The man nodded and I made the mistake of looking too keen; they fell silent and waited for me to move on. With the next group, I learned to avert my gaze, and they forgot about me. Being a girl and not pretty made me twice invisible. But I didn’t forget them or what they said. I loved listening as they schemed—these sooty captains of industry—their urgency being akin to mine. For fifteen years I’d been waiting for a catastrophe greater than my birth. The quake gave it to me.
When my tray was empty, I traded Molly for her tray of ham sandwiches, and moved on, to the one man who was standing alone. He was perhaps the most important of all, and the most shunned—uninvited to the committee and to this house. Abe Ruef, the single member of the Chinese subcommittee.
He was someone I should have admired. In his youth he was brilliant. Accepted to Berkeley at fourteen, admitted to the bar at twenty-one. He spoke eight languages, including Cantonese. In college he started the Municipal Reform League to root out corruption; he’d corresponded with Teddy Roosevelt. How, I wondered, did that idealistic boy become the most corrupt, despised man in the room? And why was he wearing a foppish bow tie?
I offered him a bite of food, which he refused.
“What’s the word?” Ruef asked.
“I’m sorry?”
He gestured at his enemies: Spreckels and DeYoung. “What stupidity are they brewing?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I saw you, hanging on every word. A spy who won’t give it up, eh?”
“I am hardly a spy,” I said.
He asked my name. When I told him, he said, “Ah, Vera. You know it means truth. So, are you a truth teller, Vera?”
I shrugged. “They’re talking about the fire, Mr. Ruef. How to stop it.”
“Fools,” he spat. “The fire will stop when it decides to, and not a minute sooner. Mark me, this fire is the best thing that ever happened to our city. You want a fresh start? You want innovation? You want to make a fortune building a city from scratch? Think of all the steel and lumber and nails and lunches and working men that are required. Think of it! Start with a blank slate and build, build, build.” He glared at the men, daring someone to contradict him. “These fellows, they’ll wring their hands tonight, crying: Oh my, what a disaster. But tomorrow they’ll be glad to start pocketing new fortunes.” He seethed from behind his little round spectacles. “What do you say to that, Vera?”
A year earlier, Ruef had begun a speech with the line “Gentlemen and Grafters.” Everyone had laughed; they weren’t laughing now.
I shrugged, not wanting to say.
Ruef nodded. “Good, go on then, spy.” He turned to Herbert Schmitz, the mayor’s less handsome brother, whom Ruef had appointed president of the Board of Public Works. Ruef was eager to share his next brilliant, urgent idea: to relocate the Chinese to the wasteland of Hunters Point.
“Crikey, Abe, the fire’s still raging,” Herbert Schmitz said.
“And soon it will be out,” Ruef observed. “Mother Nature has provided us with a broom, my friend. Chinatown is five blocks of prime real estate, newly vacant. Generations from now, your people and mine will be asking: What did Grandpa do when he had a go at a clean slate?”
“Your slate, Abe, is hardly clean.” Herbert laughed.
“Neither is your brother’s,” Ruef replied. “In fact, neither is yours.”
Herbert attempted to move on, as did I. Abe Ruef blocked my way. “Spy, what do you think of the Chinese?”
“They won’t give up Chinatown without a fight, sir. I know a few Chinese. They’re tough customers.”
“Ah, then we’ve got to be tougher, eh?” He nodded, agreeing with himself.
Julia Schmitz was displeased. I’d neglected my mission to summon the mayor, and now she had no choice but to cut her own path through the huddle of men. Dropping chin to chest, her forehead serving as an ax, she didn’t stop till she’d reached her husband, till she’d placed her hand with its very nice ruby ring on his lapel and whispered in his ear that Pie Johnson, who’d lost her mother, her house, and her fiancé required a word. Did Gene Schmitz want to keep such a poor thing coughing in their hallway?
“Darling,” the mayor protested, “I can’t.” He smiled wearily at the men.
“Gene, Vera is right here,” Julia pressed, pointing to me.
My presence seemed to change the equation. Schmitz nodded. “Of course,” he said to his wife. “Lead the way.”
If he were merely an actor, he was a very good actor, for the anguish on Schmitz’s face seemed real. He marched to the stairs and in one swift gesture pulled Pie into his woolly grasp, her cheek turned to the side, her curls smashed. Then he searched for me. His hand came round my waist and brushed my breast. I froze. It happened so quickly; his thumb flicked the flesh, the heel of his hand on my ribs.
“Oh, girls, dear girls.” He looked into Pie’s watery eyes. “I am so very sorry.”
“Mayor Schmitz? My mother, we need to bury her,” Pie replied, her face flushed with tears. “There will be no rest for her soul until she’s—”
Julia Schmitz took over. “Of course he’ll see to it,” she said. “Of course. We’ll give your mum a proper burial. I promise you.” She led Pie up the stairs toward the quiet refuge of Eugenie’s room. At the top of the stairs, Julia turned back. Only then did she seem to realize that she had left the other motherless girl below, working beside the maid.
“Vera!” she called. “Please, dear, leave that tray and come.”
The thing is, I didn’t want to leave the tray. I didn’t want to leave Schmitz till I had asked him about Rose.
He took the tray from my hands and passed it to one of the soldiers.
“Vera,” he said, taking my hand and, God help me, pressing my palm to his heart. “I’m so sorry. We couldn’t save your
