“We need a miracle,” she said over and over. I went to her and wrapped my arms around her legs.
* * *
IN THE COMING DAYS, our ship passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, the waters now deepening to tones of blue, circled by the rocky shorelines of Spain and Morocco, giving us our first sight of land since leaving New York. After more than a week on board the ship, we pulled in to the port at Cannes, its bright white buildings topped with their rust-red roofs, the skies as bright as the ocean below. My mother explained that Cannes was about an hour’s train ride from Monaco. Grace was traveling on official business, so we might not see her right away. Again, I worried about meeting Aunt Grace in my little blouse and skirt.
My mother had studied French in high school, and she managed to find and negotiate the rent on a small garret studio in a seventh-floor walk-up on a narrow street not far from the Croisette, the main road that ran alongside the water. I remember the view of red rooftops stretching out to the ocean. The apartment was old, with pale-colored walls and floral-print bedspreads. It had no kitchen and no heat. Mornings, we went out to one of the little cafés on the Rue d’Antibes for breakfast. My mother would order drinks and food for us; my favorites were the crepes drizzled with chocolate. After we finished eating, it was my job to count out the money to pay for our check. L’addition, my mother called it. I loved separating out the shiny francs and centimes into stacks, then putting the correct change in the waiter’s little silver tray.
I remember one morning after breakfast, my mother praised me on my ability to count out the francs and centimes. The memory stands out because she rarely complimented me in this way. I think she was usually too worried about me to notice when I learned something new. It was only years later, when I became a parent myself, that I realized how much children need to be encouraged and coaxed to try new things, and how little of this kind of support I received as a child. The expectation from my mother was that I would never succeed at anything because I wasn’t strong enough. I was so fearful of the world as a result, such a quiet, solemn child. But I remember actually skipping across the street to go back to our little garret that day. I was filled with pride and happiness because my mother had told me I’d done a good job.
* * *
EACH MORNING, after breakfast, our mother smoothed down her hair and, wearing her nicest blouse and skirt, went off to find work. She barely spoke any French, she didn’t have papers, and although she had worked in a department store after high school, her only real work experience was as a model. Perhaps she tried the stores along the Croisette that catered to tourists, thinking that her English might be an advantage there, or maybe she thought she could find work as a waitress. Robin also tried to look for work, but without knowing any French at all, the task couldn’t have been easy.
In the afternoons, Robin and I went down to the narrow beach, with its blue-and-white-striped umbrellas, and although I didn’t have a bathing suit, I would sit on the warm sand as Robin basked in the sun in her bikini. Then I’d walk down to the water to dip my toes, always trying not to stare at the women sunbathers with their bare breasts. I had never seen anything like it! My sister explained that was just what you did in France. In the evenings, Robin went out dancing at the local nightclubs, and I lay awake, worrying that something had happened to her. She always returned, but often not till dawn.
After only a week in France, money was already running low. My mother called my father, but he refused to send us funds. We had spent almost all our money on the room in the garret, and Grace was still away. My mother decided it was time to go to Lourdes. She bought us second-class train tickets, and early the next morning we boarded our train bound for southwest France. We watched as the sun rose over the ocean, revealing village after village all along the rocky coastline of the Côte d’Azur. Soon we were barreling through tunnels and valleys, the ocean behind us now, a new, greener landscape ahead.
Lourdes had always held a special place in my mother’s heart. Her favorite film was The Song of Bernadette, about the life of the nineteenth-century saint Bernadette Soubirous. Whenever The Song of Bernadette played on television, we watched the movie together, sitting close to each other in our den. The film starred Jennifer Jones, one of my mother’s favorite actresses, and it told the story of Bernadette, a young peasant girl living in Lourdes more than a hundred years ago. One day, Bernadette was collecting firewood in the caves near her home when she saw a vision of a beautiful lady dressed all in white and wearing a white rosary. When Bernadette went back to the caves again, the beautiful lady spoke to her. The lady explained that she was the Virgin Mary and she asked Bernadette to build a chapel there on top of the caves. On the next visit, the lady asked Bernadette to dig in the ground and drink from the spring there. Soon a stream was flowing from the cave, and although the water was muddy at first, it soon cleared. Water from the stream was given to the sick, and those people were miraculously cured.
But not everyone believed in Bernadette’s visions, and people began saying she was insane. The Church launched an investigation, and Bernadette was called in front of a tribunal. Eventually, the local bishop declared that “the Virgin Mary did appear
