Sirocco Page 7

  Nanna, age 12, in back garden lavender, 1954.

  Communion Solennelle

  By First Communion day, my earlobes had healed, and while I admired the reflection of the earrings sparkling on each side of my face, I glared at the dress waiting for me on a hanger.

  For years and years, I had marveled at the girl communicants in their bride-like fluffy white gowns and veils, dreaming of when it would be my turn to look like the doll on top of a wedding cake. I had it all planned. My gloved hands would smooth back the veil—floating in the spring breeze like a wisp of cloud and held into place by a crown of pristine flowers. The dainty white suede shoes would crunch over the graveled church square while bells called for the two rows of boys and girls to pass the church portals. Each of us would hold a tall candle adorned with a white bow, while the choir sang hymns and the smell of incense heralded our walk down the aisle.

  I cast a resentful eye at the habit I was to wear. The dream of many years shredded faster than a wisp of cloud in a storm. The only feature this dress held in common with that of my dreams was the color. Adieu, fluff, adieu, veil—only a nun-like white tunic, complete with wide pleats from shoulders to hem, long, wide sleeves, and a rope tied at the waist. Yuck.

  Most horrid of all was the skullcap that made my head look like a snow-capped Kilimanjaro.

  There was a reason for this new austerity: at the ten o’clock Sunday mass, Le Père Attar had announced that, from then on, the Communion Solennelle would return to the true significance of the ceremony—“the renewal of the baptismal profession of faith, instead of an occasion to coddle girls’ vanity and stretch their parents’ wallets.” He believed the alb, cross, and candle, symbolizing the virginal aspects of Baptism, were de rigueur.

  “But, Papa, not everybody is obliged to wear the alb.”

  “Get out of here; I don’t have time for your crap.”

  “Si, Papa. Le Père said it was up to each family to decide how much money they wanted to spend on their daughter’s communion. He said that, for this year only, people can choose if they want to dress the new way OR the old way and that the church is going to rent out the albs at a low price and he hopes that everyone will make the right choice.”

  Papa frowned. “Does he think I cannot afford to buy a dress for ma fille?”

  I looked at him with brows arched, arms half stretched in front of me, palms open heavenward, shoulders raised—hoping to convey with my body language, “What can I say?”

  Papa’s eyes flashed green and mean. “I’ll talk to Attar.”

  YES! Sparks would fly and Papa was going to win this one for me.

  Everyone knew that Papa and le Père could not be in shouting distance of each other without getting into a semantic crusade. They both clearly enjoyed their clashes over widely conflicting interpretations of the Bible, but their antagonism was robust.

  Waiting for the inevitable result of the collision between Papa and Père Attar, I prepared for the choices I would soon be facing.

  Did I want a satin or lace dress? With a lace dress, obviously a lace veil would not do. Hm, I am not sure—I’ll ask Yvette.

  Tonton Gilles’ wife was a dressmaker and had offered to make my Communion dress and veil.

  Perhaps I could have Maman convince Papa to let me wear shoes with a small heel, instead of my usual flats. Of course, my being not yet twelve, the heels would have to be really tiny-little-bitty to get a nod from Papa. I crossed my fingers.

  We’d also have to get a pair of these dainty, embroidered, flimsy gloves with ribbons at the wrist—my Sunday mass mesh cotton ones would definitely not do.

  I rolled my eyes upward for inspiration. Did I want a flower crown to hold the veil in place, instead of pearl hatpins? If so, should the flowers be fresh or silk? Nah, silk flowers were more glamorous.

  For several wrenching days, I waited in silence for Papa’s verdict.

  “For once,” he said, “I agree with Attar. Families who have a problem making ends meet should not feel they have to keep up with the Durands. Those of us who don’t fit this profile should set the example. And I shall.”

  “That means I’ll wear the alb?”

  “Oui.”

  Apparently, le Père Attar—tricky soul—had convinced Papa that, as a comfortable member of the parish—Liar!—it was his duty to spare the pride of the less affluent and set an example by having me wear the alb.

  And that was that.

  One for le Père Attar, ZERO for Pa, and the Alb for me.

  Chapter Eight

  Mireille and the Swing

  One summer day following my communion, Maman joined Papa at his cemetery office to help with the accounting books. Riri and Yves went fishing at la Rivière des Chiens with Pépé Honninger. That left Zizou, Mireille and moi to wash the lunch dishes and gather the laundry from the line in the backyard.

  Zizou and I left Mireille to finish drying the dishes and ran out the front door. We galloped down the stairs, skipped around the corner of the house, and rushed up the three steps leading to the backyard. The laundry shack stood close to the fence separating our property from that of our Arab neighbor. Next to it was the enclosed woodshed and next to that, the farmyard.

  The laundry shack’s wash waters, suds and all, drained into a dense cluster of tall bamboo, wet haven to a colony of frogs that fed off mosquito larvae among the mud puddles. All would have been well if frogs had been the head-honchos on the food chain. Alas, Mother Nature designed snakes that found a heavenly food supply amid the copse teeming with batrachians.

  Careful not to encroach on the reptiles’ territory, Zizou and I ended our race at the top of the three steps, beneath the grapevine arbor. In its dappled shade, bumblebees hummed among the grapes. Sparrows chirped in the mulberry tree. Sheltered from the broiling sun, they gorged on the grainy fruits swollen with sticky juice the color of Cabernet.

  Next to the steps, the empty wicker basket waited for the collection of dry laundry. It was a spacious, oblong basket with a handle at each end. In the relative coolness of the arbor’s shade, the woven reeds had achieved that burnished honey color bestowed by time.

  Beneath splashes of sun dancing through the stirring grape leaves, the amber reeds appeared to throb—in the same languid way butterflies shift their wings as they flirt with flowers.

  It seemed to say, “Doesn’t it feel cool and peaceful, here?”

  Inebriated by the magic of the moment, Zizou exclaimed, “Letttt’s build a ssswing.”

  She meant a swing like the one we sometimes hung from the bower at the front of the house. The rope was somewhere, probably in a corner of the woodshed. We would tie it to the pipe of the arbor and use a small wooden plank to keep the looped rope open and serve as a seat.

  “Do you know where the plank is?” I asked.

  “The last time—hmm.” Zizou twisted her mouth to one side of her face and the tip of her nose to the other side. “The last time we used it was ….” Her eyes rolled upward, searching. “It was …. when we found the turtle. Remember?”

  I remembered. We had used the board as part of an enclosure we built to hold the turtle, at the foot of the laurel tree. I giggled. “It dug a tunnel underneath and disappeared.”

  I marched to the laurel tree and brought the plank back. Then I bent down beneath the arbor, hands wrapped around my ankles. Zizou climbed on top of my back, rope in hand.

  On tiptoe, she reached up, tied each end of the rope to a pipe, and stepped down. I balanced the plank horizontally on the resulting loop, and Zizou centered the basket perpendicular to the plank. “Et voilà,” she said.

  Satisfied, we sat on the steps with a sigh. I leaned back on my elbows, looking up at the swarms of insects. Some dashed from hanging grapes to mulberries rotting on the ground; others fluttered in a drunken whirl.

  After a moment of silent swatting, I said, “Vas-y, Zizou, get in the basket.”

  “Non, non, non.” she replied. “You have the right of pri-mo-geni-ture. Yo
u go first.”

  Such a big word from someone who did not read much made me snort. “Yaa, Zizou. Where did you learn that word?”

  She peered at me with contempt. “In history class. Last week. Go.”

  No way am I going. “Well, why build a swing if nobody swings in it?”

  The wheels of our combined minds ground hard. One could smell the smolder of evil at work. We grinned as we both said, “Mireille!”

  Sensing Satan had elected to dwell among us, a duck in the poultry yard quacked and pecked at another’s head. The old rooster flapped its iridescent red and purple wings, blood-gorged cockscomb wagging as it chased the white pullet that had not yet laid her first egg.

  Meanwhile, unlike Jason of the Golden Fleece who avoided falling prey to the Sirens, Mireille answered our honeyed calls. “What?”

  “Mimi, look at what we made for you.”

  Our eight-year-old sister circled the swing and appraised the balanced basket and board with a frown. “This looks a little wobbly to me.”

  Possibly recalling another of her school classes, Zizou explained, “Oh, but you have to understand that it is all a matter of balance and weight. You stay balanced in the middle of the basket and your weight keeps the basket on the board.”

  Brilliant. I added, “Besides, when the swing begins to sway, it will be as if everything is glued together. It’s like when you spin a bucket full of water around and around, the water stays in the bucket. Pure physics.”

  Mireille shook her head with a little moue of disgust. “Well then, why don’t YOU do it?”

  The age-old explanation came in unison. “Because.”

  “Because what?”

  In the hush, we could hear the rustle of a snake searching for frogs among the bamboo.

  “Because … I get seasick.”

  “That’s when you ride in the car. What about you, Zizou? You never get seasick.”

  Coming up dry, Zizou cajoled, “Come on, you are not a sissy, are you?”

  Mireille picked up a mulberry from the ground, took a few steps, and dropped it through the chicken wire for the hens to fight over.

  Piqued by Mireille’s carefree manner, Zizou tried a new tack. “If you don’t do it, you’ll be sorry.”

  Mireille turned around, raising a defiant chin. “Sorry how?”

  Obviously without a clue of how, Zizou said, “You’ll see.”

  Mireille picked up another mulberry.

  I waved a hand and blew, “Pfftt, never mind.” Turning around, I started down the steps and said, “Come on, Zizou.”

  Mireille cried out “All right, I’ll do it.” Then she quickly countered, “I’ll do it, but I want some Caca de Pigeon.”

  Now, Caca de Pigeon, or pigeon’s poo, is a paste-like candy made, mostly, of ground nuts and honey. Its unscientific name—if one knows about pigeons and stuff—is descriptive of its consistency and the variegated colors of light green swirled with sick brown and some hot pink in-between.

  We were crazy about the Caca and never seemed to have enough private funds to satisfy our craving for it.

  Zizou singsonged, “All right, but it will have to be a little bit of Caca.”

  “No, I want a big bit.”

  I was not only older, but also more rational. “Listen, Mimi, all we have is one five-franc coin, so make up your mind.”

  Pocket money was rare. Mireille must have decided that five francs worth of Caca was better than no Caca at all.

  She agreed to climb into the basket and we told her to sit in the full center “at all times. Do not move by even un millimètre,” we warned.

  She nodded and grasped the ropes. Zizou gave a guarded push. The swing moved gingerly forward, came back, and twisted slightly on itself as it bypassed its plumb line. The second, third, and forth push were bolder. The swing settled in a smooth pendulum mode. As the pushing became bolder, the swing went higher.

  At the apogee of the eighth thrust, Mireille moved her torso forward. The board seesawed. The basket pitched. Mireille took off. Zizou and I screamed, “Mimi!” as she landed head first in the middle of the steps.

  In the ensuing consternation, bees buzzed, birds chirped. Atop the woodshed, pigeons cooed. Within the little mud-shack school nearby, Arab boys droned verses of the Qur’an. Down the street, a sonorous donkey brayed.

  Meanwhile, sprawled in the middle of the steps, Mireille bawled.

  We sprinted to her side and while we helped her up, Zizou yelled, “Why did you move?”

  I asked, “Are you okay, Mimi?”

  “Oui. But my head hurts.”

  Her forehead was developing a terrific off-center welt, just below the hairline.

  What to do? I recalled, from reading our old wives’ remedy book, that pressure applied to a burgeoning swell prevented blood from accumulating and that a coin would do the job.

  “Zizou, get the five-franc coin.”

  She ran to the house.

  “And bring my blue scarf too.”

  Back in no time, Zizou held the large coin over the growing lump while I secured it with tight loops of my scarf. Mireille squirmed.

  After a final knot, I asked, “Do you feel better now, Mimi?”

  She hesitated, then she whined, “Non, it hurts. Oh, it hurts!”

  “Let’s be patient, just wait.”

  “Oh, non, non, non, it hurts too much.”

  “Now, stop that.”

  “Take it off. TAKE IT OFF.”

  I could tell that, for once, she was not faking and quickly unwound the scarf. The coin did not fall—the flesh had puckered, holding it like a beveled cabochon.

  My gnawing sense of guilt morphed into cold, analytical curiosity. The kind that urges you to pull the wings off a grasshopper, blow on the silk of milkweeds, or pour water down an ant hole—just to see what happens next.

  In this instance, we set out to separate our sister from her currency. Zizou held Mireille’s head. I inserted a cautious fingernail behind the edge of the coin and flicked it. It came loose with a sigh and fell to the ground, twirled on its rim, and came to rest at our feet, tails up.

  Mireille moaned and covered her wound with a cupped palm. Zizou brushed it aside to have a look. One glance and Zizou and I fell into a laughing fit, eyes watering, bellies aching.

  Mireille whined, “You always make fun of me.”

  We helped her to the house and cooed. “Là, là, ma petite chérie.”

  Wary about what so much tenderness on our part meant, she shrugged us away. However, once she looked into the mirror we held for her, she giggled along with us. The coin had left a perfect intaglio. A faultless negative replica of the chiseled face of Marianne, symbol of the French Republic.

  Soon after, we all went across the street to Saïd’s grocery store and bought five francs worth of Caca de Pigeon. Back at the house, Zizou and I sat on the front door stoop next to Mireille and, elbows on knees and cheeks in hands, watched her eat her Caca.

  Even though the candy had been carved from a mound used as a landing pad by myriads of flies, Zizou and I still hoped to get a taste.

  Alas, not even a speck fell from Mireille’s lips.

  So Zizou and I returned to the backyard, collected the laundry from the line, and brought it home in the basket. While we folded the bed sheets, Zizou batted her eyelashes. “Mimi, what will you tell Papa?”

  Eyes downcast, Mireille licked her fingers.

  I pressed, “What are you going to tell him about the swing?”

  Both the sweet taste of Caca and that of our barely-disguised shameless begging seemed revenge enough. “I will tell him I ran and fell down the stairs.”

  The sigh of relief had not yet expired upon our lips that she added, “If … you do my chores for ten days.”

  During the next few days, Papa gave the impression he had swallowed Mireille’s accidental fall version, but he couldn’t control the dubious spark in his eyes as he watched the three of us on the sly. Then one afternoon, home early from wo
rk, he exploded. “What’s going on here?”

  “What d’you mean, Pa?” Mireille asked, poker-faced.

  “When did you start doing each other’s chores?”

  The three of us exchanged swift glances. Zizou’s hazelnut irises lit up like embers behind the woodstove’s mica window in winter, and her long, curly black lashes fluttered. “Well, Papa, as Mireille has un souffle au coeur—you know—Nanna and I decided it would be lovely to give her a hand.”

  Chapter Nine

  Papa measured each of us with narrowed eyes and, obviously unhappy with Zizou’s explanation, marched to his bedroom, shaking his head. The three of us watched him reach for his wallet on top of the chest of drawers and come back to the kitchen, where Maman prepared the evening meal. He announced, “Lili, I’m going to La Guinguette.”

  “How long will you be, chéri?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll be back when I’m back.”

  We trailed him out the door and watched as he lit a cigarette, pulled on it, sauntered down the stairs, and walked across the front yard, into the street, all the way up to La Guinguette.

  We returned to the kitchen. Maman stood at the sink, her back to us, a dishtowel straddling her shoulder. “Ma, do you want us to do something?”

  Still facing the sink, she brought the corner of the towel to her eyes and said in a squeaky voice, “You could peel the potatoes I set on the table.”

  We peeled for a while, eyes willfully lowered to the task, avoiding Maman’s tears of hurt feelings, breaking the silence only when we were through. “Can we play hopscotch until we eat, Ma?”

  She dropped an extra log into the cook stove, her face reflecting the coals’ red glow. “Go ahead. I’ll let you know when it is time to eat.”

  Time to eat was a widely flexible concept at our house. It meant “wait for Papa to come home from work or back from La Guinguette.” This anti-schedule applied, mostly, to every evening and Sunday lunches.