In the Moon

by Alan Holmes

  Unfortunately, the system had a major design flaw. Since the cable sagged in the middle, swimmers who were supported at the right level at either end of the cable found themselves somewhat lower in the water when they reached the center of the pool. I watched several students begin to panic as they approached the cable’s mid-point. They thrashed about, coughing, sputtering, gulping cupfuls of seawater and screaming for help. If things got really bad, Monsieur Cridoux, the instructor, reached for a long-handled boat hook and used it to drag the struggling swimmer to the edge of the pool as though retrieving an errant skiff.

  Cridoux tried tightening the cables to reduce the sagging, but the cables, which were really just thin ropes, usually broke under the added strain, often in mid-lesson, creating even more chaos for the hapless swimmer.

  Beginners used the two outer lanes (cables) so that Monsieur Cridoux, outside the pool, could walk along beside the student swimmer, haranguing him as he struggled to propel himself from one end of the pool to the other. Monsieur Cridoux, who taught only the breast stroke, counseled the swimmer to breathe in time with his arm movements and to keep his heels together as he brought his feet forward. We never saw Cridoux swimming in his marvelous pool, and it was widely rumored that he could not swim.

  Making matters worse for the swimmers were the numerous uninvited spectators who lined the edge of the tank, kibitzing, joking and laughing at the plight of the harried students. The swimming lessons were a new feature at the beach that summer, and despite the horrors just described, taking lessons in this tank was a surprisingly popular pastime. Few people in Hardelot knew how to swim, and mastering this skill was viewed as one of life’s great achievements.

  For several days before my first scheduled lesson, I watched the proceedings at the pool with no small misgivings. On the day of my lesson, I showed up prepared, wearing my well-proven inflatable life preserver. I rebuffed Cridoux’s assurance that his cable and tether system achieved the same purpose as my preserver and insisted that I be allowed to wear it. Monsieur Cridoux, reluctant to loose a pupil, permitted me to wear my preserver on condition that I would also agree to be connected to his cable and tether system. This would be the only way he could keep me swimming in one lane of the pool, he insisted.

  Using both devices, I found I had so much paraphernalia around my upper body that moving my arms in the prescribed fashion was out of question. However, I struggled along using a crude dog paddle. Cridoux allowed me to “swim” this way for half an hour on the middle cable, where I didn’t interfere with his other pupils in the two outer lanes. He made no pretense of giving me lessons, but each time I showed up, he would say, “One day, Monsieur Alain, you will decide not to use your life preserver, and then I will teach you to swim like a grownup.”

  Cridoux’s inventive pool—made of stout, interlocking wood panels, braced on the outside and colorfully painted—leaked copiously at all the joints, so that by the next low tide, it was just about empty. While awaiting my turn for a lesson, or after the lesson, I kept myself amused by damming the rivulets that flowed down the beach from the leaking pool. If I could round up some cohorts to help me, we sometimes built an extensive, crescent-shaped dam across the pool’s outflow. The resulting reservoir substantially reduced the number of kibitzing spectators, who found they had to stand in several inches of water if they wished to make fun of the swimmers.

  The walls of the pool were anchored to a concrete slab that formed its base. Cast into the sand, this slab kept the wooden pool from floating away when it was submerged at high tide. Despite this massive anchor, the pool walls were destroyed by a heavy storm in August and were never rebuilt. I was sorry about this; I always stayed at the beach for the rest of the afternoon after my harrowing half-hour swims, and the pleasure I derived from my damming operations more than compensated for the misery of my immersions.

  Back in Condette, I was becoming braver and was venturing out on my bike up the grassy track to the paved road and on into the village of Condette. No one had ever told me not to do this, and I now felt I could handle the traffic, which was a lot busier than the traffic in Hardelot where I had ridden my bike around town with impunity two years earlier.

  I was returning from one of these sorties one afternoon, tearing along at maximum speed, when I passed Michelle, who was standing by the side of the grassy track. Throughout this mostly wretched summer, I had managed to avoid seeing or being seen by Michelle. “Bonjour, Alain!” she yelled cheerily as I passed her. I was quite taken aback.

  Although I knew I was supposed to ignore her and was going fast enough that she might well believe I hadn’t heard her, I slammed on the brakes, turned around, and rode back to where she was standing.

  “I’ve waited all summer for you to come over and play,” she said quietly, without recrimination.

  “I wanted to come over, too, but Mother said I must not see you or play with you any more,” I said sheepishly.

  “I know that’s why you didn’t come. Mother said she thought that was the reason. C’est bien triste (it’s very sad),” she said pensively. Then, brightening up, she said, “I’m on my way to get Lili. Do you think you would get caught if you came with me?”

  I thought about it for a moment then said impatiently, “So what if I do get caught! I don’t care!” I really felt that the whole summer had been a prolonged sentence for a crime I hadn’t committed and that I was now entitled to commit the crime in question. I dismounted my bike and, with Michelle beside me, walked it back up the grassy track to the place where the path leading to Lili’s pasture forked off to the right. On that little-used and overgrown pedestrian path, I found a break in the bordering hedge, hid my bike there and walked on with Michelle, who took me by the hand.

  It seemed like old times, and I suddenly felt exhilarated and much lighter, as if a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. I was so relieved to know Michelle was aware that my absence had not been because I didn’t care for her, and I was really looking forward to the ride on Lili.

  Michelle urged me to be the first to mount Lili and to ride in front. I rediscovered all the thrill and fun of rides on this magnificent mare. I also enjoyed the feel of Michelle’s hands around my waist and her body pressed tightly against my back. The mile-long trip back to the Baichant farm took us along the deserted path, so I had no fear of being caught with her. Before the path rejoined the grassy track to our house, we found a tree with suitably overhanging branches that I used to dismount Lili. I thus avoided the risky part of the journey—the grassy track where Mother or Madame Tourneau drove the car on the way in or out.

  When we parted, Michelle said, “If you come with me again, you can ride in front every time.” I promised her I’d be back. During the remaining few weeks of the summer, the swimming pool in Hardelot no longer existed, so I seldom went to the beach in the afternoons. I was thus able to enjoy the company of Michelle, whom I liked a great deal, and indulge my passion for riding Lili.

  Almost daily, I waited for Michelle at the beginning of the deserted path so that I could accompany her to the horse pasture. If asked, I was prepared to say that I had not been playing with Michelle. I was only riding the Baichant horse back to their farm, something that had not been specifically named on the list of forbidden activities. I suspected Mother probably wouldn’t have bought that subtle distinction, but luckily, I never had to use it. Those twenty or so rides with Michelle were my secret triumph over a summer filled with loneliness, boredom and longing.

  Alain, Jacob, Brenda, and Raimond, la Closerie, Ville-d’Avray, 1938

  Alain and Jacob (“the little elf”), Ville d’Avray, 1938

  Uncle Bob, Alain, Jenny, Brenda, Betty, Peter, Auntie Gladys, in Condette, 1938

  Alain, Jenny, and Brenda, at the beach in Hardelot 1938

  CHAPTER 10

  A Russian Paramour, then an Older Woman

  The autumn
of 1938 found my parents in a quandary. During the previous school year I had daily returned from the Dennis School looking as though I had been working as a chimney sweep and, for this reason, Mother was adamant that I wouldn’t go back there. For his part, Father was steadfast in the belief that I should continue attending an English-speaking school. Yet there seemed to be no other such school in Paris.

  That summer, Father had gone to America on another business trip, and this journey greatly influenced the selection of my next school. On the return voyage aboard the Normandie, two fellow passengers at his dining room table were Mr. and Mrs. Derosier. They were the founders of the American School of Paris, and Mr. Derosier was its Headmaster. He was French, educated in France and the United States, and she was American, schooled in France. Father found the couple extremely likable and was impressed by their warmth and wisdom.

  As a result of this meeting, Brenda and I started attending the American School of Paris in the fall of 1938, she in first grade and I in fourth grade. The school was intended to cater to American families, but most students were from French families seeking a bilingual education for their children. The school’s curriculum covered both languages and both cultures with about equal emphasis.

  I took an immediate liking to this school. In contrast to the gloom and austerity of the French schools I had attended, the American School of Paris was modern, bright, and airy. My classroom was on the top floor of a five-story building and had once been a penthouse apartment. The room’s large picture windows looked out onto rooftops and church spires and, in the distance, the Eiffel Tower. I was especially entranced by the look of our classroom in the mornings, when the warm glow of the sun bestowed on the room a special luminance.

  Basking in this warmth, I wondered if I were growing like our greenhouse vegetable seedlings which, according to Raimond, only grew in the warmth of the sun. If he were right, I was going to do a lot of growing in this classroom. Being as small as I was for my age, this was no minor consideration.

  The warmth and joyous luminosity I so loved vanished after lunch because there were no windows on the west side of the room. On one of those unilluminated, non-growing afternoons, I made my second contribution to school architecture (the first being the hanging moon for the benefit of daydreaming students). My new concept was based on sound engineering and was totally feasible, though perhaps a little extravagant.

  I had seen in a picture book a locomotive turntable that redirected massive steam engines from their main track onto any one of several shorter sections of track. The shorter tracks radiated outward from the turntable, like the spokes of a wheel, into a round storage shed called a “roundhouse,” where the locomotives were stored and repaired.

  It seemed to me reasonable that if such a turntable could rotate something as big and heavy as a locomotive in any desired direction, why not a classroom full of children? Just place one of these turntables onto the roof of the school with a crane, then build a classroom on top of the turntable—et voilà! The classroom would turn slowly by means of a small motor. By having the classroom track the sun and retain its light and cheerfulness all day long, I would have the benefit of more growing time.

  Except, of course, when it rained. However, since this was an American school, there was no lighting problem on rainy days. We had fluorescent ceiling lights, and they were almost as bright and cheerful as the sun—or so I thought at the time. I only hoped that they were as good for growing as was the sun. At two of the French schools I had attended, little light came through the small windows when it was cloudy outdoors, and teachers had been so stingy with electricity that lights were never turned on in daytime, even on the gloomiest of rainy days.

  Probably from Raimond at home, I had come to believe that anything new and different, or anything American, just had to be better. And although it was true that my present American classroom was superb compared to any I had known, I saw no reason why I couldn’t dream up other novel concepts it might encompass. The turning, sun-tracking classroom was the first of several school “improvements” which followed in quick succession.

  In my present fourth grade room, the first hand-crank pencil sharpener I had ever seen created quite an impression on me. In my improved ideal classroom, each student would not only have a sharpener at his desk, but each sharpener would have a little motor so we wouldn’t have to crank it by hand.

  I had never seen a student desk like the one in which I sat. It was a comfortable, one-piece, modern desk with the writing surface arranged as an extension of the armrest. In my improved classroom, each desk would be on its own smaller turntable, and it too, of course, would be motorized. Thus, when the teacher referred to a large map of the United States on the wall to our right, every desk would turn to the right, and students would face the map head-on for a better view.

  Day by day, I envisioned more refinements for my wonder classroom. One of these improvements came to me after my first visit to the dentist, where I noted how his chair went up and down. If our school desks went up and down like the dentist’s chair, small students, like myself, could see over the heads of larger students when the teacher, Miss Miller, wrote along the bottom edge of the blackboard.

  Then, after the teacher complained about our illegible handwriting, it occurred to me that each student should have a typewriter at his desk so that Miss Miller would no longer be deluged by a sea of scribbles in the homework she had to correct.

  I started to make drawings of my ideas. This was no small undertaking, as I needed to make numerous separate sketches of each of the details along with a main plan showing the whole classroom. I had once watched my grandfather, who was an architect, drawing the details of a house he was designing, and he had patiently explained the process to me. At the time, I hadn’t paid much attention; nevertheless, it seems as if my grandfather’s methods had, in fact, made an impression on me.

  I was able to do this sketching in school because my desk was at the rear of the classroom, and Miss Miller stayed at her podium the whole time—a pleasant change from those French schools where the teacher roamed the aisles ready to pounce on any student engaged in a misdeed. I probably looked quite diligent as I worked on my drawings and, in fact, that’s exactly what I was.

  The privacy of my design work was also facilitated by an improbable concept called the “honor system.” In theory, we were honor-bound to tell on students who were doing anything wrong. This, I believe, was meant to relieve the teacher from the burden of watching over her students. Sitting where I did, at the back of the class, there were no students to observe my activities, and I was able to sketch with impunity.

  I took my drawings home and showed them to Raimond, who somehow came by the impression that this was how my classroom was in reality. He may have been pretending, but since it was from Raimond that I had acquired the notion that everything American was novel, marvelous and techno-modern, it’s possible that he really believed me. Either way, I was having such fun impressing Raimond that I decided to impress everyone else with my incredible American classroom.

  Mother listened to my descriptions, sounded convinced and pumped me for further details, as Raimond had done. Soon, everyone on the home front was admiring my drawings and asking me about my incredible new school. Each day I came home armed with new embellishments and sketches, explaining that there were so many wonderful things in this classroom that no one could possibly present them all at one try.

  The real classroom’s drapes operated with pull cords, another refinement I had never seen before, and which struck me as particularly ingenious. As I told it, however, the classroom’s drapes had motorized pull cords, and Miss Miller had a switchboard at her desk that operated all the curtains by remote control. Other exotic items materialized in my dream classroom: a telephone, a radio and, for learning songs, a phonograph.

  Then, I dreamed up a large translucent globe of the world that turned s
lowly by means of a motor and was lit from within. A blue light illuminated only half the globe to show where it was nighttime. A white light, also inside the globe, lit the other half showing where daylight prevailed in the world. Since the lights within did not turn with the globe, the moving passage of night and day around the world was clearly illustrated as the globe slowly revolved.

  All who heard my descriptions were amazed and looked as though they believed all of it. I wallowed in their admiration for my drawings, reveled at having an audience intrigued by my every word, and decided I would invent another story that I would tell while at school. There, I was assisted in my endeavor by an American classroom practice called “show-and-tell.” For me, it turned out to be just “tell” since I could hardly bring what I was describing to class.

  Several students had their turn at show-and-tell ahead of me. Among them was an Arab student called Youssef. He told the class that he had a pet camel at his home in Morocco. Youssef demonstrated how he clicked his tongue loudly against his palate, so that Dramba, his camel, would kneel down for him to climb aboard. No one could top his story—that is, until I came up with my tall tale.

  I had recently seen the film “Mowgli, the Elephant Boy.” The film had made a lasting impression on me, and I had become obsessed with elephants. My plans for a future profession had shifted from being a prosperous farmer in France to being an elephant herder in India. Other aspects of my story probably came from reading Kipling’s The Jungle Book in which several animals had strange, long names such as “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.”

  When my turn came to show-and-tell, I declared in all earnestness that my family had once lived in India and that when we left India, I was allowed to bring one of my pet elephants to France with me. The elephant, whose name was Bajawanda (Baji for short), now lived in an oversized stable on our estate. Baji ate a ton of hay each day and did so many tricks that it would take the rest of the afternoon to describe them all. The class clapped enthusiastically, and I started to tell them how Baji could be made to do a handstand on his forelegs, but Miss Miller interrupted me and said that I had told quite enough for one day.