Pop had come very unwillingly to St. Antonin, and as soon as he got there he tried to leave again. The streets were too dirty. They disgusted him. But Bonnemaman refused to move until the full month, or whatever time they had planned to stay, had passed.
However, one of the official family acts that took place during this time was an excursion to Montauban, and the inspection of the Lycee to which I was to be sent in the fall.
I supposed those brick cloisters looked innocent enough in the afternoon sun of late August, when they were empty of the fiends in black smocks who were to fill them in late September. I was to get my fill of bitterness in those buildings, in due time.
Pop and Bonnemaman and John Paul and all the luggage left on the express for Paris as August came to an end. Then, in the first week of September, came the patronal feast of Saint Antonin, with torchlight processions, and everybody dancing the polka and the schottische under the Japanese lanterns on the esplanade. There were many other attractions and excitements, including a certain fanciful novelty in shooting galleries. At one end of town, there was a pigeon tied by the leg to the top of a tree, and everybody blasted at it with a shotgun until it was dead. At the other end of town, by the river bank, men were shooting at a chicken which was tied to a floating box, moored out in the center of the stream.
For my own part, I entered a great competition with most of the boys and youths of the town, in which we all jumped into the river and swam after a duck that was thrown off the bridge. It was finally caught by a respectable fellow called Georges who was studying to be a school-teacher at the normal school in Montauban.
At this time, too, being eleven and a half years old, I feel in love with a mousy little girl with blonde locks called Henriette. It was a rather desultory affair. She went home and told her parents that the son of the Englishman was in love with her, and her mother clapped her hand and their household rang with alleluias on that day. The next time I saw her she was very friendly, and during one of the dances, with a kind of official artfulness, she allowed me to chase her 'round and 'round a tree.
First loves stick with you. Obviously, Merton's first love stayed with him. A mousy little girl with blonde locks who let Merton chase her around and around a tree. I suppose that is the eleven-year-old equivalent of courtship. Merton doesn't really say if he ever caught his mousy little love.
My first love was in second grade. Her name was Maria. She was olive-skinned and beautiful. I would like to say that I was brave enough to declare my undying devotion to her one day at recess, and that she threw her arms around my neck and whispered in my ear, "Ti amo. I have a Twinkie for lunch." That didn't happen.
Instead, I worshiped her from afar. Across the room, I watched her sharpen her crayons and chew on her fingernails. I swooned, but I didn't get to chase her 'round and 'round a tree.
One night, I was in a grocery store with my mother. She was waiting to check out, and I discovered a display of different cigarettes. Every time someone took a pack of cigarettes out of the display, a bell rang. I was bored, so I made of game of it. I would touch a pack of cigs. The bell would ring, and I would run like hell. I did this over and over and over.
One time, as I reached to touch a pack of Marlboros, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around.
There was Maria standing next to her father. Her father started talking to me, pointing at the cigarette display. He spoke with a thick Italian accent. I could barely understand him, but I knew what a stern lecture sounded like. That's exactly what I was getting as Maria stood by, watching every second of my humiliation.
Eventually, Maria's dad let me escape, and I skulked away, looking for my mother. I never spoke to Maria again. In fact, I avoided being close to her. I practiced social distancing, before it was a thing.
That's the way most first loves end, in humiliation and confusion. I think Maria moved away at the end of the year.
Saint Marty never saw his first love again.
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