingers, the babies, the mothers, to help his daughter find some food, once he uncovered those pants his grandmother was hiding from him.
The singing was like an echo at first. Solemn and joyful at the same time. In another language. Of another time. Latin. It reminded him of the friars singing at St. Pitias, except higher, and every so often accompanied by a tinkling cymbal, an oriental chime. He opened his eyes. The nuns of the Dolorosa Mission were on a nearby hill, singing matins, their brown robes commingling with the bright silks of the crib girls, the shine of their instruments. It sounded full, beautiful, as if there were not five missing voices, as if Basil and Alisdair were providing counterpoint. Matthew closed his eyes again, the tears escaping. He felt gentle hands at his brow.
“There now,” Sister Justina soothed. “Only beauty today.” She kissed his forehead. He smiled as the women finished their wondrous song. Then he propped himself on his elbows. Mrs. Amadeo was there, pushing him down again.
“Matthew,” she whispered. “I sent you to the mission, gave you the wagon. It was a terrible thing. You are well?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Say, Mrs. Amadeo,” he tried taking advantage of her remorse, “have you seen my pants?”
“Pants?”
“Pantaloons?” he tried.
Her husband leaned over him. “I promise your grandmother I
will not talk business. But you must get well. We have many new customers. Here, in the Golden Gate branch of the Bank of Naples.”
will not talk business. But you must get well. We have many new customers. Here, in the Golden Gate branch of the Bank of Naples.”
“Clients?”
“Depositors! Other banks will be closed, maybe until November, they say. By then, there would be no city, no people here left to serve, I tell them. They don’t listen.” He shrugged. “So, we open here, now. With our assets, with the hidden-in-the-mattress money of our new depositors. It is a great city, Matthew, and a great country!”
“Yes, sir,” he said, feeling tired. “Mr. Amadeo, I’d get up if you’ll convince my grandmother to —”
Possum climbed onto the bed with him. “Look, Daddy,” she said.
Around the bed, brimming platters appeared — food found, scrounged, cooked. Canned corned beef, beans and rice, steaming puddings, and campfire baked bread. Behind each platter were representatives of a family that now had a new member, or a smiling, sad-eyed cleric of Dolorosa Mission, or a client from the bank.
“My custard first,” Mrs. Cole insisted.
“Please,” he told his guests quietly. “Join us.”
As they descended on the feast, new fathers brought their babies to him. He and his grandmother leaned over each tiny face, remembered and argued over the circumstances of each birth. Olana appeared with his grandmother’s book, shaking her head and recording each new name. She was a more welcome sight than his pants.
The plumber beamed as he pronounced his new daughter April Francisco. Olana wrote a string of George, Peter, and Arthur, broken by two Louises, a Margaret, and Gladys, before Golden Gate, Karl, Deliverance, Oliver, Kee, Hubert, Sheila, Raoul, and Julia.
Annie leaned over Olana’s work. “Seventeen,” she tallied.
Annie grunted. “That’s right. Eight each.”
Matthew was enjoying the feel of Golden Gate Williams’ fingers
when the incongruity dawned on him. “Eight? That doesn’t add up —”
when the incongruity dawned on him. “Eight? That doesn’t add up —”
Olana giggled. “I put the second Louise in parenthesis.”
He raised his head. “What?”
His grandmother frowned. “She was already out and lying under a lilac bush before I got to her mama. I only helped with the cord and afterbirth and all, so I won’t claim her. Lucky you.”
He smiled. “We had us a time, any way you add them up, Gran,” he said.
“That we did,” she agreed.
When she leaned over to touch his face, he snatched the striped trousers slung over her shoulder.
“Matthew Hart! I ain’t finished mending. A bullet doesn’t leave a nice tidy slice in the seam, you know!”
In the distance, a trumpet sounded just ahead of Sidney Lunt’s breathless run to the bed. “They’re out!” he announced. “Van Ness and the Mission District fires — out! The piers — all safe!”
A cheer rose up around them. Someone dragged the upright piano closer. Callahan began playing a waltz in ragtime. The bed emptied. Everyone was dancing. Annie Smithers eyed him pointedly. “Don’t you dare,” she intoned before setting Olana on guard beside him.
Matthew took his wife’s face in his hands and kissed her. Then, with neither lightning nor thunder as a warning, it began to rain.
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