Take the Eighth Avenue elevated back, dead happy tired with the whole city around my head like a halo. There are no Dutch people in Haarlem. I have noticed on walks that coloured people and foreigners in general are totally different here. In New York it’s not like they’re in someone else’s city, at least not in their own neighbourhoods. The neighbourhoods are whole cities themselves. At home when I passed by the Pier or Fourteen Yard I always felt sorry and thought how lucky I was not to be born into that, but here when I went into Haarlem I felt weird for being white. It’s full of churches, and families just out strolling in the evening. I felt conspicuous. But I never fit in down home either so what’s the difference?
Everything in New York is a photograph. All the things that are supposed to be dirty or rough or unrefined are the most beautiful things. Garbage cans at the ends of alleyways look like they’ve been up all night talking with each other. Doorways with peeling paint look like the wise lines around an old feller’s eyes. I stop and stare but can’t stay because men always think I’m selling something. Or worse, giving something away. I wish I could be invisible. Or at least I wish I didn’t look like someone they want to look at. They stop being part of the picture, they get up from their chess game and come out of the frame at me, blocking my view. What do they see when they look at me?
Fri April 19 — Jesus, Mary and Joseph, last night I snuck out at midnight when Giles was asleep. Why didn’t I do this weeks ago? I thought there was music during the day, but the night consists of nothing but. The problem is I can’t get into any of the interesting-looking places unescorted. But so far it’s enough to drink up the night, the streetlights, the life on front stoops off Broadway, behind curtained windows, private clubs with shuttered doors, the faint sound of trumpets and drums, and the longest automobiles I have ever seen. I thought Haarlem would be asleep by the time I got up there, considering the number of churches, but maybe the churches turn into clubs at night like toys coming alive ’cause it was a different city — on the main streets anyhow. Daddy always says that in Ireland the number of churches is exceeded only by the number of pubs. Lenox Avenue was gorged with people dressed to the nines, lines of limousines, a fair number of white people, even mixed couples pouring in and out of places. It whitens somewhat at night. I’m on the verge of answering the next man who says, “Hey sweetheart, where’s your boyfriend?” just so’s I can step inside somewhere, anywhere, so long as there’s music, music, music. I did go to one place though. Jerry Chan’s Chop Suey House at Canal and Bowery. Delicious. Here’s my fortune: “You will meet a tall dark and handsome stranger.” Très romantique, n’est-ce pas?
tues — Today the Kaiser made me stand barefoot in a basin of ice-water while vocalizing.
Friday — This morning he brought out the Vaccai Practical Method of Italian Singing! I could have wept to see my childhood friend. I never thought I would be so happy to start at the beginning all over again. How the mighty have fallen. Kaiser opened to page one, “The Scale” — at least it’s set to words — and said, “Vowels only, if you please.” I told him I can read Italian, but he ignored me. So. It is still not yet given to me to chew solid food. NO CONSONANTS. I plot his death.
Have an accompanist now. She is a machine he imported to plod through the Vaccai while I gum the vowels. Why bother? And he has the nerve to tell me to pay attention to the “music” she is plunking out.
sat — I can tell when a piano is out of tune and, yes, it does matter.
mon — Why am I wasting my time and anyone else’s? I can’t sing, forget how, forget why I ever wanted to. Giles says I look pale — good. I’m staying in bed tomorrow.
wed, May 1 — The Kaiser went nuts when I came in today, “Vere in Gott’s name haff you been?!” “I was sick.” “I don’t care if you come here shpitting blood, you vill come! Next time you are indisposed I had better learn off it wia your obituary in ze papahs, do you understant me?” “Ja, mein Kaiser.” He said he’d fling me out if I missed another class.
I didn’t say, “Ja, mein Kaiser” I said, “I’m sorry sir.” Then I thought, what the heck, he’s already wild at me, so I added, “Sir, I didn’t think one day more or less of scales would be any grievous loss to the music world.” And he slapped me. I looked over at the accompanist — that girl is made of stone. She didn’t look at me. She just waited for him to give the command, “E minor, Miss Lacroix.” And she started in like a player-piano you couldn’t give away. I sang but I don’t know where it came from.
If I told my father, he would come and kill this man. Why didn’t I hit him back? The strange thing is, today I felt like I was singing those ruddy scales for the first time. I can’t explain it, it wasn’t in words, it was this knowledge all of a sudden as though I knew it all along but didn’t know I knew it, and it was: all the music is in this scale. The scale is just a safe place where all the music can fold itself down and get stored. Like seeds.
And the scale sounded so pure to me. Like in the end, if you had to be stranded on a desert island, you wouldn’t take Traviata or Bohème, you’d take one scale. Because it has everything in it. I hope I don’t have to be whacked every time just to learn one crummy, measly, huge lesson.
Thursday, May 2 — Singing words!
Saturday — He asked me today if I knew the difference between sentiment and emotion.
Monday — Today he said, “Your voice is a beautiful face. Which you manipulate with the coarseness of a circus clown.” My first compliment from the Kaiser.
Thursday, May 9 — The Kaiser has set up an audition for me with Mr Gatti-Casazza, il numero uno of the Metropolitan Opera! November 12. He is going to let me sing an aria! Aria? What’s that? The Kaiser said if I’m lucky Mr G-C will put me in the Met chorus next season. And I finally got up the guts to say I’d rather go back to New Waterford and have ten babies than tote notes in the Met chorus behind some Franklin stove of a superannuated diva. No, Diary — I must be honest. I said, “Sir, I am not chorus material.” And he said, “That is the correct answer, Miss Piper.”
Saturday — “Listen to the piano, you’re not listening, Miss Pipah.” I’m sick of the piano. It’s time the piano started listening to the voice.
Monday — I asked the accompanist, perfectly politely, how long she had been playing piano and she raised one eyebrow and said, “I’ve always played.” Oh, allow me to prostrate myself before thee, oh sphinx of the keyboard!
Tuesday — Miss Lacroix is in league with the Kaiser. She can do no wrong. She plays like an automaton and I’m supposed to follow her. I told the Kaiser I might as well go down to the Henry Ford plant and sing to the rhythm of the assembly line. I said exactly that and he just shrugged a bit. Maybe he’s mellowing. Maybe I’m wearing him down a little, or maybe — oh horrors — he likes me. She still never looks at me much less says good morning, who does she think she is? Where did he dig her up? I thought coloured people were supposed to have rhythm.
Friday — She has a first name: Rose. If you could meet her you’d know how unlikely that is. And what’s more, she can actually play the piano.
I came early today. I saw the Kaiser chatting with His Most Terrible Majesty Signor Gatti-Casazza out front and I slipped by and up the stairs. That’s when I heard the most sublime, the most beautiful music. I thought it was Chopin at first, it was that romantic and thoughtful, but I knew it wasn’t quite that, then I thought Debussy, it was dreamy enough but there was too much space in between some notes and not enough between others and time changes that slipped by before you could pinpoint them and sudden catches of achingly sweet melody that would just end like a bridge in mid air or turn into something else, and though there were many melodies, you could never hum the whole thing, nor could you figure out how they could all belong in the same piece and yet somehow they do, and you have no idea how or when it should end. In fact it doesn’t end, it stops. Some modern composer I guess.
Anyway it was her playing! The sourpuss accompanist. She didn’t see me. S
omeone should do something about her clothes. She dresses in pink, with puffed sleeves, pleated skirts and a hemline one inch above the ankle. Looks like she just came out of church around twenty years ago. Hand-me-downs maybe, from some rich battleaxe in the Temperance League. Anyhow, when she stopped playing I said, “That was nice, who wrote it?” And she just glared at me. If looks could kill. Just then the Kaiser came in, so our delightful conversation was cut short. He said his usual “Let’s start with C Major, Miss Lacroix,” and you’d never know she was a musician. But I know.
Wednesday — Miss Lacroix and I have a game we play. It’s called Kathleen Arrives before the Kaiser and Listens to Miss Lacroix Play Piano Who Pretends Not to Know Miss Piper Is There. Why are the only people I’ve met in this city either senile, sadistic or eccentric?
Thurs. — After listening to Miss Lacroix play in the mornings before class I feel like a total impostor with no musicianship. (She’d love to know that.) I have figured out one of her secrets. She is the composer of the beautiful strange music she plays. If she even “composes” it — I think she just makes it up as she goes along because her pieces always come to an end the moment before I hear the street door open downstairs, which means she has seen the Kaiser through the window.
Saturday — This morning I got there even earlier and broke the Kaiser’s rules. I sang whatever I darn well pleased. I sang Tosca! I felt like a criminal or a nymphomaniac. And when Miss Lacroix arrived I was dying to see the look on her face when she discovered she’d been beaten at her own game, but I didn’t want to acknowledge her presence any more than she does mine. She left and I could have killed her except I suspect she just went out into the hall to listen, not wanting to give me the satisfaction of an audience.
Friday, May 31 — Got her! This morning I came to the end of “Let the Bright Seraphim,” then I got up silently and crept to the door and there was Rose, sitting on a chair tilted against the wall with her eyes closed. Her profile is imposing. I wish I could draw it. She is arrogant even with her eyes closed. Especially with her eyes closed. She has a tall round forehead and a high straight nose that flares out at the base of the nostrils, and her lips sit against each other like dark pillows. Almost purple. The only way my lips could remotely look like that would be if I puckered up for a kiss, but she doesn’t look like she’s expecting anyone to kiss her. Her eyes go up slightly at the outside corners almost as if she were Oriental. She has high cheekbones and a dimple in her chin which is entirely wasted on her, dimples being accessories to girlish charm. She reminds me of the pictures of African women on P.T. Barnum posters except she hasn’t got the rings around her neck. And she’s not wearing a colourful turban, she has her hair pasted to her head in two pigtails with little ribbons that look utterly perverse on her. Not to mention her Pollyanna dress with the ruffles. Doesn’t she have a mother? Or a mirror? I noticed all this in the three seconds before she opened her eyes and looked at me. She didn’t say a word, just got up and went into the studio and started playing. SCALES. Then she spoke, and I should have slugged her. She said without even looking at me, “You embellish too much. That’s a thing of the past.” Have I mentioned she’s five foot ten?
2:30 am — The Harlem Rhythm Hounds!! But the sun is coming up, good-night.
Sat. — Can you wail like that saxophone, can you walk like that bass guitar, can you talk like the trumpet and beat like the drum? Then what are you doing so far from home, little girl?
Mon, 3 — David is too embarrassed to dance but there are lots of fellas willing to dance with me and I feel perfectly safe doing so because, after all, I have an escort! He was scandalized when I danced with a coloured man named Nico but he got over it as well he should, I fail to see why colour should cause such a commotion. I wonder if there’s anything like this going on back in the Pier or Fourteen Yard? I was too much of a priss then to find out. Tomorrow night David’s taking me to Ziegfield’s Follies. Maybe I’ll introduce him to Giles.
tues — I want to be a show girl, I’m going to take tap-dancing lessons, forget the opera. I think this is an enchanted city where you hear with different ears and see with different eyes. I feel like I’ve been living in a graveyard till now. Reading dead books, listening to dead music, singing dead songs about dying. Beautiful, yes, but dead, like Snow White in her glass coffin — except the music I’ve been singing doesn’t move when you kiss it. Or at least, if it could, I haven’t found how to make it.
wed — I am so irresponsible, dear Diary, how could I not tell you who David is?
He’s my soldier. He said, “Excuse me, miss, is this seat taken?” He’s nineteen and he’s on his way to the front. He is so debonair. At least his uniform is. To listen to he’s very sweet. He’s a farmer and his father is angry at him for enlisting but he’s determined. He wants to live a little before getting hitched to a plough for life and who can blame him? I met him at Chan’s, where I go to read and eat something that goes crunch. (D. is tall and quite nice-looking, but I don’t think he could be the one from my fortune cookie because his hair is sandy and his eyes are blue.) Anyhow, we must have gone to fifteen clubs and we ended up at a place that was half theatre, half bar, called Club Mecca. It’s up in Harlem on Seventh Avenue and I had to drag my soldier in there. And that’s where I heard JAZZ.
How can I describe it? I heard my mother play ragtime at home but jazz is something else.
fri. June 7 — Sweet Jessie Hogan is a singer. I am not a singer.
Sun. — Had David over to meet Giles. He liked her. Ate everything on his plate. She showed him a decrepit photo album — a gallery of spinsters — and either he’s a great actor or he was actually interested.
tues — Jazz.
wed — Razzmatazz.
thurs — I can truck. I can ball the jack, I May Be Crazy but I Ain’t No Fool so Rock Me in the Cradle of Love.
fri — June 14 — A riddle: how can I be singing scales for the Kaiser on the upper west side, while several blocks north-east of here, Sweet Jessie Hogan, the Diva of Club Mecca, is sleeping off last night’s jazz? Has Miss Hogan ever sung scales? Would she put up with this?
sat — She sings like twelve saxophones and a freight train, she wears about a pound of gold, the band just tries to keep up with her. She’s no lady. Her songs are all unbelievably unhappy or lewd. It’s called Blues. She sings about sore feet, sexual relations, baked goods, killing your lover, being broke, men called Daddy, women who dress like men, working, praying for rain. Jail and trains. Whiskey and morphine. She tells stories between verses and everyone in the place shouts out how true it all is. Imagine — the more interruptions, the higher the praise, like a real chorus. Picture Sweet Jessie Hogan at the Met. The best opera is just high-tone Blues.
Sun — David said what if he gets killed in the war, he doesn’t want to die “never knowing what love is”. Translation: he doesn’t want to die a virgin. I don’t believe he was a virgin, but I was, but that’s all taken care of now. I don’t want any fella thinking he’s got anything special to “teach me” and besides, David is nice. We got a room for two hours. He said we were newlyweds but the man at the desk looked like he couldn’t care less. Well, I liked the kissing part and the next part. And I didn’t mind the rest too much but he seemed more — well, he went to the moon and I stayed here on earth. And he looked totally overcome like a sweet stupid puppy and said, “I love you.” I felt like we’d just been to two different moving pictures and didn’t know it.
Tues. — “Do not pretend to things that are outside of your experience, Miss Pipah. If you have never suffered, do not manufacture an imitation of suffering. If you have never been in love, do not insult your listeners with cloying counterfeit.”
wed — I think I’m in love with David. Or at least, when we’re alone together I feel like I’m in love with him. But then I don’t think about him again until I see him so can that be love? I realized something funny yesterday, I realized I haven’t even told him I’m a singer. I wonder what he think
s I do all day?
sat — Sex is good for the voice. Why don’t they teach you that in school?
Sunday — As for sin. I honestly can’t believe God is so bored or so lecherous as to care how close my body and its various parts get to someone else’s various parts.
Mon — I can’t stop thinking of David you-know-how.
Tues. — Today I got a letter from Daddy asking me if I’m okay because I haven’t written in so long, I felt so badly, I wrote right away. Not about Mecca of course. Or David. About everything else. And I sent my two pets two matching sailor-boy dolls, one for Mercedes and one for Frances.
Fri — 28 — Today I started crying on the streetcar for no reason. It was crowded and I was looking at a little girl with dark blonde braids like my own little Frances when a pair of woman’s hands reached down to stroke the child’s hair. They were Mumma’s hands. With the soft wrinkled knuckles and the veins, and lines on the palms like blood dried in the sand. My throat got sore and I was crying before I knew it. And then I got a shock. The streetcar started to empty and I saw the woman’s face. She was a coloured woman. I am starting to not be able to picture Mumma’s face any more but I can picture her hands exactly. “Salaam idEyyik,” she used to say. Bless your hands.