by Alan Holmes
This impressive locomotive pleased me no end, and I could now push it around any remote loop around the garden, level or sloping. One drawback to my new loco design was that Brenda could no longer ride as a passenger, though some of her dolls were small enough to be jammed into the space between the barrel and the original pram “hull.” But Brenda objected to this unseemly treatment of her dolls. It was probably just as well that she had no interest in rail travel herself. The new loco was much heavier than the gondola, and even devoid of any extra load, I could barely push it up the steepest path in the garden. I continued my travels with the P.O. loco alone, quite content as I chuffed and puffed my way up the inclines.
That autumn, another character made his appearance on the scene. Jock was a Scottish cairn terrier, already mostly gray in his middle age, and a wise little mutt. Cairns are a fairly rare breed. The best way to describe them is to explain that “Toto,” Dorothy’s dog in the film “The Wizard of Oz,” was a cairn.
We almost failed to acquire Jock. He had been sent to us by rail in a crate that was incorrectly addressed and routed. He had been shipped to the wrong station, and when we went to meet him at the agreed-upon rail destination on the day of his journey, he didn’t arrive. Mother initiated a major search for him, which lasted several days and, much to my delight, took us to nearly every rail station in and around Paris. We eventually found Jock but not before some kind-hearted old stationmaster realized that the little dog’s food supply had run out, that he needed water and a long stroll, preferably along a tree-lined street. Mother had a hard time prying Jock from the stationmaster, who had grown extremely fond of him, but when it was apparent that Jock responded enthusiastically to the call of his name, the old man tearfully released him to us.
Jock was no ordinary dog—but then, few family dogs are. Beyond that, however, Jock had some extraordinary traits due to the training he had received from his former master, a British golf pro at the Hardelot Golf Club. Jock was the only dog who was ever allowed on the course in Hardelot, and it was because the pro had taught him golf etiquette.
First and most importantly, if he were anywhere near a golfer about to take a swing at the ball, Jock immediately sat down and remained motionless, even stopping his panting on a hot day. Second, he never chased balls or picked them up in his mouth. But upon being given the command “find the ball, Jock!” he would set off in a determined way to locate a ball that had gone into the rough or out of sight. Upon finding the ball, he sat patiently beside it until the ball’s owner said something like, “Well done, Jock!” My parents never lost a ball when Jock was along. And third, Jock never chased rabbits nor ran about freely on the course. He scampered along in a business-like way directly behind Mother or Father during the entire game.
Jock’s reputation as a golf dog was known at any club where the pro had played. At the Saint Germain Golf Club (not far from Ville-d’Avray) Jock was immediately allowed on the course with my parents on the basis of a reputation that preceded him. The club staff and caddies had heard of his prowess as a golfing dog, so they were anxious to see him strut his stuff and greeted him with some fanfare.
The golf pro who had trained Jock and who gave him to Father, was returning to live in England after many years of teaching golf in Hardelot. The pro didn’t want to subject Jock to an obligatory six-month quarantine. England imposed this on all dogs arriving from overseas as a precaution against rabies. (England was completely free of the disease at the time.)
A dog usually attaches itself to one member of the family who becomes its master, and there was no doubt that Jock’s master was Father. This was surprising, since Father never fed him and was seldom home. Whenever Father was home, Jock stayed as close to him as possible most of the time. When Father left for work, Jock was always present to see him off, watching the car for some time as it disappeared, as if to make quite sure Father was really leaving. But as soon as Father was definitely gone, Jock turned his loyalty to me and shadowed me whenever practicable, probably because I petted him and talked to him a great deal. Jock also got on well with Raimond who fed, bathed and brushed him.
Jock had a wiry, grayish-black coat, the softest velvety, jet-black ears, a somewhat bushy tail that stood upright in the shape of a crescent moon and, from the back, he looked as though he had on little Cossack pants.
Later, when we had a house in Condette, Jock loved to chase after the many wild rabbits and a fox who resided somewhere in our garden, but he never chased the chickens or the odd tame rabbit that scampered about freely in our neighbor’s barnyard when we visited there. He had an uncanny sense of right and wrong. He was so well behaved that we seldom went anywhere without him, and he quickly became a much loved member of the family.
CHAPTER 5
Serious Smuggling and a Miraculous Catch
At the Cours Boutet de Monvel, the mating antics of the pigeons on the roof of the American Embassy continued to distract me. The teacher, Mademoiselle de Monvel, wasn’t much help in holding my attention. Her manner of teaching was dry and unexciting, and this was also a fair description of the way she looked. She wore no make-up to improve her somewhat sallow demeanor, her graying black hair was pulled back tightly into a bun, and her attire was always an unadorned black dress. I can still hear Mademoiselle de Monvel’s monotonous and incessant voice, and I remember Mother commenting that she never smiled.
According to Mother, I had always had a tendency to daydream, and it was at the Cours Boutet de Monvel that my notoriety in this regard was confirmed beyond a doubt. After a week spent drilling me on all the answers related to my homework, Mother was forced to sit at the back of the classroom and watch me make a fool of myself. Mademoiselle de Monvel progressed along the row of students, asking questions about the assignment, and when it was my turn to answer, I was nearly always stymied because I had been looking out the window at the pigeons and had not even heard the question.
The teacher frequently scolded me for daydreaming, accusing me of being dans la lune, an expression that made no sense to me, even after I asked Mother what it meant. “When you are ‘in the moon,’ it means that you are not on earth with the rest of us,” Mother replied cryptically. That didn’t help much, but the thought that I could actually be “in” the moon started me on one of my more memorable daydreams.
I had already learned from Raimond that the moon was a ball, and quite naturally I assumed that it was hollow, like a rubber ball, especially since it was apparently possible to be “in” the moon. Why not have such a ball, or moon, hang from the ceiling of the classroom? I pictured it in my mind as being quite large, somewhat bigger than I was tall, and bright yellow like the round, glowing full moon I occasionally saw from my bedroom window as it rose through the bare branches of our linden tree in winter. My moon would have a small trap door in its base, like the trap door to our attic, and a rope ladder would hang from the trap door. There would be a small school desk and a chair inside my moon, which would be equipped with two porthole windows. From the outside, the portholes would be the moon’s eyes and the trap door its mouth.
When I felt like being dans la lune, I could go up the ladder, pull it in behind me, and would then be able to daydream all I wanted without incurring the displeasure of the Mademoiselle de Monvel or Mother. Through the porthole windows I could keep an eye on what was going on in the class below, paying attention only if I found it interesting. I could easily slip down the ladder—back to earth—for something that really intrigued me, such as what came after ninety-nine.
I felt a strong urge to make a drawing of my moon and even took a yellow coloring pencil to school with me on the day I decided to put my moon on paper. I had almost finished my sketch when Mademoiselle de Monvel walked down the row of desks to mine and asked me what I was doing. Despite her cross look, I was sure she would be impressed once I explained my drawing to her, so I enthusiastically launched into a complete review of my design
. I even pointed out a little stickman sitting inside the moon, telling her it represented me, and explained the reason for my being there.
Mademoiselle de Monvel listened without interrupting while the class grew more amused with each new detail I provided. I was playing to an audience and discovering that I enjoyed the role. Surprisingly, the teacher allowed me to continue, probably to make sure she was uncovering enough evidence to justify a real tongue-lashing. While the class and parents at the back were amused, Mademoiselle de Monvel, who always took herself very seriously, was unmistakably displeased. After I finished my detailed explanation, she chastised me at some length for wasting class time.
I was unrepentant but kept silent. I had already discovered the futility of trying to reason with adults when they were in a chastising mood. Besides, wasn’t she the one who had initiated the wasting of time by interrogating me?
Sometime during that second year at the Cours Boutet de Monvel, we passed ninety-nine and now swam more freely in the great wide ocean of all numbers, so I must have descended from the moon, at least until I had learned the rules for counting to any number. We also launched into long division and multiplication problems involving numbers with more than two digits. That, too, must have kept me from being dans la lune much of the time.
In early spring of 1936, I came down with what the French call une appendicite à chaud, an inflamed appendix. The first day, Docteur Narnier thought my pain was just indigestion. The next day, the pain was much worse, and the doctor announced that my appendix had ruptured and that immediate surgery was the only way to save my life. French law at the time decreed that surgical operations on a child were not allowed without the father’s consent.
The problem facing Mother was that Father was in Warsaw on a business trip. Over the next ten hours, she made numerous unsuccessful attempts to reach him by phone. There was only one tenuous “trunk line” to Warsaw, and there was a queue of callers ahead of Mother. She pleaded with the operator, who replied that she had heard “that old story before.”
When Mother attempted to send a telegram, the telegraph operator warned her that the Poles exacted a ridiculously high excise tax on foreign telegrams, and there was little assurance that the telegram would even go through. Mother sent off a telegram anyway. As the day dragged on, she kept on trying to reach Father by phone. Docteur Narnier, who had to hear my father personally instruct him to operate before he could proceed, now joined the vigil full time and kept reminding Mother that if he didn’t receive the permission soon, it would be too late to operate.
By four in the afternoon, I was delirious and shaking with fever. Still no word from Warsaw. Mother, true to form, once again took the bull by the horns. She asked Raimond to carry me to the car, and ordered the doctor to stay where he was. For good measure, she instructed Raimond to stand guard over Docteur Narnier and see that he did not leave our house until the permission arrived from Warsaw, even if it meant putting the doctor up for the night.
Decades later, as Mother described for me the events of that day, her voice was still edged with tension.
“Raimond carried you to the garage and Françoise was sitting with you in her arms behind me in the car. Then I was driving with a break-necking speed towards the nearest-by hospital which was in Versailles, with my hand pressed on the klaxon (horn) all the time. Raimond knew I was doing this, so he tied a high wooden pole with a white flag and the red cross nailed on. The pole was right on the front bumper so all the cars around would see it waving in the wind of my speed and letting me drive through them,” she said. “I was pushing on the klaxon and going right through red lights even without stopping for them, and all the traffic of the rush-hour in the afternoon was dividing itself for me to pass as I went by. Without Raimond’s flag you would not be living here right now!
“Françoise was always very nervous with us in the car when she drove in the back seat going anywhere, but now she was sitting there, holding you tightly in her arms in all the turnings, crying some torrents of tears over you who was like a son for her, and not seeing I was driving like a madman which would be making her more nervous, even if she was not so occupied with you.
“Docteur Narnier was a doctor with only a narrow brain [narrow minded] and had no imagination and without intiateeve,” Mother continued. “He thought it was no use and a wasting of money to bring you to the hospital before getting the permission of Dan if anyway you’re dying before the phone call arrives. He told me to my face that I am crazy and that you might not be living when Dan phones me, then why take you to the hospital if you were going to be dead there? And it was very expensive to die in a hospital even if they do nothing on you, he said. I told him right back in his face that I would be suing him if he was leaving the house before the call of Dan arrives. If I had not done this, and we lose all the time waiting for the permission to arrive, you might be dying with the permission in the car on the way.”
After I was admitted to the hospital, Mother phoned Raimond at home and heard that Father had found her telegram in his hotel room after a late dinner and had been able to get a trunk call through to Ville-d’Avray. With the needed approval, Docteur Narnier had already called Docteur Moronguet, the surgeon who would arrive at the hospital shortly.
“Thank God in Warsaw they are always running three hours in front of us or else Dan would have been too late. He was in the middle of the night over there, so all the phones were empty for him,” said Mother, in her marvelously convoluted way.
Mother donned a surgeon’s mask and escorted me as the hospital attendant pushed my wheelchair into the operating room. She said that the operating room had once been a vaulted wine cellar. The brick walls and curved ceiling were painted white, which was the only concession toward making the place resemble a medical facility. According to Mother, the operating table was a sturdy, blood-stained, wooden table over which they were draping a bed sheet as I was wheeled in. The room’s only lighting was an extremely bright, bare light bulb hanging over the operating table.
“At least the white walls were shining some light onto your tummy when he leaned over you,” Mother said, and added, “I don’t know how he saw what he was cutting off inside you.” But what appalled Mother even more was the lack of any heating. She described the room as “glacial,” and said, “I could see your little bare body shivering like a madman before they put the asthetic [anesthetic] on your nose, and I asked them if there is not a blanket they could put over you. They said no—the hairs of the wool would go into the cicatrice (scar) and would be infecting you. Then they just put a handkerchief on your nose and poured a whole little bottle of asthetic over you.”
Docteur Moronguet said that another hour’s delay would have been fatal. Mother, who stayed in the operating room and saw the whole thing, said the surgeon was very neat and that the operation only took about fifteen minutes.
When I came to the next morning, I was coughing profusely, and my fever had not abated, to the consternation of everyone. I now had what they called “double pneumonia,” complicated by pleurisy. This, they said at the time, was because of exposure to cold during the application of the chloroform.
I remember almost nothing of the next several days because I was so gravely ill, but I can’t blot out from memory a series of dreadful sessions with a nurse, who was also a nun. Twice daily she glided silently into my room beneath a gigantic white wimple, carrying a large, white-enameled pail containing something that looked and steamed like a fresh cow dropping on a winter’s day. The item in question was “un revulsif,” or, as the nun referred to it with sadistic glee, “un bon cataplasme” (“a good and strong mustard poultice”). She seemed to take particular pleasure in announcing to me that it was time for this primitive and painful procedure, as if the dread and terror that those words struck in me were a necessary part of the treatment.
For readers unfamiliar with this medieval remedy once used for a wide
range of ailments, it consists of a gruel of ground mustard seed, an extremely hot variety, folded into several layers of gauze cloth. Some kind of salt was added to make its action more powerful. This repulsive, khaki-colored wad was placed in a pail of water and brought to a boil in the convent’s kitchen. The nun, using rubber gloves and tongs so as not to burn herself, then flung this scalding hot pad onto my bare chest and held it there with a thick towel as I shrieked in pain. After a few minutes, she lifted my torso and slipped a second poultice underneath my back so that I was now sandwiched between the two scorching wads. “It’s important to get as much lung coverage as possible,” she explained officiously.
The pain was excruciating and did not fade as the pads cooled, at which time the mustard took over, literally burning my skin by chemical action. There was also the revolting, acrid smell of the mustard just below my nostrils. I believe the mustard vapors were meant to penetrate my lungs and to cause a further burning sensation there, too. Like a hollow log, I was burning from within and from without.
My shrieking usually attracted the Mother Superior to my room. She ordered me in a stern voice to be quiet, or she would punish me. She accused me of waking up every patient in the ward and advised me, “Il faut apprendre à souffrir pour le Bon Dieu” (“One must learn to suffer for the Good Lord”). This did nothing to quell my wailing, for what greater punishment could she possibly inflict than the one I was already enduring?