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. Someone 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.