Confessions of Madame Psyche. Dorothy Bryant

in rescue work and searching bread lines and refugee camps for Erika. Finally he found her in Golden Gate Park.

      Erika described her escape in more detail. When the fire started, she hired a wagon and moved with all her belongings to the house of a friend. But the fire spread and there were no more wagons for hire. She left that house with as much as she could carry, dropping things along the way, until she reached the park with only the clothes she wore and one small bag. She stayed there a day and a night before Father found her. They had walked all the way from Golden Gate Park to Hunters Point. Smeared with ashes from head to foot, she was still beautiful. “It’s not the clothes I care about,” she said. “It’s my books!” A soft look passed between her and Father. In later years, of his three daughters, she was the most impatient with Father’s weaknesses. But for this moment, he was the rescuer of the daughter he had taught to read Plato in Greek.

      The fires were out, but the smell of smoke stayed and stayed while tents went up all over Hunters Point. It was a good place to be while the City rebuilt. The weather was milder and sunnier than other parts of the City. We were closer to relief supplies. Ships docked just to the north or at the Point itself. Trains from the south ran beside Railroad Avenue. Trains from the east stopped at Oakland, and their cargo of emergency food and clothing was ferried across the Bay to our docks. The animals were slaughtered and cooked as needed and given free to everyone. The shrimp shacks were propped up again, and the boats began bringing in their catch. My image of those days is of lines of wash waving on ropes stretched from tent to tent across what had been open fields. Otherwise, it seemed that the earthquake had actually enriched us, what with all the free food and clothing being distributed.

      Less than two weeks after the quake, Signora Renata sent a boy to our house to tell Sophie there was a sitting that night and she hoped we would come.

      “Sitting?” asked Erika. “Oh, you’re still dabbling in the occult, eh, Sophie? Oh no, not with that garlicky old witch?” She laughed. I loved hearing Erika laugh. The house was always filled with her laughter now. She had decided not to try to move back into town for a while. There was no electricity, no running water, no cable cars. Even though services were being gradually restored, life was dingy and uncomfortable. “I’m due for a vacation. If I don’t die of boredom. I’ve been to a few seances. My friend Hermione used to drag me to them. The credulity of human beings is infinite! What kinds of tricks does your Signora do? Well, if it’s the only show in town, I guess I’ll go along.” Sophie was distressed at the thought of Erika coming with us, but could not talk her out of it. So we set off, walking to Signora Renata’s house, which still stood, more or less solidly, on the edge of India Basin.

      It seemed as if years had passed since our last visit. We walked around tents, ducking under clotheslines, nodding at groups huddled around cooking fires. Soldiers in uniform eyed Erika, who ignored them. Some of the people stared at us longer than seemed natural as we passed. I thought it was Erika who attracted their attention, but I soon learned they were staring at me.

      We passed a larger group than the others, sitting or standing around my no longer deserted outcropping of rock where a man stood, red-faced and shouting, “This disaster is made by the hand of God, which has us ever in His grip….” He shook his clenched fist. “…shaking and punishing the iniquitous ones, the evil city, cesspool of sin, domain of painted women….” Erika laughed her beautiful rippling laugh as we passed. This had become a common scene too, religious harangues which called the earthquake a punishment on a wicked city. Some listeners were solemn; some laughed with Erika.

      At Signora Renata’s house we were early, but there was already a crowd gathered outside. The Signora greeted me at the door, putting her arms around me and drawing me inside. She shook hands with Erika, and the two of them looked at each other with narrowed eyes. Then the Signora admitted as many people as would fit in a double row around the table, about sixteen. As they came in I noted an important change in her procedure: each of them paid her a quarter before entering the house. To the rest, she waved a hand. “No more room, come back tomorrow.”

      The seance began as usual, with the Signora pulling the drapes to keep out the fading light of the long day. She made us join hands and wait a long time for a couple of feeble raps. These she had to accomplish alone. I was far too shy in the presence of Erika and so many strangers to take the risk of assisting her, especially after my last experience there.

      Finally one of the sitters, a half-drunk man in national guard uniform, said, “I come because I heard about the little China girl.”

      Signora Renata ignored him, but after answering a question about someone’s lost relative, “…safe in Oakland, go and look there,” she said, “Now, La Psyche, who comes protected ‘:by her two sisters, may be strong enough to let the trance come. v(e light the candle.” She set the candle in front of me, but I sat rigid and silent. When the earthquake came I had been afraid that I had lost my job. Now I was afraid to perform. I was sure Erika would see through it. I imagined her laugh cutting through the room, ripping my act to pitiful shreds. And all these people had already paid. Would they be angry? There was already impatience and suspicion in the voice of the man who had called me China girl. I closed my eyes, not in trance but in terror.

      “Understand, my friends, this child has suffered the catastrophe twice, once in the vision, then in truth with us all. See, she trembles in weakness. We must wait with pazienza. Calm yourself, Psyche. No harm will come. The vision is gone. We do not ask you to live the horror again. Rest.” Her voice was soothing, and her message was clear. She knew why I was afraid, and she was reassuring me. I leaned back in the chair, but I did not open my eyes as I had learned to do for my more dramatic performances. I was too nervous to look into the eyes of any of the sitters.

      “Afraid?”

      I did not answer.

      “Buona. Silence means no.” She had chosen our easiest system. “You see no visions of fear?”

      I remained still.

      “You are strong enough now to let the visions come?”

      I hesitated, then very slowly I nodded my head.

      “But can you speak to us?”

      I remained still.

      “Va bene. You see, my friends, at times she has barely the strength to respond. Silence means no.” She had made it clear that she would lead me tonight and my performance would be minimal. My fear eased. “Now the little one is ready, I think, for the questions.”

      “Will there be another earthquake?” It was the question everyone, everywhere, was asking. Some predicted that an even worse one was coming, that next time a tidal wave would sweep over the City, covering it permanently. I hesitated, not knowing what to do. People hardly seemed to breathe, waiting, I suddenly realized, with as much fear as I felt of them. Some sensible voice inside me told me that, of course, there would be more earthquakes. I nodded, and a gasp went around the table.

      “Worse? with tidal wave?” A woman’s voice rose in panic.

      I sat doggedly silent for what seemed an eternity.

      “Not as bad?”

      I nodded.

      “You mean, carina, there will be more earthquakes, but only the usual ones?”

      I nodded.

      “You see a vision now?”

      I kept still, not ready to take any risks. Besides, I thought impatiently, I’d given them assurance of no more big quakes. What did they expect for a quarter? “And was the quake the punishment of God?” It was Erika’s voice with a lilt of suppressed laughter edged with sarcasm.

      I hesitated again. People were listening to anyone who called them sinful, horrible, under God’s wrath. They liked being abused by shouters like the man we had passed. If I learned to shout and scream like him, I would get bigger crowds than Signora Renata could fit into her house. I didn’t believe there was a God at all. My father said there wasn’t, and so did Erika. Sophie talked about God all the time, but she was foolish. Miss Harrington, whom I respected