Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [64]
“Maybe it was good joss after all,” he agreed.
While the little boy slept she helped him search the ruins for bedding or blankets, anything to cover them, for the night was cold and it was forbidden to light fires. Then, exhausted, she curled up next to the boy and fell asleep. Lai Tsin covered them gently with a ragged pink quilt, and wrapped in an old curtain he kept watch until dawn came.
He thought about her as she slept. He remembered the hatred in her voice when she had watched the house burn and he knew she must have suffered, because he was no stranger to that emotion himself. He had lived all his life with brutality, loneliness, fear, and hate. Yet when she awoke he did not ask her for an explanation. He knew the time would come when she would want to unburden herself and then she would tell him the truth.
The next day they moved on, leaving their temporary shelter without a backward glance. “Where are we going?” the child asked in Cantonese, tugging at Francie’s skirt.
“To the next place,” Lai Tsin answered calmly. He had no idea where that might be but it was enough to satisfy the boy and he ambled uncomplainingly at his side.
After a while they came across a park filled with small white tents. People were sitting on the grass in the morning sunshine, chatting or reading newspapers while others stood in line for the free breakfast being served from the backs of wooden carts. There was a smell of hot coffee and bread and the boy tugged hungrily at Francie’s skirt again. She stood in line for the breakfast and an issue of blankets, and they ate quickly, sitting away from the crowd. Then throwing their blankets over their shoulders, Francie and the boy followed Lai Tsin wherever he would take them.
For the next few days Lai Tsin looked after her like a little sister; he found food for her, he sought nightly shelter for her, and he spent all his money. He asked no questions and she barely spoke. Until one night they were sitting by the fire he had built amongst the rubble. The little boy was sleeping and the stark black smoldering ruins of San Francisco were silhouetted against the ink-blue sky and Francie said, “There is something I must tell you.”
She hid her face in her hands and he waited patiently; he knew she would go on. She needed to cleanse her soul.
He was right. The words spilled from her lips as she told him her name—and her father’s—Harmon Harrison. “I can see even you have heard of him,” she said bitterly as he reacted to the name.
“Everyone in San Francisco knows of him,” he replied, his black eyes suddenly unfathomable.
She told him how he had hated her, and about her brother, Harry. “If he ever finds that I’m still alive he’ll put me behind bars in the state asylum and then he’ll kill me,” she said, terrified. She told him how she had met Josh and fallen in love, and how he had saved her. She said how beautiful he was. “And good, like an angel,” she said with a long sigh. “Even the nuns said so.” She told him about Josh and Sammy and about the murders, and how Josh had not wanted to believe it was Sammy, but he knew it was. And she put her head despairingly in her hands, reliving the moment the earthquake struck.
“Suddenly we were plunging into an abyss and everything was falling on top of us,” she said. “I thought I was dreaming, that it was a nightmare. There was a great weight on my chest and my mouth was full of dust. I was choking, gasping until I thought my lungs would burst. I opened my eyes and I was looking into Josh’s face. We were still lying on the bed, our arms were around each other, and his body was the weight I felt on top of me. A little light was coming from a hole above us, there was a terrible rending noise and an enormous beam came crashing down onto Josh’s back, pinning him down on top of me. I could hear him breathing, harsh, rasping breaths like a file on metal. I tried to pull myself from under him but he was too heavy, he was still trapped by the beam. I could feel the stickiness of blood and I did not know if it was my own or his and I knew I had to get