Shhh
Page 8
Well, enough of that. But I believe that is the real reason why I have never forgotten the name Robert Laurent. And why I ...
As I was finishing writing the scene about the spoon the phone rang. My daughter from New York long distance, or wherever she is right now. She’s always on the move.
She asks what I am doing.
Writing, I tell her. I just finished a new scene for the novel Shhh. You want me to read it to you?
I often read what I’m writing to Simone when she calls. This way I get feedback. She’s tough. She knows how to tell me when I go overboard, as she’s fond of saying. That doesn’t mean she’s always right, but I listen to her.
Is it funny? she asks.
Not really. Well, you’ll see.
So I read her the scene about the spoon.
Pop, you’re not going to stick that in the novel. It’s not true. I never heard this story before. You’ve invented the whole thing to be more dramatic. To have people feel sorry for you. You fabricated that spoon story. Besides it’s not plausible. Especially since you say all the time that your parents were very poor. How come then your mother had all that silver?
It was a wedding present from her sisters.
I don’t believe that. When your mother got married her sisters must have been just as poor as she was. They couldn’t afford to buy her such an expensive gift. Maybe later they got rich. And besides those aunts of yours all seem rather stingy.
Pop, the whole scene is too melodramatic. Doesn’t sound real. Especially the chance encounter with Bébert in a café. It’s not believable. I doubt you would have recognized each other. And even if you did, I doubt he would have invited you for dinner. If I were you I would take that scene out of the book immediately. The fact that you remember the name of the guy, that’s good enough. No need to explain why you remember it. Explanations always falsify the truth.
She’s something, my daughter Simone, the theater director, especially when she gets carried away like that. She’s always right, even when she’s wrong.
I should have told her that readers of fiction like to be told sad stories, as long as they appear to be true. I mean convincing, and the chronology is faithful to the principle of non-contradiction. It is well known that testimonies cause indignation and make those who listen feel good. What I wrote in that scene is a kind of testimony of what happened at that time, not only to us, but to many Jews who were deported. Their things, their possessions were stolen. Especially the silver and the works of art.
That’s what I wanted to explain to Simone after her ranting about what I had written. But she hung up too soon. She had to rush somewhere.
Anyway, I’ll tell how Bébert and I became members of L’Amicale de Natation.
Before the day when Bébert told me he couldn’t play with me any more, we were good buddies. It’s with him that I smoked my first cigarette. Sometimes Bébert and I stole cigarettes from our father’s packs. We did all kinds of things like that, Bébert and me. We would steal candies from the candy store, but I’m not going to tell how we did it because all children steal candy from candy stores too. But I’ll have to tell later how I stole a ring from a department store and how I got caught.
I’ll have to tell that. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it in the list of scenes to relate. But I’ll make a note to myself now not to forget.
I’ll go on with Bébert and la natation.
One day Bébert tells me that he had gone to a swimming pool for the first time. We were still very young when he told me that. And he said that I should come with him next time. It’s a lot of fun, you’ll see. And this way we’ll learn how to swim.
When I told my mother that I wanted to go to the swimming pool with Bébert, she told me that I would need a bathing suit. But for the time being she couldn’t afford to buy one.
I had never been in water before. I mean my whole body. Not even in a bath tub. When I was still young my mother would wash me in the kitchen in a wash basin. When I became too old and too big for the wash basin, my father would take me to the public baths of Montrouge once a week for a shower. I liked taking a shower, but it was not like being completely inside the water.
My mother would always tell me to make sure to dry my hair well so that I wouldn’t catch a cold when I came out of the public baths.
I don’t know how my mother managed it, but a few days after I told her I wanted to go swimming with my friend Bébert, she gave me a swimming suit.
I was the little darling, le chouchou of Maman, and when I wanted something somehow she always managed to get it for me. I still remember this bathing suit. It was dark blue, and it had a little red anchor on the side. I kept it for a long time even after it became too tight for me.
The day my mother gave me the bathing suit, my sisters complained that it wasn’t fair, that it was always me who got extra things from Maman. They also wanted bathing suits, even if they didn’t go swimming. My mother told them she would try to get them each one.
I think my sisters did get bathing suits. Yes, when the three of us went on vacation one summer with les colonies de vacances organized by the city of Montrouge for the children of poor families. But it was ...
Federman, why don’t you ever say how old you were when you tell one of these stories of your childhood. You say, I was still a small boy, I was little, or I was older and bigger, but you never give the exact age. It’s confusing.
The reason I don’t tell how old I was is because it’s impossible for me to remember exactly. I am trying to tell thirteen years of my life. Thirteen years of confusion and obliviousness. So I cannot organize chronologically with precise references the age I was.
From time to time, I do give a date. And since you know when I was born, it’s up to you to calculate.
OK, this is how I became a member of L’Amicale de Natation.
The day I got my bathing suit I went to the swimming pool with Bébert, and that day I almost drowned. This is what happened.
At the swimming pool there were cabins in which to undress. So I took off my clothes, folded them neatly, and put on my bathing suit. I was a bit ashamed to come out of the cabin because my body was so white and skinny. The boys who were swimming in the pool were all suntanned. It was summer. Timidly, I approached the edge of the pool and watched how people were swimming. It looked like it was easy to stay on the surface of the water by slapping it with your arms and legs. While I was watching, two big boys approached me and started shoving me around.
I had forgotten to take off my socks. I hadn’t realized. The two boys kept laughing and pushing me and suddenly I fell into the pool. In the deep end. Since I had never been in the water before I didn’t know what to do. My arms were flailing about, but I was sinking. I had water in my mouth, in my nose. I panicked. When the life-guard saw that I was drowning, he jumped in and pulled me out. He stretched me on the side of the pool, and made me breathe by pressing on my chest. I was trembling. All the boys were standing around me, some of them still laughing because I still had my socks on, which were all wet now. Finally I was able to stand up. I was so ashamed, but I didn’t cry.
When Bébert saw what had happened he came to get me and explained that when you don’t know how to swim you have to stay in the shallow end of the pool. I was afraid to go in, but when I saw how he was able to stand up, and the water reached only to his waist, I climbed down the ladder on the side of the pool, and slowly entered the water. I stayed close to the edge, holding on to it. It felt good to be in the water. But I didn’t dare duck my head down like Bébert was doing.
After that, every Thursday Bébert and I went to the swimming pool. Little by little we both became more daring. We imitated how the other boys who could swim were moving their arms and legs, but we did it only in the shallow end and not far from the edge. After a while we were able to stay on the surface of the water without having our feet touch the bottom of the pool.
One day a man who was there every Thursday showed us how to mo
ve our arms and legs to do the breaststroke. Soon Bébert and I were able to swim across the narrow side of the pool.
The man who was teaching us was the coach of L’Amicale de Natation, and one day he told us that we could join his club for free and be part of the team that competed against other swimming clubs. The man explained that he went from pool to pool to recruit young swimmers. He told us that by looking at the bodies of young people he could determine if they could become good swimmers.
I wonder how he could determine that I could become a swimmer, me who was so skinny then, and undernourished, me whose knees knocked together when I walked, whose ribs were showing through my skin. And yet, I did become a good swimmer, specializing in the backstroke, and almost made the 1948 US Olympic Team, as I mentioned before.
My mother was pleased that I went swimming regularly. She kept saying that it was good for me, it made me stronger. But my uncle Leon made fun of me. He would say that it was a waste of time.
Of course, when I had to wear the yellow star on all my clothes, I was no longer allowed to go to the municipal swimming pool. Nor to the movies. Nor to public libraries and museums. I even had to stop playing in the street with the other boys from the neighborhood. I would stay home and play alone, or reread my Jules Verne.
It was the same for my cousin Salomon and the other Jewish boy in our school. His name was Lucien Jacobson, but everybody called him Loulou.
Oh, that’s another name from my school days that I remember. Lucien Jacobson. Of course, Loulou with whom ...
Loulou! Federman, is that the Loulou whose story you tell inDouble or Nothing?
Yes, that’s him.
Those who want to know more about Loulou, and how we left together for America on the same ship, and how together we starved in New York, eating noodles every day because we were broke, and how we managed to survive, they can consult Double or Nothing,the noodle novel, as my friends call that book.
Not much more to say about swimming, and the boys from my school.
Now I’ll go back to the Café Métropole where I watched my father play cards.
When I went to get my father at the café, I knew when he was winning because while I waited for his game to be over, he would order un citron pressé for me. The days when he was losing I didn’t get one. And when he came home he was always in a bad mood, and he would argue with my mother, and she would cry. My mother cried a lot in her short life.
The only day when my father would come home for dinner regularly was Friday. Not because it was the beginning of the Sabbath. In our home, we didn’t pay attention to the Sabbath or any religious holidays. My father was an Atheist. So my sisters and I were raised without any religion. During my entire childhood I never set foot in a synagogue, and I knew nothing of Jewish customs. I was not even Bar Mitzvad. Though I was circumcised. That much I can prove. My cousin Salomon, he was Bar Mitzvad. And I remember how all the aunts and uncles brought him lots of presents.
Once in a while Maman would tell us about God and the Jewish religion, but she always spoke in a low voice. She had learned the religious customs in her orphanage, but she was afraid to talk about them because of my father.
Anyway. One of these customs is to eat carp on Friday before the Sabbath. And my father loved carp. So he always gave my mother extra money to buy a carp, and always came home for dinner on Fridays. My sisters and I, we didn’t like eating carp, but Maman would say it was good for us, and so we were forced to eat it, except for the head with the eyes. We were scared of the head with its big eyes. But my father he ate everything, the whole head and the eyes. He ate it cold with aspic. Though, I remember how one evening Papa almost choked when he swallowed one of the fish-bones. My mother got scared. He was all red and coughing. But he finally managed to spit it out.
I liked Fridays because I could play with the carp before my mother cooked it. In the morning she would go to the fish market to buy a live carp which she kept alive all day in a wash basin full of water. The same one she used to bathe me in. My sisters didn’t play with the carp because they were afraid. But me, when I came home from school I would quickly finish my homework to be able to play with the carp. I would put a wine bottle cork in the water and I would push it with my finger towards the carp as if it were a little boat, and the carp would swim away from the cork. While playing with the carp I would imagine far away places on the other side of the ocean. Except that I had never seen the ocean. I saw it for the first time when I left on the boat for America.
No, I’m mistaken. I had seen the sea, once. In Trouville. Now I remember.
Ah, the holes in memory.
I’ll tell that now before I forget it again.
One day Papa came home all happy. We knew immediately that he had won money at the races. Before even taking off his coat, he emptied his pockets on the table. It was just before dinner. I was in the middle of setting the table. He pushed aside the plates and he dropped a pile of hundred francs bills on the table. A huge pile. I had never seen so much money.
My mother didn’t say anything, but I could see that she was happy too because now she could buy more food, and maybe even some new clothes. But after Papa gave her some of the bills, he put the rest of the money back in his pocket, and started laughing. He picked up my little sister Jacqueline and did a pirouette holding her above his head. We were all so happy that day. And then he said, Tomorrow is Sunday, tomorrow we are all going to the beach in Trouville.
My sisters and I were jumping with joy. But my mother didn’t seem very pleased about this idea of going to Trouville. She knew why Papa wanted to go there. My sisters and I, we didn’t know. We didn’t know that there was a casino in Trouville.
So early the next morning we took the train to Trouville. It was the first time on a train for my sisters and I.
Later, when we were a little older, we took the train twice to go on vacation. As I mentioned before, the city of Montrouge would send the children of the poor to spend two weeks on farms in Le Poitou. I’ll tell more about that later. But that day, when we went to Trouville, it was our first time on a train.
We had our faces pressed against the window looking in awe at the trees speeding by, the fields, the farm houses, the cows. We were laughing, and shouting, Look, regarde les vaches. Oh, look over there, sheep, and a horse. We were so happy, and I think that made Maman happy too. When we arrived in Trouville, Papa bought each of us, my sisters and me, a little pail and a shovel so we could play in the sand on the beach. This was before Maman bought us bathing suits, so that day we were wearing shorts.
So here we are on the beach. It was a beautiful sunny day. Maman didn’t have a bathing suit. She was wearing the dress she wore every day. She sat on one of the towels she had brought along, she pulled her dress up around her thighs so her legs could get suntanned. And she put a handkerchief on her head. It was one of the few times I saw my mother smile.
My sisters and I were afraid to go in the water. We were still very young. We were afraid of the waves. So we stayed on the edge of the surf and put only our feet in, but when the waves came rushing at us we would jump back, and the water would splash us. Maman kept calling out to us, don’t go in. Be careful. Come back here and play with your pails.
As soon as we arrived on the beach, Papa said he was going for a walk. Of course, he went to the casino. I didn’t know then what a casino was, but when he came back later in the afternoon Maman screamed at him for having lost all the money playing roulette.
We immediately left for the train station. We didn’t even stay until evening in Trouville. We went back to Montrouge on an early train. But at least, I had seen the sea ...
You know, Federman, what you are telling is not really the story of your childhood. Except for a few anecdotes about what you did or what you endured when you were a kid, it’s mostly the story of your parents that you are in the process of telling. You tell more about your father and your mother than about yourself. You don’t stop talking about them.
You also tell a lot about your uncle Leon, your aunt Marie, and your cousin Salomon.
You’re right that Leon and Marie are very present in what I am telling.
In fact, Federman, the book you are writing is really the story of a house. The house in Montrouge in which you spent your childhood with your family, but also with Leon, Marie, and Salomon.
I do tell a lot about that house, as if it were still haunting me. Perhaps that’s why I am so obsessed by it. Yes, for me it is a haunted house.
Well, to go on with the house, I’ll tell now how one day my uncle Leon decided to plant a tree in the courtyard.
One day Leon decided to plant a tree in front of the house in the middle of the courtyard with a flower bed around it. When Leon decided something, no one could argue with him.
Me, I was afraid that he would make me dig the hole to plant his tree. But no. My cousin Salomon was also afraid that his father would make him plant the tree. But no. Leon said that he would do it himself because he didn’t trust anyone else to do it properly.
So my uncle took off his jacket and his vest, loosened his tie, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt all the way to the black garters around the top of the sleeves. Then he carried his tree, that was not that big, but still quite heavy, to the center of the yard. Exactly at the center, because Leon had measured the distance of the yard from one wall to the other. The yard was square. That’s how he was able to determine where the center was. Leon was very meticulous. And then he started breaking the asphalt that covered the entire yard to make a circle in the ground with a pickaxe so he could plant his tree and his flowers.