at home, I came across a book called Madame Bovary, and though it had neither swordfights nor sewers, I liked it best of all. It had a special realness that made it possible to taste the food the people ate, to feel with their fingers the wallpaper and the bark of trees, and to smell with their nostrils the morning steam rising from rivers. In spite of Emma Bovaryâs incomprehensible mania for clothes and sweethearts, in spite of her terrible death, the book possessed something which only in later life did I crystallize as beauty. When I finished the last page, I started all over again.
Then something entirely unexpected happened. A six-week Red Cross swimming program for children began.
Three times a week we piled into a yellow school bus, whizzing past the ex-Jap walnut and pear orchards, past dry fields and big oaks, into dusty foothills, and then we were bouncing along a dirt road with the dust rising behind us, and Mitchell Canyon pool burst into sight, green and sparkling. The bus windows were open, and we could already smell the chlorine, and we were pushing to the door with our rolled-up towels before the bus had stopped.
For three hours we were immersed. Only occasionally did I slosh onto the wet burning cement to catch my breath as feet pounded by and screams and splashes filled the air; then I would scramble to my feet and dive back in with a whoosh of engulfing deafness, my eyes drawn to slits by the waterâs rush. Smooth and soundless as a fish, I swam deep inside the green-blue world, and if I looked up, I saw among the blurred, moving bodies, the sunâs blaze of silver across the surface, with pale coins of light dappling down.
Blue-lipped, fingers like white raisins, we bought licorice sticks afterward at the refreshment stand and piled back into the stifling bus, where through the dust and jolting we sang:
                   Thereâs a place in France
                   Where the naked women dance,
                   And the men go around
                   With their trousers hanging down
which ended in bursts of knowing laughter and an unfavorable look from the driver, a tough-faced lady with gray curls under a battered sun visor.
When we passed the San Ramon cutoff, I felt a wave of melancholy, remembering Ezio and Mario. And when we reached the outskirts of Mendoza, I gave thanks that it had not been bombed in our absence. Yet, with a sunburned elbow out the window and licorice sweet in my teeth, I could not find it in my happiness to linger over these things.
By the time the program was over my hair was chlorinated a rich green hue. âSort of off-viridian,â mused Karla, who knew colors. I didnât mind. It was my badge and my memory. Plug-earred and sodden, I was content to return to my books. I remained happy.
One afternoon this happiness overcame me. I was in the backyard, doing nothing. All at once I felt my heart expand, and I swung my eyes blissfully through the yard, and I knewânot with crossed fingers, but with a clap of certaintyâthat nine long months had passed and we would never be bombed. I flopped down on the ground with a stunned smile and sat there with no thoughts at all, except that later on, when the shade from the house had crept across the yard, Mama and Karla would come out with a pitcher of lemonade, and we would sit at the old card table, whose top would still be brick warm from the sun.
And then a strange picture came to me. That potato-digging family lying dead in a Polish field, they must have lived in a house and sat in their yard at an old table drinking lemonade or whatever you would drink in Poland. The children must have spread their hands on the warm tabletop, and it must have felt real to them;
Then something entirely unexpected happened. A six-week Red Cross swimming program for children began.
Three times a week we piled into a yellow school bus, whizzing past the ex-Jap walnut and pear orchards, past dry fields and big oaks, into dusty foothills, and then we were bouncing along a dirt road with the dust rising behind us, and Mitchell Canyon pool burst into sight, green and sparkling. The bus windows were open, and we could already smell the chlorine, and we were pushing to the door with our rolled-up towels before the bus had stopped.
For three hours we were immersed. Only occasionally did I slosh onto the wet burning cement to catch my breath as feet pounded by and screams and splashes filled the air; then I would scramble to my feet and dive back in with a whoosh of engulfing deafness, my eyes drawn to slits by the waterâs rush. Smooth and soundless as a fish, I swam deep inside the green-blue world, and if I looked up, I saw among the blurred, moving bodies, the sunâs blaze of silver across the surface, with pale coins of light dappling down.
Blue-lipped, fingers like white raisins, we bought licorice sticks afterward at the refreshment stand and piled back into the stifling bus, where through the dust and jolting we sang:
                   Thereâs a place in France
                   Where the naked women dance,
                   And the men go around
                   With their trousers hanging down
which ended in bursts of knowing laughter and an unfavorable look from the driver, a tough-faced lady with gray curls under a battered sun visor.
When we passed the San Ramon cutoff, I felt a wave of melancholy, remembering Ezio and Mario. And when we reached the outskirts of Mendoza, I gave thanks that it had not been bombed in our absence. Yet, with a sunburned elbow out the window and licorice sweet in my teeth, I could not find it in my happiness to linger over these things.
By the time the program was over my hair was chlorinated a rich green hue. âSort of off-viridian,â mused Karla, who knew colors. I didnât mind. It was my badge and my memory. Plug-earred and sodden, I was content to return to my books. I remained happy.
One afternoon this happiness overcame me. I was in the backyard, doing nothing. All at once I felt my heart expand, and I swung my eyes blissfully through the yard, and I knewânot with crossed fingers, but with a clap of certaintyâthat nine long months had passed and we would never be bombed. I flopped down on the ground with a stunned smile and sat there with no thoughts at all, except that later on, when the shade from the house had crept across the yard, Mama and Karla would come out with a pitcher of lemonade, and we would sit at the old card table, whose top would still be brick warm from the sun.
And then a strange picture came to me. That potato-digging family lying dead in a Polish field, they must have lived in a house and sat in their yard at an old table drinking lemonade or whatever you would drink in Poland. The children must have spread their hands on the warm tabletop, and it must have felt real to them;
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