For San Francisco, the war situation was not good. The ALA could lose this conflict without jeopardizing the independence or the prosperity of its people. San Francisco could not. Los Angeles was fit for armed conflict in a way that San Francisco did not share; war was contrary to Friscan culture, and its manpower resources were limited. The northern city was cut off from the outside world, from water, and from energy.
Nonetheless, the seven-month stalemate persisted. The organization and professionalism of the ALA was, to a degree, neutralized by the nature the combat: an undisciplined gang war, spread out across the vast, defender-friendly terrain of the Shambles. The Angelenos’ disadvantages, internal dissension and unfamiliarity with the topography, had been well exploited by the cagey Chancellor Wentworth. But ultimately, the battle-trained and well-supplied ALA could withstand its own weaknesses.
The core of the San Francisco militia was a thousand regular police and the paramilitary boarder guards who, even in normal times, patrolled the Shambles and chased away the brigands who infested the Bay Area. But war required more manpower than the peacetime force could provide. Additionally, thousands of citizens had enlisted to defend the city. These citizens were not used to the hard labor and mortal danger of the military; they had lived their lives off the socialist dole of one of the financially and culturally richest cities west of the Sierra Nevada. The Rainy City's army was soft, comfort loving, and unfit for the horrors of war. The citizen solders were kept in the battle only through the heroic efforts of the city’s courageous and charismatic plutocracy.
The Angeleno elite had persuaded their homeless bandit army to move on San Francisco by promising the plunder of the rich and stately city. But the Wentworths had not nurtured this city for six decades in order to turn it over to a drunken and poorly-led host.
#
While Councilman Spicer was telling his Irma about Todd Wentworth’s heavy crush on her, the martial arm of that plutocracy was meeting at the Wentworth mansion, the grandest building on Lafayette Park. Made of red brick, perpetually darkened by rain, this compelling building rose four stories from the high point of the hill. The top three levels served as living quarters for the three brothers and their families (the lone sister, sad Cordilia, lived in a room of her own on the third story, the flat of Thurston and his beautiful wife, Helen). The ground floor, with its high ceilings and stirring air, its dark oak wainscoting, its formal nineteenth-century furniture and maze of doors, halls, and rooms, served as political and military headquarters of San Francisco.
The ballroom, where high, east-facing windows added light on this gray, drizzly day, was filled, at this moment, with the Wentworth family and twelve militia officers.
Chancellor Thaddeus Wentworth, dressed, as always, in his dusty black battle uniform, leaned against a long banquet table, his arms folded across his metal-plated chest. The chancellor was forty years old, tall and thick muscled. A full, curly black beard covered his heavily-scarred face. His bald head was shaven clean and gleaming pink. Thaddeus had the trademark thick-boned forehead of the Wentworth clan. His straight Wentworth nose was oft broken and as crooked as a Z. He was a serious-looking man, always armed with a machete and two Mosner pistols. In contrast to the ferocity of his features, carriage, and dress, the man’s eyes were calm and intelligent.
When the chancellor looked people in the eye and spoke to them, they felt as if the great ruler had eagerly comprehend them, their feelings, and their opinions. He had the knack of making people feel as if understanding them was his sole concern. It worked with individuals and it worked with crowds. Always beloved, Thaddeus Wentworth now had a platform to exercise his courage, ingenuity, and stature; war had made him into San Francisco’s lone superstar. The army, otherwise so ill suited for the field, was willing to fight with and for the chancellor. If a man like this was resolved that San Francisco would survive, surely fate would have it so, and it was the duty of every honorable citizen to stand behind him.
Thurston Wentworth stood in the center of the room, lustily recounting the encounter with the two Angeleno soldiers he had caught and killed in an open part of the Shambles. To the amusement of the officers, he loudly and jocularly described the Angelinos’ vain flight across the clearing. He went on for some time about the ugliness of those two soldiers as well as their boisterousness, which had led him to them. He aped the way the Angelenos talked, dropping common American vowel sounds from his speech. His audience guffawed slavishly, but they also shot guilty glances at the chancellor, who continued reading a piece of paper over and over.
While Thurston talked and entertained, he kept one arm around the small waist and broad hips of his statuesque wife, Helen. Bejeweled Helen was tall, buxom, and strong; she had the bone structure of Athena or Aphrodite, and the city’s gossip columns referred to her as "the most beautiful woman in San Francisco.” Thurston was the most aggressive fighter in the militia, know as “the Mongoose”; but behind closed doors, Helen ruled his mind as well as his heart.
His attentive audience was made up of the top-ranking militia officers. In their polished black uniforms, they huddled together near the long, high windows looking out on the Bay’s dull silver vista. These hard, robust men listened to Thurston and awaited the beginning of the debate that this gathering had been assembled to resolve. Although the flock of military leaders would not openly dispute the Wentworths and would fervently execute any plan the First Family designed, Thaddeus Wentworth looked for opportunities to reinforce that he had nothing to hide and always made a point to have them present when critical matters were aired. To have their souls at his disposal, he needed his men to witness his decisions and the process that generated them.
At the back of the room, the chancellor’s wife, May, sat on a maroon, crushed-velvet couch. She was a gray-faced, unhealthy-looking woman, overweight, white-haired, and wrinkled before her time. Five years older than the chancellor, her bearing and her wan complexion conspired to age her beyond such meager seniority. Her heavy features were creased with worry, her mouth set in a broad frown. Even when Thaddeus had met her, some twenty years before these events, she had never glowed like most young women. Nonetheless, Thaddeus had been attracted to her modesty, her sobriety, and her belief in his own best qualities. After their marriage--which had puzzled many--successive miscarriages followed by complications from the last one had chewed up her meager spirit. Despite May’s early and rapid aging, Thaddeus remained faithful to her, for loyalty was a cornerstone of the Wentworth values.
Next to May, the Wentworths’ weak-minded sister Cordilia played with her toes and twitched her head incessantly. These two timid creatures were silent. Unlike Helen, they did not participate in policy decisions, but Thaddeus liked having them near--just as he liked having war councils in his home and as he liked having his brothers living in his house.
In a small, shadowed western corner of the ballroom, Todd Wentworth’s powerful frame was draped over a maroon easy chair. Todd's expressive eyes, which revealed so much that they were a distinct disadvantage in the conduct of politics, were fixed on his oldest brother. Thaddeus held in his huge, hairy fist a sheet of paper, which he read and reread. An offer of armistice had come via semaphore from the Angeleno diplomatic minister, Ambassador Isoka. It was the first peaceful gesture from the Angelenos. Thaddeus knew it was merely a gambit, but even that needed study. Thurston’s recitation filled the time while the assemblage waited for the chancellor to speak.
At last, Todd saw Thaddeus raise an eyebrow and knew that his brother had digested the message.
“Well,” Todd said loudly.
Thurston stopped mid-sentence and looked disapprovingly at Todd, as did Helen. The officers shuffled uncomfortably. They thought it disrespectful for him to prod the chancellor.
Thaddeus shook his head. He smiled understandingly at his youngest brother, then grew serious. "The offer is hollow."
Alone in this group, Todd valued peace over pride. Although he was no more inclined than anyone else to badger his brother with a separate point of view, he felt it was his duty to argue for armistice. His conviction was stronger than his expectation of prevailing, but the words of peace had to have voice, and only he was there to speak them.
After a pause--pauses were plentiful when the reflective family convened--Thaddeus declared, “This is all we’ll get. I take Isoka at face value; what he offers is what can be had. It’s amazingly simple.”
Todd replied quickly, "We owe it to our people to try. What if we offer--”
Helen put her open hand out toward her brother-in-law. “But honey, they aren’t offering anything!"
Thaddeus’s open eyes invited Todd’s scrutiny. He walked across the room and offered the letter to Todd. "We surrender, the siege ends. Afterwards we get water. That's it!"
"Add oil and electricity," snapped Todd without accepting the paper. "If we could stop the war and somehow merge our conflicting interests, there would be benefits for all. Working with them, we might actually improve the life of the our people!"
Thaddeus slowly shook his large head and snorted ruefully. In the chancellor’s eyes, an illusion gripped his youngest brother. He saw that Todd would not relent of his fantasy of coexistence with the intractable adversary. His chimerical dream of peace could not be stemmed by logic or self-interest. Thaddeus held the letter at arm’s length before him. "Todd, listen to this. 'You may police your own people, IF you assure severe punishment for acts of belligerency--such as blowing up the Aqueduct.' "
Thurston sneered and said, "They really hate that, don't they?"
The officers laughed and met his eye.
Thaddeus held up his hand, walked back across the room, and read on. "Armed ALA observers will garrison in San Francisco indefinitely--”
At that moment, the room began to shake and windows rattled slightly as an earthquake rolled across the shattered peninsula. When the quake ended uneventfully, the congregation went on as if nothing had happened.
Thurston muttered, "Sorry, that was just me shaking in my boots!" Again, his fellow soldiers chuckled.
Helen shook her husband’s arm, then glared into his eyes. "No Yahoos in San Francisco!"
"Works for me!" he beamed. He and his wife slapped high-fives, then kissed. The officers grinned.
The chancellor’s smile came and went quickly. He held his palm out to Todd. "Speak your peace, brother. You see how I lean. Dissuade me if you can."
For several seconds Todd gathered his thoughts, then rose and walked toward Thaddeus. Stopping in front of his powerful sibling, he held up his palms and said so all could hear, "How many widows? How many times the dirge? What curse is worse than war?"
"Subjugation," Thurston noted.
Helen cried, "Yes!" and rubbed her hand across her husband’s wide chest. Her magnificent amber eyes narrowed and she looked licentiously toward the officers. The soldiers murmured approvingly.
Todd held up a warning forefinger. The room quieted. "We're losing,” he declared.
"Losing, my dick," Thurston shouted. The officers muttered.
Todd went on in a soft, steady voice. "If we find the way to peace, we can rebuild. We could put a road through the Shambles and reconnect with the world. If LA works with us . . . their engineering, technology, and organization . . . they could provide us with steel and oil--”
Helen stomped her foot. "We don't need that!"
The officers grumbled, but Todd went on about the bounty that could accompany an entente. Though careful not to praise to highly the Angelenos’ scientific accomplishments, he spoke with admiration about their production of energy. Thaddeus had heard, though not so directly, these thoughts before. He took this occasion to give Todd a public forum to detail his arguments. He displayed, as always, the flexibility and tolerance that mark a great leader. No one could say that peace was not given its opportunity, at least in argument. Thaddeus always gave his opposition a public chance to have their say--whenever it would be most inauspicious for them to speak up.
"Let it go, Todd," Cordilia sputtered softly. At the sound of the madwoman’s voice, a slight chill swept through the room of warriors--who were superstitious, to a man. "They can't hear you," she went on, her voice faintly crackling like a distant radio station. "They'll fight and lose. Fight and die."
Cordilia Wentworth was bony, red-eyed, and of questionable cleanliness. She had a pure if grayish complexion but an inbred head and face. She wore a simple brown dress. She was sitting with her legs spread wide, and most of the officers were looking up her skirt. Her parted knees were pushed together repeatedly by May. The latter was dependent upon her sister-in-law’s illness. Poorly educated, insomniactic, she had been confused by life long before the war; she hid her desperation behind her matronly responsibilities for overseeing Cordilia.
The men and Helen stared at Cordilia. May subdued the quasi-psychotic with a few calming strokes down her head and back. As soon as possible, her brothers turned away and ignored her. The officers snickered uncomfortably. The Wentworths ignored this, too.
"There is a humiliation factor," noted the chancellor.
The room fell silent. Todd paced. Thurston and Thaddeus stood with their arms across their chest, their eyes intently on the ground. The rain stopped and pigeons cooed and beat their wings on the wide ledge outside the tall windows. A couple of the officers whispered to one another. From their point of view, the course of action was self-evident: Surely there was no thought of accepting defeat masked as an armistice. They were Thurston's men and never doubted that his valor and logic would carry the day. It was beyond their imaginations that the chancellor would accept terms that tarnished the traditions of San Francisco by accepting subjugation by the scorned Angelenos. Thaddeus Wentworth would never be swayed by any logic, history, or military analysis that led to capitulation.
Todd, too, doubted that his words would win the future. But Todd felt a need to shine a light on the path to survival. He refused to comprehend that merely to live was insufficient motivation to stem the sanguinary bend of these haughty soldiers. Suddenly he said the most dangerous thing. "Right is on their side."
"Oh, for God’s sake!" Helen cried. She threw up her hands and turned briskly away.
Todd continued, now watching himself as if from outside his body. The words seemed to come through him. They were, he knew, the unspoken words of the terrified townspeople. "Our volunteers fought LA from the Grape Vine to the Delta. This siege is the consequence of that recklessness.”
Thurston, though aghast, felt a kind of pity for his idealist brother. He said in as reasonable and non-accusatory a voice as he could muster, "LA stole the water! Again! They killed the poor people who stood in their way. What else could we do?"
Todd waved his hand as though thwarting an aberration. This was, he knew, the last chance to make an argument for peace. There would not be another Angeleno offer. "It wasn't our fight! Our people killed the Angelenos out of hate, not out of concern for the fate of the Delta. Now they're killing us as revenge."
"Kiss my ass!" Thurston shouted. His nanosecond of restraint had passed.
Thaddeus raised his hand. Thurston shut up and leaned back against Helen. She hugged him with both arms, whispered in his ear; and he smiled at her words. She kissed his cheek trice.
"You know that what I am saying is true," Todd said, looking from the officers to his family. “Since the turn of the century, San Francisco has been prosperous and safe. We channeled our wealth into culture and pleasure. We thought we were strong, that our tunnels and our defense systems would protect San Francisco from any assault. We believed that the Shambles would protect us forever. The volunteers went to help the people of the Valley just as the Germans and English went into the First World War because of the disputes of lesser states. Like them, we were blinded by hubris and ignorance. But the volunteers encountered a real army, unforgiving and bloody, well schooled and, at that time, acutely led. Their course was clearly unjust, but inevitable; and we foolishly intervened. They'd never threatened us. They wanted the Delta, not the Bay. We brought this calamity upon ourselves. . . . We are the leaders of this magnificent city. Her fate is in our hands: We dare not lose San Francisco because of adolescent bravado.”
The chancellor nodded. His face revealed nothing. "Your point is that we initiated the belligerencies and we must make the peace."
“There’s no wisdom in picking a fight with the Devil,” said Todd. He spoke for a few more moments, clumsily repeating much of what he had said. He assured his comrades of his detestation of the Angelenos, but he argued for a wise rather than bold course of action.
"I think we all get your point," said Thaddeus, weary now and looking forward to some sleep before another wrenching day on the battlefield. "Thurston. Do you want to respond?"
Thurston looked at Helen. She stroked his back. "Right and wrong be damned," he cried. "Let's kill as many of 'em as we can!"
Todd, incensed, pointed a finger at his brother. "It courts bad luck to make light of killing.”
Thurston stepped toward his younger brother, his formidable chin jutting like a challenge. "Read your history, Todd. Men make war! That's the way it is with our species.”
"God designed our hearts with this flaw," Helen added angrily. "We alone kill our own kind. So be it!"
Todd saw hatred twist her beautiful face. Her lip was curled and her eyes tightly squinted. "Christ, forgive us," he sighed.
Thurston walked over and stood in front of Thaddeus. "This war is long, but it's not terrible."
Helen joined her husband closely at his side. She leaned beseechingly toward the chancellor. "We need persistence!"
"Not that many people are dying," Thurston reasoned. "These few casualties are acceptable, considering the stakes.”
Helen said, "Our people are trying very hard to stay alive. They love life too much to fight with careless abandon.”
Thaddeus looked at Todd. "It's true," he said serenely. "Only a handful of casualties each day."
"Dignity and independence are worth our blood," Thurston said.
Todd said firmly, "There is no dignity in defending a wrong.”
Helen turned to the officers. Her face softened. She smiled, her wide mouth revealing strong white teeth, and moved slightly so that her breasts were in partial profile. "The volunteers were right to try to help our neighbors. I'm proud of them, proud of their generosity and their bravery."
The officers muttered approval.
"They were brave when no one thought the Angelenos would attack San Francisco," Todd snapped.
Helen fell back; her face whitened. "My God!"
Thurston now moved toward Todd aggressively. "You're implying my brother died dishonorably!"
"No! I revere his memory. He did what he thought was right, but now it’s clear to me that he was wrong. Hindsight counts, and we’d better heed it."
The chancellor pushed away from the table. The officers stood to attention. Helen grabbed Thurston’s arm, and he clasped her hand. Todd moved to the wall, leaned his shoulder against it, and bit at his forefinger’s cuticle.
"I concede," Thaddeus began, "that the original fault was ours.” Thurston and his party froze with shock. “I do. I see now how it appeared to the Yahoos. But our trespass against them came from trying to do good: The Yahoos stole water and land from other Californians, our neighbors. The volunteers fought to protect the weak from the thieving strong. But you are right, Todd: It wasn't our fight. We made it ours for hate's sake."
Now Thaddeus paced while Thurston and Helen tautly watched him. Todd paid conspicuous attention to his own cuticle.
The chancellor smiled warily at Thurston. "War becomes you. Your proclivity biases your argument."
The officers laughed. Helen hugged Thurston.
"You know I'm right!" Thurston shouted. Grinning, he looked back at the officers.
Thaddeus nodded. He saw that Todd could say no more and that no one thought well of his reasoning. It was time to make his pronouncement. He decided to grandstand for the audience of officers, the men whose hearts he needed.
The chancellor spread his arms wide and bellowed, "Right and wrong be damned! I can tolerate no accord with these people! They live despicably yet thrive. Their wickedness outrages every cell in my body. They have pillaged and raped across California. And it stops right here in San Francisco! I reject Isoka's insulting proposal!”
“Beat LA!” cried Helen. “Beat LA!”
The officers, led by Thurston, cheered and reveled. The ballroom reverberated with their ancient chant. "Beat LA! Beat LA! Beat LA!"
Thurston, after looking somewhat guiltily at the silent Todd, said excitedly, "I'll draft a counterproposal: they draw back to the Tehachapis."
"They'll laugh at us,” Todd sighed. “LA doesn't need peace."
“They don't need peace," Helen snarled, "because they have no souls!"
The chancellor stood in the center of the room. His great arms akimbo, he declared, "Now the argument is over.” His eyes came to rest on Todd. The room fell silent. “Brother, are you with us? You are a man of conscience and I won’t force you to violate it."
Taking his brother’s lead, Thurston added unconvincingly, “No one will hold it against you if you walk away. You do what’s right for you.”
Todd looked across the faces of the others. A breathless moment passed. He saw he was contributing to Thaddeus’s drama and suddenly felt himself glad to be of use. There was now only one course of action. He said in a stern and measured tone, "If anyone outside this room ever sees or hears anything from me smacking of dissent or doubt, then burn my possessions and renounce me forever!”
Thaddeus gave his youngest brother a huge bear hug and held him aloft. "Now that's a Wentworth!"
"United forever!" Todd shouted, his fist rising to the ceiling. It was time to feed the enthusiasm of the clan. He aped the same delirium as the most war-loving amongst them. "Beat LA! Beat LA!"
"Beat LA! Beat LA!" Helen screamed. The ancient chant thundered.
"Beat LA! Beat LA!"
Walking back to the banquet table and sitting on its edge, the chancellor nodded serenely. He rubbed his tired eyes and tried to recall the matter of his next meeting.