Saturday Dec 14

[no entry today]

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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.