One Eye Laughing, the Other Weeping (16 page)

I’m glad Sophy is not in Vienna. Uncle Martin said she will be safe in England.

He showed me some of the photographs he devel-oped in the darkroom. The one of the couple didn’t come out very well, much to my surprise. But the one of the old lady who sat near us after they left was wonderful.

In Uncle Martin’s photographs, people always come

out looking elegant and dignified, no matter what they’re really like.

The old lady was poor, and her fingernails were dirty and bitten down. She was wearing a soiled rain-coat, and boots that were falling apart. But in Uncle Martin’s photograph, she looks like an empress.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1938

There are stories in the newspaper about Hitler and Czechoslovakia. What will happen now? they ask. Uncle Martin hides the newspapers from me because he doesn’t want me to worry, but I know where he puts them.

The newspapers say the same thing will happen in Czechoslovakia that happened in Vienna. They will talk. They will convince themselves that Hitler is not so terrible. And then there will be no Czechoslovakia, just like there is no Austria.

Everyone will stick their head in the sand, hoping Hitler will go away and leave them alone, just as Max said.

No one cares about anyone else as long as they are safe.

If Hitler came to America and marched down Fifth Avenue, the people on Central Park West wouldn’t care as long as they were left alone.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1938

We took the double-decker bus all the way down Fifth Avenue to the Empire State Building.

I had my ten cents ready because the bus drivers don’t like it if you hold up the line because it makes the buses late. Since all they’re doing is going up and down Fifth Avenue all day, I don’t see what the hurry is.

I sat on the top, but it was too cold for Susie.

Susie was walking very, very fast from the bus stop to the Empire State Building. She insisted we hold hands because there were so many people and she didn’t want us to get separated. But she was pulling me so hard, my feet almost left the ground. When we got to the lobby I asked her why she was walking so fast. She said that sometimes, over the past few years, people in despair had thrown themselves off the top of the building and she didn’t want to get hit!

We ate in a restaurant that’s on the 86th floor. Then we went all the way up to the observation deck on the

102nd floor. We were so high up, we could see white clouds floating below us. You can see the cars whiz-zing around down there, but you can barely make out the people — they look like little bugs. And there is no sound — it’s completely silent.

On the way home, I made Susie take me on the sub-way. Susie
hates
the subway. She said if I had to take the subway all the time like she does, I would hate it, too. But I don’t and I don’t.

The only thing I don’t like is the itchy yellow straw seats, but I don’t sit.

I stand and look out the window of the first car. It’s right next to the tiny compartment where the man who drives the train sits, although you can’t see in there. Sometimes I wonder what he looks like, and sometimes I even wonder if there’s really anyone in there.

It’s thrilling to look out as the train hurtles through the dark tunnel, the lights flashing red, green, orange, the wheels screaming on the curved steel tracks, the trains shaking from the speed.

I especially like the express train, which gets going really, really, fast because it doesn’t have to stop at most of the stations. When it goes past, everyone

standing on the platform is turned into one long blur.

It’s more complicated riding the subways than the buses. There are so many different trains going to so many different places.

On the way home the front car was pretty deserted. A couple of men were napping and a lady was reading the newspaper, and there was plenty of room.

But when we got to Forty-second Street, it was a lit-tle after five o’clock and people going home from work flooded into the car and onto the train. Within seconds we were all crowded right up against each other. It got worse at every stop, and we were lucky to get out at our station.

When we got back, we went to Susie’s room to get some candy.

“It’s time you knew,” she said, and somehow I knew she was going to tell me about Eva.

She lowered her head and spoke in a voice that said, “Don’t say anything until I’m done.” A voice I had never heard Susie use before.

Eva had a boyfriend whom Aunt Clara and Uncle Martin didn’t like for many reasons, one being that he was too old: twenty-six, nine years older than Eva.

Eva promised she would stop seeing him, but Susie could tell that she didn’t.

Then, one day, Eva confided to Susie that she was going to have a baby. Susie didn’t know what to do but she knew she had to tell Aunt Clara.

Aunt Clara and Uncle Martin were shocked and saddened, and to complicate matters even further, Eva intended to have the baby even though the baby’s father had disappeared.

They decided that the best thing to do was send her to Nantucket, to the hotel they went to every summer. She could rest there and have her baby in privacy. Susie went with her.

Then there were “complications.” Susie started to cry when she said the word “complications.” It took some time before she was able to go on.

Eva died giving birth to a premature baby who lived only five days.

Susie said no one had wanted to tell me about this when I first arrived because I had enough “sorrow on my mind.”

We both sat there quietly until we heard Uncle Mar-tin rummaging around in the kitchen, looking for something to eat.

I left Susie in her room after a while and went out to join Uncle Martin in the kitchen, acting as if everything was the same.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1938

Uncle Martin said that after a while, Aunt Clara be-gins to act just like the character she is playing and not at all like her real self.

Sometimes it gets so bad, he has to read the script so he can learn who he’s going to be married to while the play is running.

He bought me some bubble gum because I told him I wanted to learn how to blow bubbles like the girls I saw in Central Park.

I went right to my room. At first I wasn’t doing very well, and I felt sure I must look foolish, so I went to the bathroom to see.

I didn’t look nearly as awful as I feared, and I thought it might be a good idea to practice right there in front of the mirror.

It helped, and before long I was actually making bubbles. I wanted to see just how big a bubble I could make, but I went too close to the mirror and the bubble burst all

over it and I had the most difficult time getting it off. I think there’s still some on it.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1938

Susie and I went to the movies today. It was cold and rainy, and we didn’t want to stay inside all day.

She gave me twenty cents: fifteen cents so I could pay for my own ticket and a nickel for my popcorn.

Before the picture came on there was a newsreel showing Nazi soldiers marching and Hitler giving one of his speeches. I started to shake and had to leave.

Susie apologized all the way home, saying she didn’t realize they would show newsreels, but it wasn’t her fault.

I had another awful dream about Daddy. It was like the one I always have, only worse.

Daddy was at the foot of the bed, like before. He looked like he was standing closer to me — so close, I was tempted to touch him. Daddy wanted to speak to me, I could see, but I knew he wouldn’t, and this time I didn’t even hope.

But that wasn’t all that was different. Mother wasn’t

there, and a big yellow Jewish star was pinned to Daddy’s coat. A yellow star just like the ones I saw people wearing in the newsreels.
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He could see that I was staring at the star and he tried to tear it off, but it wouldn’t come off and he started crying and the dream ended and I was awake and terrified.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1938

Last night we had dinner at the Rainbow Room, which is at the top of one of the really tall skyscrapers (that’s what they’re called because the tops scrape the sky). There was a big window, and you could look out over the whole city. It was pretty scary, and I got dizzy.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1938

Uncle Martin wanted to show me where he gets “proper” cheesecake. There’s only one pastry shop that has it, but fortunately it wasn’t too far away and so we walked there. Uncle Martin likes to walk, and so do I. I’ve never seen a cheesecake that big. It covered the entire top of the glass counter. It had a shiny crisscross

top, and was dotted with yellow raisins, just as Uncle Martin described.

Uncle Martin is also very specific about the exact

piece
of the cheesecake he wants.

He directed one of the bakery ladies (she knew Uncle Martin, because when he came in, she said to the other lady, “Here he comes again”) to cut his piece from the middle, not the corner. Uncle Martin doesn’t like to get it from the corner because then there’s too much crust. “I’m interested in cheesecake, not crust,” he said. “If I wanted crust, I would get apple pie.”

The lady cut his piece, took some flattened card-board from a pile, folded and tucked it until it became a cake box, and lined it with tissue paper she snatched from a nearby dispenser. Then she gently lifted up the piece of cheesecake and placed it in the box like she was putting a sleeping baby in her crib.

I told Uncle Martin he takes more time choosing a piece of cheesecake than he does choosing the subject for his photographs, and he looked at me sternly and said, “Is there something wrong with that?”

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1938‌

The girl playing Wendy has quit. Her mother said that Mr. Robie has been too hard on her and she can no longer tolerate it.

They have to find someone to replace her right away, and Aunt Clara said she wants me to audition for the part,
tomorrow.

I assumed she was joking, but she wasn’t.

She said that I already know most of the lines (which isn’t really true at all), and with my natural tal-ent, she was sure I would get the part. I’m not even sure I
want
the part, but Aunt Clara was sure enough for both of us.

It’s already three o’clock in the morning and I’ve been up all night going over Wendy’s lines. The audition is at ten.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1938

Just before I went out onto the stage, Aunt Clara pinched my cheeks so hard, I started to tear. She said it would put some color back in my face. I was a little nervous, and I imagine quite pale.

She reminded me to bite my lips really hard just before I began to speak, so they too looked rosy.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1938

I got the part!

I’m going to play Wendy Darling, and Aunt Clara is going to play my mother!

The play is opening this Saturday night.

Aunt Clara does not want me to sit with the script for hours memorizing my lines. She thinks that’s a big mistake. She wants me to read it through without even thinking about my lines. Just picture the play and imagine what it would be like to be Wendy.

Who is she? What is she like?

How does she think? What does she feel?

I must learn to
be
Wendy. She says “be” with great emphasis. The only way the part can be played properly is if I feel inside what Wendy is like.