Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees

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 thinks 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.

sat — Today Rose Lacroix was there waiting for me when I arrived and she asked me why I hadn’t been coming in early the past while. I said, “Did you miss me?” She blushed. You’d think it would be hard to tell because she’s quite dark, but it wasn’t hard at all. She wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of the day and I regretted my flippancy, but at least I finally got some sort of human response out of her. David left for France. He cried but I didn’t and that made me feel so mean so I told him I loved him. That’s not really a lie, I loved him sometimes.

Mon — July 1 — The Queen of Sheba still won’t speak to me. Yesterday I asked if she’d like to come for a cup of coffee with me and she said, “No thank you,” and I asked her again today and she said the same thing. I said, “Why not?” And she gave me one of her haughty looks like the cat just talked to the queen and answered, “I have responsibilities.” As if I don’t have responsibilities . As if conquering in the footsteps of Malibran and Patti were not a responsibility. As if animating the genius of composers from Monteverdi to Puccini were child’s play. Lacroix will always have an excuse if she does not become the Paganini of the piano, but I have no such luxury.

tues — Got my period today, thank you Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the saints.

wed — The Kaiser says to me this morning, “Velcome back, Miss Pipah.” I haven’t been away and I said so, but he said, “Yes you have,” and that if I couldn’t be present in both body and mind from now on, he would cancel my audition. I will swear off all nocturnal ramblings until after November 12.

sat — Working.

mon — Working.

tues — Got a letter from David. He asked me to marry him!! I’m going to have to write him back as nicely as possible — but really. I’d as soon marry a coal-miner. Can you picture me as a farm wife? In Montana? My God, that’s under Winnipeg! But this is what gets me: for a while I thought more about playing with David in our pee-reeking hotel room than I did about my work. I cared more about a coloured woman singing in a hundred-seat dive with a bunch of musicians who probably can’t even read music, than my own career in the greatest opera houses of the world. My father did not send me here so I could get dragged down, I could have done that at home. From now on I’m only going out to hear real music at civilized hours. What really gets me is that I never even told David I was a singer, nor did he ever ask. He doesn’t know anything about me but he’s ready to marry me!