I miss taking the train sometimes, though, and the time I had to gather my thoughts before the day began. I always had a seat. I could watch the people get on and collect themselves. A tidy and a tug. I’ll miss seeing the people from across Brooklyn heading to work. I’ll try to remember what they looked like. I won’t have cause to return to Brooklyn again anytime soon. Once you cross the river you stay there.
But it’ll be nice to stay here, I think. I’m still trying to understand what here means. All our things are still in boxes. Rosie’s promised to unpack but it’s been weeks and she still hasn’t touched a thing but what she needed for the kitchen, a few dresses, some pairs of shoes. I kept you for myself, though. A book of secrets. Mine, and Jeanie’s.
Mazie’s Diary, October 11, 1924
Rosie hates the kitchen now, says there’s mold, can’t get rid of it, no matter how much she scrubs. I can’t see it, but she swears it’s there.
She says: There! There!
I say: Where?
She says: There.
Mazie’s Diary, November 1, 1924
I’m twenty-seven years old today. Rosie served me ice cream with raspberries and chocolate sauce when I came home, and there was a chocolate bar on my bed, as well. Sweets for the sweet. A quiet birthday, I didn’t mind it. She was calm for a moment. Not a word about the kitchen.
Mazie’s Diary, November 14, 1924
A postcard from Jeanie, birthday greetings, two weeks late.
It said:
You’ll always be older than me & wiser too. I hear you in my head when I least expect it.
Like she’d listen to a thing I have to say.
Pete Sorensen
Oh yeah, all the postcards are pretty special. All the places she saw but never went to. Oh California! [Clutches heart.] You and I disagreed about that Niagara Falls postcard, and what it meant exactly. “It could have been you.” You think it’s romantic but I think it’s ice cold. The Captain was spitting in her face. Why would you tell someone something like that? That you’ve married someone else but you had your shot. I’d rather not know. I think it’s disrespectful.
Mazie’s Diary, January 4, 1925
We’re moving again and there’s nothing to be done about it. I can’t argue with her any longer. I can’t listen to her yelling. I can’t bear the neighbors knocking on the wall. I can’t bear the tears. The pointing at the floors, the ceiling, the corners, the crevices, the mold, the germs that don’t exist. I don’t see a damn thing and she sees everything. I have dreams about her pointing at things.
Mazie’s Diary, March 1, 1925
234 Elizabeth Street, second floor, new kitchen. Scrubbed clean. Sparkles. Sunlight through the window, hands in front of our squinting eyes.
I said: Can you argue with this?
Rosie said: I cannot.
Mazie’s Diary, July 31, 1925
Rosie hates all our neighbors. Let’s see, what’s her list of complaints. Hershel downstairs reeks of fish, she hates passing him in the hallway, especially when it’s hot, and lately it’s hot. Menachem on the third floor is too religious and she swears he’s judging her for not going to services every Friday night. But that Russian seamstress next door with the newborn, it’s her she hates the most. Says the baby’s too loud, and that I don’t even know the half of it because I’m gone all day.
I said: Then take a walk.
She said: All day? I can’t walk all day.
I’d kill to take a walk all day but that’s not what she wants to hear.
I said: It’s a baby. How can you hate a baby?
She said: Well it’s no blood of mine.
I said: It’s a helpless human being.
She said: It’s rattling me.
Rattle’s a word I don’t like her using. When she gets shook there’s no unshaking her.
Mazie’s Diary, August 3, 1925
Mack Walters passed. His heart gave. Tee and I went to his funeral in Queens this morning. I hadn’t seen him in a long time, a year, maybe more. We’d stopped talking, stopped flirting, and then he transferred uptown. After that it was like we hadn’t even known each other in the first place. Still I remembered that day we all ran downtown when the bomb went off. Tee did, too. A day when you witness something terrible together, you don’t forget a day like that. You can’t unsee what you saw. So I’d give him tribute.
Mack was Catholic, and Tee knew every single prayer before the priest said it out loud. I liked the church, the cool wooden pews, the stained-glass windows dividing the sun, the statues of Jesus and Mary all around us. A mother and her son. It meant nothing to me, none of it, but it meant everything to Tee.
There was no family at his funeral, just other police officers. He was an orphan from a young age, is what I learned. These officers were the only family he had, and I noticed a few of them pawing away their tears. I was an orphan in a way but I’ve always had Rosie steady in my life, even if she’s unsteady herself. Poor Mack didn’t even have a lunatic sister to call his own.
Afterward someone asked me if I was Mazie and I told him I was and then a few other officers came to greet me and suddenly a whole crowd of them was around me. The famous Mazie, is what they were saying. You’re the one. They told me Mack talked about me all the time, that I was a heartbreaker. I forgot I could do that, break a heart.
Tee and I held hands the whole time. She told me later she could tell I was nervous. My whole life I handled attention from strangers just fine. It’s just lately I’m used to the bronze bars of a cage between us. When the rush stopped I remembered that some of these men could have been the ones beating up on Al Flicker. I wished that I could humble them instead of being so humbled myself. But I was there to pay respects, and that’s what I did.
Mazie’s Diary, August 15, 1925
A postcard from the Captain. Washington, DC.
He wanted me to know he’s back east now.
The picture on the front is of the Washington Monument. A giant prick.
Pete Sorensen
I’ll be honest, I like a girl with a little seasoning, a little special sauce. I’m not interested in the helpless young virgin type, I guess partially because I’m not so innocent myself. And women that have had some experiences in their lives, there’s some kind of wisdom that comes with that. Also they’re less likely to make certain kinds of demands, particularly of, say, a permanent nature. I just never wanted to settle down or anything like that. Opening my shop was about as settled as I was going to get. But I swear to god, reading this diary made me want to settle down. I actually found myself wanting to marry her! I know it’s nuts. I just heard her in my head so clearly and thought I know her. I mean I didn’t know every little thing about her. But I knew that she liked to walk the streets of New York, and that I love more than anything. And I knew the quality of her character, which made me think I could spend the rest of my life with her.
Mazie’s Diary, September 1, 1925
112 Delancey Street. Only elderly women reside in this building, polite old Catholic ladies. Tee told us there was a room for rent — she’d heard it through the grapevine. They’re all her favorite tithers. Quiet mice with hair like snow. They’ve even got a knitting circle every evening at sunset. Dolores with the bad knee one floor down has already offered to make us a quilt. We’re on the fourth floor in three rooms. There’s no street noise. Kitchen’s clean, I made Rosie run her finger on the counter and show it to me. Here we sit, here we stay.