Note by the author-
The following was found by one of the building crew at that new Engineering building that’s going up where the parking lot was being built. It was pretty deep and the guy who found it saw Harry’s name on it and, given that Harry is my room-mate, kindly gifted it to us. We promptly forgot about it but now that he’s disappeared, I thought that I’d open it, examine it, and share it with the world. The following was found in a sealed wooden box with a really putrid sounding plastic kazoo (You’d have to have walked in on him with Jane Baila to get the joke) and a meticulously written piece of parchment. It’s more flowy than usual sure, but I can guarantee you that Harry wrote it. Rather than explain who Harry was, I’ll let him explain it in his own words.
The following as transcribed Oct 1st 2015 by the author.
It’s been months. The trees here are huge, with thick trunks just as it must have been years ago when the First Nations appeared and seeing the great leaves fall is like seeing things back home in the fall in Moorestown. I’d walk down Chester to Main streets and all around here I’d be surrounded by leaves, red and yellow, refusing to fall in the heat. Though here, as you can imagine, the trees fall on time and Belle, arm at my side, can hardly imagine that I once lived in a place where it was of danger of being ever too hot.
It was a year of my life ago that I first heard of the Diana club. Few heard of it at Rowan because,, it was only a line on the internet search page. But they had functions and of course me and my roommate would go because it was starting to come close to harrowing season of witches, ghosts, and in general foreign creatures to our plane. I remember him (please forgive me if you’re reading this Rob) at first aghast at the appearance of it. It was a ball and with the decrepit building it was in you would never have believed that there was a golden (and not painted at the least) ballroom chandelier and before the glossed dance floor were fifteen young women. Remembering my thoughts they looked as if out of a Jane Austen novel, with puffy sleeves, hefty and layered cloth dresses and hair done up with braids and intricate buns. It was a situation as men in polos and t-shirts would take the ladies by the waist (as they instructed) while a blonde hair beauty played the piano in a classical waltz. That was Belle and I have to say, my appraisal of her has not changed even as I’ve realized that thanks to her I can never go home.
It was a magical night. Rob, glasses and all, was bashful as Mary our neighbor gave him a peck on the cheek and invited him “behind” as they said it then, before they lowered the curtain. But Rob, always the procrastinator, remembered then that he had some sort of paper due. Mary unfortunately is still looking, a maid knitting booties for children she’s yet to have. That would’ve been Belle if then and there when the music ended at the end of the night I had not noticed a familiarity about her. In fact I had her in a class then and I was quick to greet her then.
“Belle!”
“Harry!” And then, the anything but quiet Belle, on that night, gave the most magnificent smile and invited me behind. She showed me the object and then I left. Disturbed.
There were more meetings of the Diana club since then. I remember that there were always somehow an equal number of men for each of the girls even though no one received personal invitations, and that none of the girls ever gave anyone they were partnered with dirty looks. I became familiar with each of the women then and recognized two from class in plain skirts and high necklines, but in the Diana club they were “fully dressed” as they put it and although quiet in the halls, in the ballroom on the couches they were nothing if not chatty.
I remember that many had odd views. A girl down the street, Clara, once voiced in a biology class, a profound dislike for Darwin’s theories,
“The man is a heathen. You dare say I am even distantly related to a frog!” I believe she said. Belle herself always covered her ears in Rowan hall, complaining of “That damned drum!” and whenever I entered her dorm there was an excruciatingly loud Mozart concerto, as if to drown out the rock and roll from her memory. Another girl refused to open the door during the parties late at night so as to “invite in fiendish beggars dressed by the Devil.”
I learned then that each was a “foreigner,” as Belle explained to me,
“We come from far, far away.”
“What country?” I might’ve asked then to the response of,
“Oh, not very far away. In fact very close. But you’ll understand more later on. You were telling me that you’re favorite author was Victor Hugo?” And the times continued like that, until the foreigners had to leave. As an experiment I tried, if only once, not to attend the Diana club. I wept that entire day, if not for the object, maybe for the love of my life, now my wife.
Once the foreigners complete their education, armed with knowledge, they each go home and I with them. Most who go with the foreigners of course have their deaths faked…gunshots…overdoses…but I chose simply to disappear since as you know Rob, I’ve always been overdramatic. Belle is expecting her first child. It would be fitting if you would meet her, all grown, in the Diana club, Robert. As per the rules, only women seeking to learn can use the object but I, my learning is done even though I never finished my degree…how ironic that it was English! All the books that I ever read, the classics, all here in my library fresh and new.
I put down my pen now and hope, perhaps on some slight chance, I’ll see you Robert, or any other who is reading this letter.
With Grace,
Harold Sinclair,
October Eighth of the year Eighteen Hundred and Seventy Six
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Note from the author- I had it dated. Harry, I’ll miss you.
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