Papas Diary Project

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H. promises to print the first round of circulars while I attend to other business. I find her by the window upon my return, she smokes and blows smoke out the window into the alley and jokes with Henry G. She cuts a fine figure. She glows with life as always, it is as if she stands under a streetlight and the rest of us are cloaked in dusk, the color of pavement.

I see just a few circulars on the table next to the printing machine, some smudged and crumpled and I look for boxes of others but find none, I ask her where are the others and she tells me the machine broke hours before. It is an old machine a donation from the Z.O.A. but it works and I ask her why she didn’t ask someone for help and for her reply she tells me you work in a factory so shouldn’t you be the one to fix it? She smiles at me and then talks to Henry some more. I fix the machine and when I am done she prints some more flyers, not nearly enough but she goes home tired.

I know she has no use for me because she is elegant and graceful and I am what I am but what am I to do? Our work is for the betterment of our lot, it is my honor to work among my colleagues but I am unsure why she visits the Dist and why she offers her help. Jack tells me she is not interested but why is she there? Do I dare to dream I am the reason?

At home I find her telephone number in my book and I see I left one number off. The last number, I never wrote it down. I don’t remember what it was. It doesn’t matter any more, she doesn’t live in the same place but how did I call her when I did when I had only part of the number? I stare at it and I think for some reason of a box too heavy to lift.

I hear the familiar grinding screech from across the street, the projectionist at the Clinton pushes open the door of his booth at the back of the second floor. He does this three or four times at night, there are two doors but he opens the one on the right each time and I can see the glow of the machinery behind him. He stands out on the fire escape and lets the door close, it looks to me like an eye, a wink from a face of brick. He smokes a cigarette and drinks from a bottle and I watch him from my window across the street and I wonder again if he would like me to wave to him.

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Rothstein on the telephone, he tells me H. now lives in Williamsburg and I tell him I know because I have met her at the Dist. He says he knows about the Dist. He tells me again H. is now in Williamsburg with her aunt, an American. I touch the head set for my radio and remember Gigli is in Philadelphia with Serafin and the rest, I must check to see if they are on the air.

And now I picture my father olam haba and how he stood over the row of desks, his crippled arm tucked into his pocket his other arm holding open a book, he turned pages with his thumb and read the lessons and my heart would fill with pride and sadness both, how he struggled yet was the equal to other men, superior in so many ways to other men. I long for his advice, but what he would say I think I know, I am sure I know. Did he ever use a telephone? Did he ever see one?

The father of H’s aunt was from Frankfurt or possibly Strasbourg, Rothstein says, and he owned a factory, blouses and dresses and he owned part of a newspaper also. I own a whole newspaper I tell him, I bought it from the boy just this evening, it is a joke but Rothstein has other things to discuss. I agree to have dinner with him at the Parkway on Saturday. We say goodbye and as if by some unseen hand I lift out of my chair all at once and rush out and down the stairs, careful only not to slip on the shiny lip of the last step, the lip of the last step worn smooth, worn shiny. Then I am on the street, no hat, no coat, but others are without coats too, it is so warm it could be May or September but for the naked trees.

I decide to see a movie at the Clinton and I go back upstairs for my hat and the telephone rings. It is H., I breathe hard from my speedy trip up and down the stairs yes it is H. on the telephone, is it not like a girl of her type to ring me up? It is a perfect gesture, just a perfect gesture her voice a sweet trill, a string of notes more lovely than any song the radio affords me. She asks me if I will be at the Dist tomorrow and of course the answer is yes, I remind her of her promise to help me with the circulars and the program in the evening and she laughs and says of course, oh of course, she has just returned from a drive with someone, I do not know him, and she claims she had so much fun she forgot momentarily. “He gave me a nifty tip and now I have an idea,” she says in a whisper and says she cannot wait to tell me.

She hangs up and I collect coins and I look at a buffalo, his face down his head pointed forward and I cannot decide does he want to break through the edge of the nickel or is he at rest? I have a few coins only but enough for a movie ticket, yes more than enough for a movie ticket.

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H. smiles, she sings my name as I enter the Dist office, a song with only one word sung just for me. At her feet are boxes of circulars ready to distribute, her sleeves are rolled to the elbows like a cutter’s and she wears a hat I suppose to keep her “bob” out of her eyes, at her temple a tiny smudge where she brushed at a stray hair with inky fingers. Henry G. sits at the corner table with the pledge committee, they examine a ledger bent over to see the rows of numbers but he looks at me over their heads, his back straight, somehow more a part of my chat with H. than with the work of his companions.

The girl from the hat shop is here and she hands me a note, a message from Blitz about Goldberg, I must ring him immediately. Blitz is worried about Goldberg and his German trip, some at headquarters agree with him others think we should not ask him to speak, he tells me things are changing, the moment is delicate we must tread carefully.

After the call I return to the room and H. sits by the printing machine, she sits and reads Photoplay and does not look up as I examine the boxes of circulars, only another box or two to go and we will have enough. I commend H. on her efforts, we have just a little more to do, and now she closes her magazine, her face a lovely pout, she is joking I think when she asks “Is that all you can say?” She tells me she has been there all afternoon perspiring and getting dirty for me. “And you walk in and make a telephone call and then that’s all you can say.”

I hold out my hand to help her to her feet but she gets up and drops Photoplay on the chair. She tells me if not for Henry G.’s help she might not have done as much as she did, really he was a great help, such a gentleman. Henry must not have worked today, we are in a slack season many of us are off here and there.

“I forgive you Harry if you promise to be good from now on,” H. says. “Now let me tell you my idea.”

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[Note: This post is a continuation of group started on Dec. 7]

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H’s plan is for Saturday evening, I must call Jack to discuss it. If he expects to see me of course I will go with him instead and also I have doubts about what H. has proposed, a folly is it not? Let Houdini be Houdini in my opinion. Can she truly want this, such a clever lively woman full of thoughts on every subject, on movies and literature and music, does she really believe we will see a ghost? Perhaps she has another thought in mind but I do not know if I should ask.

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[Note: This post is a continuation of group started on Dec. 7]

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8:00 AM

Spoke to Breitbart last night, he agreed gladly to postpone our dinner. To think about my upcoming evening in H’s company fills me with contentment, after all these months perhaps there glows within her a spark of affection for me. I must endeavor to earn the honor of her company so her affection might grow, I must erase the memory of my past mistakes for I believe I am so much more.

I think about the ghost in the hotel H. says it is the ghost of the man who built it killed in a fire with his mistress or perhaps killed by the husband of his mistress. I don’t think there is a ghost but H says it is seen every year at this time, I wonder am I permitted to be among ghosts if I am not permitted to be among the dead?

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6:00 AM

Have just returned from evening with H. I expect she is still there. I will attempt to recall the events.

On the train to Williamsburg, I think of the tragedy in the hotel, whether it is true. Could a fire kill two people and not more? If it was a murder instead would it not be a famous scandal? Earlier in the day I visited Henry E., he sells linens to hotels but he said he never heard of the fire or murder, with so many hotels in town he said he could not be sure if it was true, every hotel has a murder, a fire, a story of a ghost.

I do not know why a man takes a mistress. The pledge of marriage is a blessing, the marital life a love made real by the exercise of self-sacrifice and the advantage of lasting friendship. Is not the true joy of such a union to experience the partnership, how it remains even when the youthful urgency of love is no longer?

It was a curious day, on the train to Williamsburg I remember I did not eat.

I call on H. and I offer to sit with her aunt in the front room but H. rushes out, impatient. Her cheeks are rouged even so I see her face is red and flushed and I ask her is she sick and she replies “no Harry but I am drunk.” I laugh but it’s true I think and I wonder if her aunt joined her. I object to prohibition, but Coolidge is a dry and other causes mean so much more to me. Her uncle perhaps purchased some liquor before his death and it must be there in the house still.

H. leads me to an auto and tells me it is her aunt’s and we can take it but I cannot drive I say, I only know how to ride. I tell her Rothblum has offered to teach me but she is disappointed and says I suppose a taxi is too much for a girl to dream of and walks quickly away, and I think of autos and the lesson Rothblum gave me in the Coney Island parking lot and how the brake stops the wheels and even occasionally the engine kicks and goes quiet when I use the brake improperly, a habit Rothblum says everyone has and everyone loses, don’t worry Harry but I don’t worry, I’m not worried I simply find the brake appealing.

Then I remember there were some days my father would not eat either, he was sick some days and could not eat but now I wonder was he sick or did he not eat so we might have more? I would sit on his lap at dinner, he would not eat but he would stroke my hair and sing me the songs. How I stared at the edge of the table, and I would count the lines in the wood and nibble on my bread and hear my fathers song and feel his hand and there was nothing, there was nothing but the table and his voice and his touch.

H. and I walk to the train and it arrives and she takes my arm as we get on, leans on me for balance I suppose. The train pulls away and we start our ride to Manhattan I think all this is impossible, all this is endless.