Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees

Mon. — There are places in Central Park that are better left unexplored and I won’t scandalize you by telling you why.

Tues. April 16 — Coney Island! Ate only pink things. Threw up. It was worth it.

Wednesday — Start at the South St. docks. Halifax times twenty. They better hope it never blows up. I see horses being winched up by their bellies in slings onto ships. They’ve been conscripted. That’s what most of the ships are for. New York feeds the war. New York goes to the whole world and the whole world comes to New York. I love seeing huge crates with Chinese writing swing through the air and pile up on the dock alongside every other language known to man. I’d like to spend a whole day just watching the men and the cargo but I can’t linger too long ’cause of all the tough customers wondering what a nice girl like me is doing… etc. What would they do if I said, “Hey pal, I think you’re beautiful, you move like Nijinsky, you’re my idea of a Greek god, in overalls.” But I’m not allowed to say anything at all because they’d think I was asking for it. Men get to chat to strangers and learn all kinds of things. Women get to take a book out of the library. When I am a famous singer, I will talk to whomever I please.

On foot up through the Bowery, the Italian quarter — kids, carts, food, women in black, good-looking guys but don’t let them see you looking, opera verismo — Greenwich Village, ladies and gentlemen, Tenderloin — get hungry here, buy a pretzel, have lunch in Hell’s Kitchen — really! Why do they call it that? Seems perfectly nice, in fact you can have a free lunch at Devlin’s Saloon Bar. It’s true, a sign said “Ladies Entrance” so I entered and there were a whole bunch of women with red faces and gristly elbows and all you have to do is pay a nickel for a beer that comes with a hot heaping plate. Up Broadway a bit tipsy — not used to beer — the golden mile, Union Square, Madison Square, Herald Square, past the Met — genuflect — promenade through Times Square, Columbus Circle, buy popcorn for the pigeons to keep them in the statue business (where they perform a valuable civic service by keeping the glorious past in perspective), into the Park, zigzag through that immense chunk of countryside smack in the middle of the greatest show on earth, past the Pond, the Lake, the Castle, skip the Reservoir it’s too big and too small, promise to go to the Metropolitan Museum next time, Haarlem Meer (sit down and decide I’ve walked far enough), out onto Central Park North, up Lenox thirty-seven blocks to the Haarlem River. It’s night.

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?” “ J a, 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.