My father brought my brother with him to Le Havre to collect me. I was traveling on the SS Rotterdam. The ocean-liner was still the trans-Atlantic standard among French people in the late s.
With me was the new American exchange student from Weston, who would be spending the year in our town. Since he had not seen me for a whole year, I expected my father, who always wore his heart on his face, would embarrass me, bounding up the gangway for the first hug and kiss. But when I spied the diminutive Frenchman in his familiar beretβyes, a beret, can you believe it? I knew what he had in mind: not a market-size sack but one of the big, pound burlap affairs that are delivered to grocery stores and restaurants!
Fortunately the girl from Weston spoke little French, else she would have had a troubling first impression of French family life. At age nineteen I could not have imagined anything more hurtful, and to this day the sting has not been topped. But my father was not being mean.
The devastating welcome sprung more than anything from his having been caught off guard. Still, it was more than I could take. I was at once sad, furious, vexed and helpless. At the time I could not even measure the impact. On our way home to eastern France we stopped in Paris for a few days, just to show my friend from Weston the City of Light, but my inexorable grumpiness made everyone eager to hit the road again.
I ruined Paris for all of us. I was a mess. The coming months were bitter and awkward. She treaded lightly, avoiding the unavoidable topic, perhaps particularly because I had soon given her something more dire to worry about.
