Up in the Old Hotel (Vintage Classics)

by Joseph Mitchell

  (1940)

  Evening with a Gifted Child

  PHILIPPA DUKE SCHUYLER is probably the best example in New York City of what psychologists call a gifted child. She is nine years old. Her mental age, according to the Clinic for Gifted Children at New York University, which tests her periodically, is sixteen. She has an I.Q. of 185. Phillipa reads Plutarch on train trips, eats steaks raw, writes poems in honor of her dolls, plays poker, and is the composer of more than sixty pieces for the piano. Most of these compositions are descriptive, with such titles as ‘Spanish Harlem,’ ‘Men at Work,’ ‘The Cockroach Ballet,’ and ‘At the Circus.’ She began composing before she was four, and has been playing the piano in public, often for money, since she was six. She has an agreement with the National Broadcasting Company by which she plays new compositions for the first time in public on a Sunday-morning broadcast called ‘Coast to Coast on a Bus,’ and she frequently plays on other radio and television programs. A Schuyler album, ‘Five Little Pieces,’ has been published. She has gone on tour several times, playing compositions by Bach, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Debussy, Schumann, and herself in Grand Rapids, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Columbus, Youngstown, Atlantic City, Trenton, and other cities. On one tour she averaged $175 an engagement, plus all expenses. Philippa is often called a genius by admiring strangers, and her parents find this displeasing. To them, her development is explained not by genius but by diet. They believe that humans should live on uncooked meats, fruits, vegetables, and nuts, and are convinced that the food Philippa has eaten most of her life is largely responsible for her precocity. She particularly likes raw green peas, raw corn on the cob, raw yams, and raw sirloin steaks.

  Philippa’s father, George S. Schuyler, whom she calls by his first name, is a Negro essayist and novelist, the son of a diningcar chef on the New York Central. He writes an influential column on national and world affairs for the Pittsburgh Courier, a weekly Negro newspaper, and is business manager of the Crisis, which is the official organ of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He wrote often for the American Mercury when H. L. Mencken edited it. Mr Schuyler’s skin is jet black. He comes from one of the oldest Negro families in New York; long before the Revolutionary War, ancestors of his in Albany began using Schuyler as a surname. Since then, Negro Schuylers have occasionally also used the Christian names of distinguished white Schuylers. Philippa is named for Philip John Schuyler, the Revolutionary general. Philippa’s mother, Mrs Josephine Schuyler, is white. She is, in fact, a golden-haired blonde. She is a member of a pioneer west Texas ranching and banking family, and speaks with a Southern accent. When she was in her teens, she ran away from home and went to California; since then she has considered herself ‘a rebel.’ Before she and Mr Schuyler were married in 1928, she had been, successively, a Mack Sennett bathing beauty, a ballet dancer in a San Francisco opera company, a painter, a poet, and a writer for the Negro press. She met Mr Schuyler in New York when she visited the office of a magazine of which he was an editor and to which she had contributed poems and articles. This magazine was the Messenger, the official organ of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Mrs Schuyler acquired her dietary convictions in California years ago; her husband is a more recent convert and is not quite as dead set. Mrs Schuyler feels that both alcohol and tobacco are utterly unnecessary; her husband, however, drinks beer and smokes cigars. Mrs Schuyler still writes occasionally for Negro newspapers under various names, but devotes most of her time to painting and Philippa. On tour, she serves as Philippa’s manager. Philippa calls her Jody. The Schuylers live in a large apartment house on Convent Avenue. This house, which is tenanted by both white and Negro families, is on a hill overlooking the western fringe of Harlem, and is several blocks from the Convent of the Sacred Heart, where Philippa is in Grade 6A.

  The Schuylers recently invited me to come and hear Philippa play. I went up one evening around eight o’clock. Mrs Schuyler met me at the door and said that Philippa was in her own room transcribing a composition called ‘Caprice No. 2,’ which she had finished just before dinner. We went into the living room, where Mr Schuyler, in shirtsleeves, was hunched over a desk. At his elbow was a stack of clippings about Philippa from newspapers in the cities in which she had played. He was pasting these in a large scrapbook. ‘We have nine scrapbooks full of stuff about Philippa, one for each year,’ he said. ‘She’s never seen them. In fact, so far as we know, she’s never seen a clipping about herself. We’re afraid it might make her self-conscious. When she gets to be a young woman, we’ll bring out all her scrapbooks and say, “Here are some things you might find interesting.”’

  There were paintings, chiefly nudes, on two walls of the living room. I noticed Mrs Schuyler’s signature in the corner of one. Bookcases lined another wall, and arranged on their top shelves were a number of pieces of African sculpture. Mrs Schuyler pointed to one, a female fetish. ‘George brought that back from Africa in 1931,’ she said. ‘He was down there getting material for a book. Most of these things, however, belong to Philippa. They were sent to her by people in Liberia, Nigeria, and the Ivory Coast who heard her play on the radio. They listen in on short-wave. They write to her, and she answers their letters. They know that part of her background is African, and are proud of her. Their presents to Philippa are brought here by Africans who work on ships plying between New York and various West African ports. She has a slew of medals and prizes she won in tournaments held by the New York Philharmonic, the National Guild of Piano Teachers, and similar organizations, and she keeps them in a fancy inlaid chest that was sent to her by a craftsman in Africa. Philippa is extremely proud of her Negro blood.’

  Mr Schuyler looked up from the scrapbook. ‘She has radio fans all over the world, not only in Africa,’ he said. ‘On her last birthday she received six sable skins and a black pearl from Alaska, a scarf from Portugal, and a doll from the Virgin Islands. However, most of her presents did come from Africa.’

  While we were looking at an ebony elephant, Philippa came into the room. Mr Schuyler unobtrusively closed the scrapbook and put it in a drawer of the desk. Then he introduced me to Philippa. She shook hands, not awkwardly, as most children do, but with assurance. She is slender, erect, and exquisitely boned. Her face is oval, and she has serious black eyes, black curls, and perfect teeth. Her skin is light brown. She is a beautiful child.

  ‘Did you get through with the piece?’ her mother asked her.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Philippa said. ‘Half an hour ago. Look, Jody, do you remember that silly little riddle book I bought at the newsstand in the station at Cincinnati and never got a chance to look at?’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘Well, I’ve just been looking through it, and some of the riddles are funny. May I ask one, please?’

  Mrs Schuyler nodded, and Philippa asked, ‘What has four wheels and flies?’

  We were silent a minute, and then Philippa said impatiently, ‘Give up, please, so I can tell you.’

  ‘We give up,’ Mrs Schuyler said.

  ‘A garbage wagon,’ Philippa said.

  Mr Schuyler groaned, and Philippa looked at him and burst out laughing.

  ‘Was it that bad, George?’ she asked. ‘Wait until you hear some of the others.’

  ‘Not now, Philippa,’ Mrs Schuyler said, rather hastily. ‘Instead, maybe you’d like to play for us in your room.’

  ‘I’d like to very much,’ Philippa said.

  Mr Schuyler said that he would stay in the living room and listen. Mrs Schuyler and I followed Philippa down the hall. A large red balloon was tethered by a string to the doorknob of Philippa’s room. ‘I like balloons,’ she said, spanking it into the air with the heel of her hand. ‘They remind me of the circus.’

  The Schuylers have a four-room apartment. I noticed that Philippa’s room was the largest. In it there was a grand piano, a bed, an adult-size dressing table, two small chairs, and a cabinet. Mrs Schuyler opened the doors of the cabinet. ‘Philippa keeps her music a
nd dolls in here,’ she said. ‘She made this doll house. She knitted the little rug herself and sewed dresses for the dolls. She sews very well. She made me an apron the other day.’ On top of Philippa’s piano there was a Modern Library giant edition of Plutarch, a peach kernel, a mystery novel called ‘The Corpse with the Floating Foot,’ a copy of the New York Post opened to the comic-strip page, a teacup half full of raw green peas, a train made of adhesive-tape spools and cardboard, a Stravinsky sonata, a pack of playing cards, a photograph of Lily Pons clipped from a magazine, and an uninflated balloon. I was standing beside the piano, examining this rather surrealistic group of objects, when Mrs Schuyler suddenly snapped her fingers and said, ‘I forgot the peaches!’ She started out of the room, then paused at the door and said, ‘It’s a kind of ice cream I make. We’re going to have some later on, and I forgot to put the peaches in the icebox. I’ll leave you two alone for a few minutes. Philippa, don’t start playing until I get back.’ I took one of the chairs and Philippa sat on the piano bench. Left alone with her, I felt ill at ease. I didn’t know how to go about making small talk with a gifted child.

  ‘Do you mind if I smoke in here?’ I asked her.

  ‘Of course not,’ Philippa said. ‘I’ll go get you an ashtray.’

  When she returned, I asked her if she had been reading the Plutarch on the piano.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve read most of it. I got it to read on trains.’

  ‘Don’t you find it rather dry?’

  ‘Not at all. I like biography. I particularly like the sections called the comparisons. Best of all I liked Theseus and Romulus, and Solon and Poplicola. Plutarch is anything but dry. I’m very interested in the Romans. I want to get “The Decline and Fall” next. It’s in the Modern Library, too.’

  ‘What are some other books you like?’

  Philippa laughed. ‘Lately I’ve been reading a Sherlock Holmes omnibus and some mystery books by Ellery Queen.’

  ‘What book do you like best of all?’

  ‘Oh, that’s almost impossible to answer. You can’t just pick out one book and say you like it better than all others. I bet you can’t.’

  ‘I certainly can,’ I said. I was not bothered any longer by the difference in our ages, and had completely got over feeling ill at ease.

  ‘What book?’

  ‘Mark Twain’s “Life on the Mississippi,”’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I like Mark Twain,’ Philippa said, clapping her hands excitedly. ‘I like him very much. What other writers do you like?’

  ‘The ones I like best,’ I said, ‘are Mark Twain, Dostoevski, and James Joyce.’

  Philippa deliberated for a few moments.

  ‘I guess you’re right,’ she said. ‘I can say that there’s one book I like best of all. That’s the “Arabian Nights.” George has an eight-volume set. It’s an unexpurgated edition. I read it first when I was three, and at least four times since. I based my longest composition on it. I called it “Arabian Nights Suite.” Oh, the stories in that book are absolutely wonderful!’ She laughed. ‘Goodness!’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to get so’ – she paused and appeared to be searching for a word – ‘impassioned.’

  Mrs Schuyler returned, and sat down.

  ‘Look,’ Philippa said to me, ‘do you like funnies?’

  ‘You mean comic strips?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Funnies.’

  ‘Of course I do,’ I said. ‘The best comic strip is “Moon Mullins” in the News.’

  ‘Oh, no, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘The best funny is “Dixie Dugan” in the Post, and the next best is the full-page “Katzenjammer Kids” in the Sunday Journal. The Post has the best funnies. I like “Dixie Dugan,” “Superman,” “Tarzan,” “Abbie an’ Slats,” and “The Mountain Boys,” and they’re all in the Post. You know, I’m almost ready to write a composition about the funnies. I’m going to call it “The Katzenjammer Kids.” I read a lot of mystery stories, and I’ve already written a composition called “Mystery Story.”’

  ‘Philippa tries to describe places and experiences in her music,’ Mrs Schuyler said. ‘We used to live in Spanish Harlem, and she put some of the things she saw and heard in that neighborhood into a composition. She wrote “Men at Work” while the WPA was digging a sewer in front of our apartment house. She likes the playground at Sacred Heart very much, and she described it in a piece called “In a Convent Garden.” Once she had a canary, and it died. For its funeral she wrote a sad little piece called “Death of the Nightingale.” Philippa, you’re getting fidgety. Are you ready to play for us?’

  ‘Yes, Jody,’ Philippa said, getting to her feet. She turned to me, curtsied, and said, ‘Think about cockroaches while I’m playing this piece. It’s “The Cockroach Ballet.” This is the story: Some cockroaches are feasting on a kitchen floor. A human comes in and kills some of them. He thinks he has killed them all. But after he leaves, one little cockroach peeps out, then another, and another. They dance a sad little dance for their dead comrades. But they aren’t very sad because they know that cockroaches will go on forever and ever. Unfortunately.’

  Mrs Schuyler laughed. ‘Philippa took that piece to Mother Stevens at Sacred Heart the afternoon she wrote it,’ she said. ‘Mother Stevens is head of the music department. She asked Philippa why she didn’t write about angels instead of cockroaches. “But dear Mother,” Philippa said, “I’ve never seen an angel, but I’ve seen many cockroaches.”’

  Philippa sat down at the piano, and began playing. I thought it was a nice piece.

  Next she played a composition called ‘Impressions of the World’s Fair, 1939.’ In it the sound of the tractor-train horn – that wornout phrase from ‘The Sidewalks of New York’ – was recurrent. Then she played ‘Men at Work.’ When she finished it she asked me to enumerate the noises I had recognized. I told her I thought I had recognized an air drill, the sound of trowels knocking the tar off paving blocks, and the sound of a chisel being hammered into rock. ‘You’re very good,’ Philippa said, and I felt pleased. ‘Here’s one called “The Jolly Pig,”’ she said. In the middle of it she turned to me and asked, ‘Hear him laughing?’ I didn’t, but I said I did. After that came the ‘Caprice’ she had finished that day. Then she played some pieces by other composers. They included Rimsky-Korsakoff’s ‘Flight of the Bumble Bee’ and Johann Sebastian Bach’s ‘Two Part Invention No. 1.’ After she had played for at least an hour without any sign of weariness, she said, ‘I’ll play just one more, one I composed a long time ago, when I was four years old. It’s “The Goldfish.” A little goldfish thinks the sky is water. He tries to jump into it, only to fall upon the floor and die.’

  ‘I’ll go get the ice cream,’ Mrs Schuyler said as Philippa began ‘The Goldfish.’ Just as Philippa finished playing, Mrs Schuyler returned, bringing a tray with four saucers. She called Mr Schuyler and he came in and sat down on the bed.

  ‘I liked your new piece, Philippa,’ he said. Philippa smiled proudly.

  ‘Thanks, George,’ she said. ‘I’m going to do a little more work on it tomorrow.’

  ‘It isn’t really ice cream, and you might not like it,’ Mrs Schuyler said to me as she distributed the saucers. ‘It’s just fresh peaches and cream sweetened with honey and chilled. In this house we use almost no sugar. In her entire life, Philippa has never eaten a piece of candy. Her taste hasn’t been perverted by sweets. Instead, she has a passion for lemons. She eats them the way most people eat oranges, pulp and all. Don’t you, Philippa?’

  ‘Yes, Jody,’ Philippa said. She was eating with gusto.

  ‘We seldom have cooked food of any kind,’ Mrs Schuyler continued. ‘Once in a while I broil a steak very lightly, but usually we eat meat raw. We also eat raw fish that has been soaked in lemon juice. When we’re travelling, Philippa and I amaze waiters. You have to argue with most waiters before they’ll bring you raw meat. Then they stare at you while you eat. I guess it is rather unusual to see a little girl eating a raw steak. Philippa
drinks a lot of milk, and she gets quite a large daily ration of cod-liver oil. About the only cooked thing she really likes is a hardboiled egg. She mashes the yolk and squeezes a lemon over it. When she goes to the movies she sometimes takes along an ear of corn. That’s better than peanuts. She always fills her pockets with green peas before she goes to school. The other children at Sacred Heart used to stare at her, but now they think nothing of it.’

  ‘Jody makes me big birthday cakes,’ Philippa said. ‘They’re made of ground-up cashew nuts. Once I had one that weighed twenty pounds. It was shaped like a white piano. This year it was shaped like the map of South America. The different countries were colored with berry and vegetable juices. It was a swell cake.’

  ‘We eat all kinds of nuts, just so they’re raw,’ Mrs Schuyler said. ‘Each year my father sends me all the pecans off one big tree on his ranch in Texas. Some people think we’re peculiar, but the best proof that our diet theory is sensible is Philippa’s health. She’s extremely healthy, mentally and physically. Her teeth, for example, are absolutely perfect. She’s never had even a tiny cavity.’

  Mr Schuyler looked at his watch. ‘It’s nine-thirty, Philippa,’ he said.

  ‘May I ask another riddle before I go to bed?’

  ‘Just one,’ her father said.

  ‘All right. What’s smaller than a flea’s mouth?’

  ‘Oh, I know that one,’ Mrs Schuyler said.

  ‘So do I,’ said Mr Schuyler.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Philippa said. ‘Wait until tomorrow. I’ll ask you some you couldn’t guess in fifteen years.’

  We said good night to Philippa. Mrs Schuyler went into the kitchen and Mr Schuyler and I went into the living room. I asked him how many hours a day Philippa studies. He said that during school months she gets up at seven-thirty, has a bath and breakfast, and starts practicing on the piano at eight. She practices for two hours. Then for half an hour she plays anything she likes. At ten-thirty her music supervisor arrives. The supervisor, a young piano teacher named Pauline Apanowitz, is with her an hour and a half. Shortly before one, Philippa walks to Sacred Heart, eating green peas on the way. She spends two afternoon hours a day at the convent, attending history, geography, and English classes. She misses arithmetic, spelling, and reading, which are morning classes. However, her examination grades for these subjects are always good. ‘There wouldn’t be much point in Philippa going to a spelling class,’ Mr Schuyler said. ‘When she was twenty-nine months old she could spell five hundred and fifty words. She has an enormous vocabulary. She likes jawbreakers. At four, she discovered the scientific word for silicosis, which is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoniosis, and she spelled it morning and night. It fascinated her. We certainly got tired of that word.’ Once a week, Mr Schuyler said, she goes to Antonia Brico’s studio for lessons in score-reading and conducting; William Harms, an assistant of Josef Hofmann, also gives her a weekly piano lesson. Most afternoons she spends an hour in the convent playground; rope-skipping is her favorite exercise. ‘Philippa isn’t a Catholic, and we have no religious affiliations,’ Mr Schuyler told me. ‘My parents were Catholics, however, and Philippa will become one if she so desires. Most of the other children at the convent are Irish Catholics. She gets along with them wonderfully.’