In the Moon

by Alan Holmes

  Then she said in that quiet, sweet-sounding voice I loved so much, “If you write to me, I promise I’ll write back. And someday, I’ll come back to Paris with Eduardo, and maybe you can meet him. He’s a wonderful man, and I’m sure you will like him.” She rocked me gently back and forth as she held me.

  Before leaving the classroom, she wrote her address in my notebook. “Anita Cabanales,” it said, followed by an address, which she told me was her mother’s home in Panama. She didn’t know where she would be living after she was married, but using her mother’s address would ensure that my letter would reach her, she told me.

  I was puzzled and asked Miss Cabinalice if the name in my notebook was her mother’s. “That’s my name Alan! My name is Anita, and now that I’m not your teacher anymore, you may call me Anita.” I thought for a minute how strange it was that I hadn’t even known her first name—and was very puzzled by the name “Cabanales.” I went over the name “Cabinalice” in my mind and broke it down into “cabin” and “Alice,” both of which I thought I knew how to spell and pronounce. Then I looked again at the writing in my notebook and decided I might be able to accept “Caban” instead of “Cabin,” but “ales” rhymed with “sales,” and that couldn’t possibly turn into “Alice”—that part just didn’t sit right with me. However, I didn’t want to disrupt the mood, so I asked no further questions.

  Anita took my hand, and we walked out to the car. She said goodbye to Mother and waved to us as we drove off. I was crying silently but managed to hide the fact from Mother and Brenda. They were bittersweet tears, for the ecstasy of Anita’s hug still lingered. That would remain a secret. I didn’t want anyone trampling the memory with jokes or joshing.

  Before we reached home, I had regained some degree of composure and confided timidly to Mother that I didn’t know why I had received the medal.

  “In the moon again, Alain? Didn’t you hear Mr. Derosier say that it was for the student who best understood what school was all about?” she asked, then added, “You can be very proud, Alain. Mr. Derosier also said that it was the first time the medal had ever been awarded to anyone in the junior school. I’m just a little puzzled as to how such a daydreamer could know so much of what school was all about! But you apparently do know, somehow, and I’m very pleased and proud of you, Alain.”

  I too, wondered how anyone could have thought I knew what school was about—any better than the rest of my classmates. School was about having fun at recess and occasionally learning stuff to please the teacher. Didn’t we all think that? No, I suppose Jimmy Retter didn’t, but everyone else did. I remained puzzled about the whole business, and it struck me as odd that I was being told I could be proud of something I didn’t even understand. But it didn’t matter that much. I lapsed back into a daydream in which I was still in the arms of Anita Cabinalice, savoring the scent of her flowing blonde hair.

  Before leaving Ville-d’Avray for our third summer in Condette, I was very careful to pack the notebook that contained Anita’s address. However, when we arrived at the house in Condette, the notebook wasn’t where I had put it, nor was it in any of the other suitcases we unpacked. I asked Mother if she had seen the notebook, and she said, “Oh that old thing! I didn’t think you needed your class notebook during vacation, and I needed the space to pack other things, so I took it out of the suitcase.”

  Mother couldn’t understand why I was so upset over an old and used school notebook. I was uneasy about her knowing that it contained the address, lest she guess how strongly I felt about Miss Cabanales. Without disclosing my reasons, I continued pestering Mother until she finally agreed to ask Father to look for it when he went back to Ville-d’Avray. The house in Ville-d’Avray was not to be rented for another two weeks, and he was still going back to it every weekday evening after working in Paris. On each of the following two weekends, I awaited the return of Father with high expectations, but every time, he had forgotten the matter. So, despite the best intentions and a concerted effort on my part, the summer went by without the opportunity to communicate with my first great love.

  Alain (second from left) in school play (American School of Paris), 1939

  American School of Paris medal The Angel with oversize wings

  (medal shown smaller than actual size)

  CHAPTER 11

  Battles and the End of Fun

  Early in the summer of 1939, Madame Tourneau appeared on our doorstep in Condette to invite us for tea to meet her three boys. Mother was delighted. Madame Tourneau must have noticed that I had stopped associating with the Baichant girl the previous summer and was now prepared to allow Brenda and me to play with her three sons.

  We quickly became good friends with the Tourneaus who seemed as much in need of playmates as Brenda and I were. Jacques, the eldest, was thirteen and almost as tall as a grown man. Pierre, a year older than I, was about normal in size for a ten-year-old. Miquet was Brenda’s age and slightly taller and heavier than I was. All three were intelligent boys, bien élevés (well brought up), as the French were fond of saying, but extremely shy and timid.

  During the two summers the Tourneau boys had spent in Condette, they had been to the beach in nearby Hardelot only twice and had never taken a swim in the sea. They stayed indoors most of the time, reading books, playing board games, or fighting mock wars using their vast army of tin soldiers. I had never cared much for tin soldiers so I seldom joined my new friends in their elaborate set-piece battles, perhaps because to be victorious in these games required a lot of previous experience. Surprisingly, eight-year-old Miquet, who had been conducting wars with tin soldiers for three years, could sometimes beat his two older brothers.

  The boys owned a well-thumbed book showing the battle formations of Napoleon’s great engagements. After positioning their tin soldiers based on information gleaned from the book, the boys waged their own skirmishes based on their own shrewdness and the throw of a dice. The outcome of these battles sometimes differed considerably from those of recorded history.

  The boys’ several hundred tin soldiers were still not enough to represent all the soldiers mentioned in their history book, so they usually portrayed only a small sector of the battle in one game. All I remember of this pastime is that when it was my turn to play, I could move my soldiers in a certain way on the battlefield based on the outcome of throwing dice. Or, I could fire on an opposing soldier within range of mine. Here too, complicated rules applied and dice were used to determine the opposing warrior’s fate.

  If my dice throwing produced a six, the soldier was killed by my marksmanship. For a throw of five, the soldier was wounded and was temporarily out of action for the next five rounds of dice throwing. If the dice came up four or lower, the opponent’s soldier was in luck; he had escaped being hit and was still in action.

  Then it was the opponent’s turn to decide how to apply his dice throwing (either a move on the board or marksmanship) and then throw the dice. These war games involved an elaborate scoring system requiring reams of paper and a lot of arithmetic. When I played, it was two teams of two members competing. When I didn’t play, the team with only one member threw the dice twice in succession when it was his turn.

  The Tourneau boys were a pale-looking threesome, probably because they were indoors so much. This seemed very odd to Brenda and me, for we were used to literally being pushed outdoors to play. Mother insisted that we were in Condette to benefit from the country air, and she did not tolerate any indoor pastime, unless we were in the midst of a torrential downpour. Even in light rain, we were expected to play on the wide, rain-sheltered terrace, bundled up in sweaters if the air were chilly. Despite these draconian rules, Brenda and I were definitely not robust, healthy children. If anything, we were both in delicate health, suffering colds, bronchial problems, and frequent ear infections throughout the colder months. In summer, however, we were healthy, and Mother maintained this was because we s
pent so much more time outdoors.

  Brenda and I continued with our gymnastics class at the Hardelot beach club every morning and, in the afternoons, started inviting the Tourneaus to join us in various beach activities, including the sand castle contests. The Tourneau boys had never built sand castles or dams and were surprised to discover how much they enjoyed these activities. Madame Tourneau was so taken by her sons’ enthusiasm that she enrolled them in the morning gymnastics sessions and started sharing the driving to and from the beach with Mother.

  The ride in Mother’s tiny Simca, one of the smallest mass-produced cars ever made, presented a certain challenge, for it had only two front seats that barely accommodated Mother and the adult-sized Jacques. Miquet stood in front between Jacques’ knees. Brenda, Pierre, and I stood tightly jammed together in the minuscule luggage space behind the front seats with our upper halves protruding happily through the open roof. This worked well on warm sunny days, but on cooler days, we had a choice. We could bundle up in our raincoats to keep warm as the car picked up speed, or we could ride with the roof closed, jammed in the tiny space like so many sardines in a can. The simile is apt since opening the roof of this diminutive car required that it be rolled back like the lid on a sardine can.

  By mid-summer, Madame Tourneau went so far as to rent a beach cabin, as our family did, for she discovered that she, too, enjoyed the beach and that they needed a base there.

  Because the Tourneaus had never engaged in outdoor games, I was the one who proposed and organized everything when we played together, even though I was much younger than Jacques and Pierre. They were easy-going and seemed happy to have someone show them how to do things.

  I also taught Pierre and Miquet to ride a bicycle and would have taught Jacques, but his knees wouldn’t fit under the handlebars of my bike. After the two younger boys mastered bike riding, Madame Tourneau rented an adult-size bike in Hardelot for Jacques, and we took it down to the beach at low tide for his maiden flight, as Raimond had done for me. Before long, Madame Tourneau had to rent a bike for each of her sons on a long-term basis.

  One day, when neither mother was free to take us to the beach where a sand castle contest was to be held, I proposed that the five of us ride our bikes to the beach, a distance of six kilometers. We reached the beach well after the contest had started because the two youngest, Brenda and little Miquet, were exhausted after the first kilometer; their bikes had smaller wheels and they were having to pedal very fast to keep up. Our expedition bogged down as Jacques, Pierre and I had to spend considerable time coaxing the two of them to keep on cycling. Once at the beach, it seemed pointless to enter the contest since we wouldn’t have been able to finish our sand castles in the remaining allowed time.

  I had been the chief instigator of the failed plan and felt an obligation to propose something else. Then I remembered the fun I used to have biking across tide pools, and we made a brief search of the beach for a suitable one that had to be about six inches deep. I demonstrated by charging at high speed through the pool, creating a magnificent display of splashing, and emerging sopping wet but triumphant.

  The Tourneaus had not worn their swim trunks as I had, and Jacques worried that his mother would be upset at the sight of their soaked-through clothing when they reached home. I recklessly assured him that the garments would be dry by that time, not knowing if this were true.

  Pierre was the first to yield to my cajoling and made a dash through one of the smaller pools. He was so elated over the experience that the two of us had no difficulty convincing the other two boys and Brenda to have a try.

  After an hour of exhilarating fun, the five of us were confronted with the unpleasant prospect of the long, soggy trip home. Brenda and Miquet protested that they were so tired that they would never make it. I proposed that Jacques and I ride home and leave Pierre to watch over the two littler ones. I assumed that one of our two mothers was bound to be home by the time Jacques and I reached Condette and that she could come to pick up the other three with the car.

  In the meantime, we jammed Pierre, Brenda and Miquet’s bikes into our beach cabin for the night, and I urged the three of them to play energetic games on the beach to keep warm as they awaited the arrival of one of the mothers.

  Everything went as planned. Madame Tourneau was the one who drove to Hardelot to pick up the rest of the team, and she was all praise for my leadership and initiative in the afternoon’s fun. She was also highly amused by the streaks of blue dye that extended down her boys’ white, untanned legs. Their navy-blue shorts had dried as I predicted, but the streaks down their legs revealed the true nature of the afternoon’s activities.

  Madame Tourneau must have been pleased about the way her sons were enjoying their summer. She seemed to have a soft spot for me, perhaps because of the contributions I made to their fun, and she always made a pleasant fuss when I arrived at her house. Among other special attentions, she regularly served me an extra large piece of cake with the afternoon tea when I happened to be there at teatime. When Miquet loudly protested the repetition of this blatant favoritism, Madame Tourneau justified it on the grounds that I alone was small for my age and needed the extra food to catch up. Miquet, though almost two years younger, was slightly taller than I was and more heavily built.

  I ran into Michelle twice that summer. Now that I was accepted by the Tourneaus and playing with them regularly, I didn’t want to upset the apple cart and go through another summer of ostracism and solitude, so I was nervous about having anything to do with her. On the occasion of my first encounter with her, the Tourneaus had gone to the city of Lille for the day (where they lived when they weren’t summering in Condette). I had cycled into the village on a small errand for Françoise. I met Michelle on the grassy track as I was returning, and she invited me to fetch Lili and ride the horse home with her. I had such glowing memories of those rides on Lili that I couldn’t resist her invitation and felt relatively safe with the Tourneaus out of town.

  Those moments high atop Lili were as magical as ever. But my extreme anxiety over the possibility of being seen by Mother negated much of the fun the ride would otherwise have given me.

  On the second occasion—also during a prolonged absence of the Tourneaus, and while on a stroll up the grassy track—I saw Michelle as she came out of her house. We chatted briefly and, before long, I succumbed to her coyness and invitation to play games in the hay barn. Once in the barn there was no risk of being seen with her, I reasoned, but there was some danger of being spotted leaving the farm afterwards. However, I felt confident that I could exercise sufficient stealth to get away with my little adventure. In truth, I wanted to prove that I could choose my own playmates. Condette was a dull place without the Tourneaus to play with, and I craved a little excitement.

  Michelle now towered over me by about four inches. She was not only taller but had changed a lot in other ways. She seemed even stronger and tougher than before and acted as though she knew a lot more than I did. Two years earlier, playing in the hay barn meant only one thing—undressing, exploring each other, caressing, fondling and experiencing the incomprehensible and delicious feeling of being aroused. It was no different this time, except that Michelle kept on insisting that someone at school had told her something intriguing, and she wanted to find out if it were true.

  “Si tu le mets là,” she said, coyly pointing to her exposed behind, “J’aurai bientôt des p’tites poupées, comme les chiens ont des p’tits chiots quand ils fonts çà.” (“If you put it there, I’ll soon have some li’l dolls, the way dogs have li’l puppies when they do that.”)

  I was still utterly naive about the implications of what she was proposing, and it all seemed incredibly far-fetched and unbelievable. I told her so and asked her to repeat the explanation for her strange request, which she did, adding, “Allez, Alain! C’est vrai, je te le jure! Fais ce que je te demande.” (“Come on, Alain! I swear it�
�s true! Do as I tell you.”)

  I pondered Michelle’s words and decided that what she was telling me had to be utter nonsense. Brenda had plenty of dolls, and I was reasonably sure that was not how she had come by them. Indeed, all this debate had cooled my original excitement and had brought our initial fooling around to a stop. This kind of play never lasted long for fear that our prolonged absence from the outside world would arouse suspicions. The possibility of my being caught in Michelle’s presence this afternoon was small. Nevertheless, I now found myself in a state of acute anxiety. The absurdity of her proposition was all I needed to convince me that our play had lasted long enough, and I made a move to put on my shorts and leave.

  Michelle wasn’t taking no for an answer. When I refused her advances, she suddenly turned rough, wrestling me down in the hay, straddling me, grabbing one of my fingers and bending it backward in an effort to force me into doing her wishes. Her sudden and unexpected aggressiveness sent a wave of panic through me and gave me the strength I needed to push her off and wriggle free. I grabbed my clothes and tumbled off the hay pile. I made my escape without further incident, vastly relieved that I hadn’t been seen with her. On the walk home, I marveled at how the long-promised age of reason finally had a firm hold on me.

  This incident inoculated me against wanting anything further to do with Michelle. From then on, I had no qualms about greeting her cheerfully and turning down her repeated invitations whenever we crossed paths. But these smug encounters always caused a pang of sadness, for I had always liked Michelle and her mother. I also thought wistfully of the good times we had spent together two years earlier and of the magical rides on Lili she had made possible.

  Brenda’s and my life now more closely resembled the way it had been during the two summers when we had rented villas in Hardelot. Once again, we frequently spent whole days at the beach. Much of our activities centered on our bikes, which we parked in our beach cabin every night or at noon, before one of our mothers picked us up and drove us home for lunch. There was no good bike riding to be had in Condette.