One Eye Laughing, the Other Weeping (15 page)

I told him I didn’t want to disturb him, but he said he was stuck and my company was most welcome.

I asked him what he was stuck on, and he said the ending of the story he was writing.

It’s about a blind girl and a man who fall in love and decide to get married right away. She invites her friends over because their romance has been so whirl-wind, no one has had a chance to meet him. It’s then that she finds out he’s a Negro, which of course she didn’t know because she was blind.

Mr. Allen said he’s stuck because he doesn’t know how it’s going to end. I told him I didn’t see how that could be since they are his characters and he’s the writer, and so it could end however he wanted it to. He said it doesn’t always work out that way, and besides, he wasn’t sure how he wanted it to end.

He asked me if I thought the man should have told the girl he was a Negro because she was blind and wouldn’t know.

I never thought of that and I don’t know what to think now. I wish I could have been more of a help, because Mr. Allen seemed genuinely perplexed.

The floor of his apartment is covered with crumpled-up sheets of yellow paper and little saucers of Coca-Cola. He said that the mice are eating his story at night, and he has been forced to defend himself. The mice are at-

tracted by the sweet smell of the Coca-Cola. They drink too much of it and go away, and something about the bubbles makes their stomachs explode.

It’s nice being in Mr. Allen’s apartment because it’s so quiet because of the soundproofing, but it’s also a little strange.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1938

Uncle Martin showed me where he hides the Hershey’s bars. Aunt Clara
adores
Hershey’s bars, and since she’s on this diet she has forbidden Uncle Martin to let her find out where they are.

They’re in the ice bucket on the top of the pantry cabinets. You need the little stepladder from the kitchen closet to get up high enough to reach in and get one, which frankly I think is a little silly. But Uncle Martin says that in the past, Aunt Clara has discovered his hiding places and eaten all the Hershey’s bars, and he has “paid dearly for it.”

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1938‌

For the first time I saw what Mr. Lippman does with his hearing aid. Mr. Esposito told me about it.

When someone Mr. Lippman doesn’t like talks to him, he slides his hand inside his jacket and turns off his hearing aid. Then he just nods and smiles.

Mr. Esposito told me that Mr. Lippman’s wife had to be sent “upstate” to a hospital because of her nerves. He seems much relieved, however, since he got a letter from his sister, who is safe in England now.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1938

Mrs. Parrish doesn’t speak very much because she has a bad stutter. Susie says she’s quite embarrassed about it and does hours of exercises every day. Her room is right off the kitchen, next to Susie’s, so sometimes you can hear her repeating over and over hard-to-say sentences: “I owned a wooden wheelbarrow.” “Feed me the food in full view of the family.” Sentences like that.

I try to be nice to her, but it’s hard because she doesn’t say much. She’s from Ireland.

She said she’s going to teach me to bake, but she had a lot of trouble saying “bake.”

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1938

Uncle Martin won “Sober Sue,” although I told him that what he did was completely against the rules.

He took me into the living room and told me to sit there with my hands covering my eyes until he gave the order.

I sat there for what seemed like a long time and didn’t look until he said okay.

When I did look, he was standing right in front of me wearing Mrs. Parrish’s uniform (Mrs. Parrish is a lit-tle chunky), even including her white cap and apron, and carrying a silver serving tray bearing a soup tureen, soup bowls, and wine glasses.

I had to admit it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. The sound of my own laughter startled me.

It was the first time I had laughed in a long, long time.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1938

Susie took me to the Automat.

It’s called an Automat because almost everything is automatic.

She gave me a dollar, and I went to the counter where the change lady takes it and gives you twenty nickels faster than you can imagine.

The Automat is prettier than the coffeehouses in Vienna. It’s so light and airy, and the shiny marble walls are dotted with rows of glass windows. The glass windows are really little doors and behind each one is something good to eat: sandwiches, chicken potpies, desserts of all kinds.

When you put your nickel in the slot, the window opens and you take what’s there. It’s so much fun.

My favorite, though, is getting Susie’s coffee. (She won’t let me have my own, not even a little with my milk. I told her I had coffee all the time in Vienna, but Susie said, “Coffee is no good for little girls.” I tried to explain to her that I am twelve and a half, far too old to be considered a little girl, but it didn’t do me any good.) When you pull the lever, the coffee comes gushing

out of a dolphin-head spout and fills the cup in an instant right to the top without spilling a drop.

Some people who go to the Automat are poor. Susie says they go there because they can get something to eat for nothing, although I don’t see how what they eat can be very nourishing.

I watched this one lady who looked to be terribly ill and terribly dirty pour ketchup into a bowl of hot wa-ter, stir it up, and drink it like it was the most delicious tomato soup in the whole world.

The man she was with had taken a whole bowl of lemon wedges that they have where you get your tea and coffee. He was patiently squeezing each one into a glass, making sure he got every last drop, then he added lots of sugar, some water, and had himself a lemonade.

I saw one man put his nickel into the slot and take out a sandwich. But instead of closing the little door, he took a piece of chewing gum from his mouth and put it where the window was supposed to close, so that it stayed open.

Then he sat down, waited for the empty window to be filled, and got another sandwich.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1938‌

I visited Mr. Allen again today. He wanted to know if I had an answer to his question yet, but I didn’t, which didn’t seem to surprise him.

He asked me if I had noticed the difference between the people who lived on the odd-numbered floors and those who lived on the even-numbered floors.

I admitted that I hadn’t, and he said that was all right because I had only been here a short while.

The people on the even-numbered floors were intel-ligent, courteous, sophisticated, and friendly, while those on the odd-numbered floors were petty, narrow-minded, and “as boring as all get-out.”

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1938

Uncle Martin asked me today if I had heard about the dull seaside town. It was so dull that one day the tide went out and never came back.

I heard another good American expression while listening to the radio with him tonight: “making whoopee.”

He said I should come with him on Sundays when he

goes to the park to take photographs. He said Sunday mornings are the best. That’s when everyone’s still sleeping, the city is quiet, and you can have it all to yourself. Sunday is the hardest day of the week for me, be-

cause it makes me think of Daddy, so I said yes.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1938

One of Uncle Martin’s cameras has a fake lens. It looks just like a regular camera, but it isn’t. He made it himself.

The regular lens, the one in front, is a decoy so no one will suspect what he is really up to.

The real lens is on the side, and unless you were looking for it, you would never notice it.

We went to Central Park for what Uncle Martin calls some “chance portraits.” He calls them that because he sits on a park bench and waits to see who will, by chance, come sit near him.

He likes to catch people when they’re not hiding what they’re thinking. “People without masks,” he calls them.

It’s eerie — you can almost read their minds because they are unaware that he is taking their picture.

Uncle Martin set up his tripod and camera, and we sat there feeding peanuts to the pigeons and waiting. After a while a couple with their arms around each other sat down right near us. They looked like they were very much in love and were cherishing every

minute they could spend together.

Uncle Martin winked, meaning he was ready. I did just as he instructed: I got up, fixed my hair, stood about ten feet in front of him, and smiled the biggest smile I could manage.

Uncle Martin had his head under the hood and appeared to be focusing on me when really he was looking right at the couple in the side lens. They never suspected a thing.

It was a good day. Uncle Martin took about twenty photographs, and he thinks one or two might turn out okay, but we’ll have to see when he gets in the darkroom. Uncle Martin spends hours in his darkroom.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1938‌

Mr. Allen was waiting downstairs in the lobby this morning for his fried-egg sandwich to be delivered. That’s what he has for breakfast every morning.

He was in such a good mood, I just had to ask him why. He said he was very close to a solution to his “dilemma.” By “dilemma,” I think he means the ending to his story. I asked him what the solution was, but he said he wasn’t prepared to speak about it just yet.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1938

Uncle Martin never misses his favorite radio shows: Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, and especially his most favorite, Fred Allen.

He suggested that I listen to the radio with him because it might help with my vocabulary.

Frankly I think some of the comedians could use help with their own vocabularies.

I must admit he’s right. I heard another good American word on the radio: “hog.” It means to take everything for yourself and not leave any for anyone else.

I’m adding it to my list. So far I have:

Cooped-up

Tending to my business Hiya, Toots

Swell Baloney

Making whoopee

And now, hog. Pretty good, I think.

I wish Sophy were here — then we could have fun making a list of all these good American words. I could write to her, but I don’t know where she is and she doesn’t know where I am. Uncle Martin is try-ing his best, I know, but so far we haven’t heard from anyone.