The Day When our School Closed

As I was playing with my grandchildren recently, a memory of childhood and my school years came to mind.  It was the day when our principal told us:

“As of today our school is closed.”  Everyone, including the primary and secondary school teachers, was present, dressed in their best Sunday suits, as if it were an exam day.  We were all gathered and lined up in the covered playground.  There was total and complete silence.  The music teacher came forward, the expression on his face revealing a profound sadness.  He said in a sweet and low voice:

"Children, let us sing the `Marseillaise'."  I really felt he had a hard time keeping up with us; it was difficult for him to hide his emotion.  Then the principal came over to us, we were struck by the paleness of his face. With slow movements and in a moving silence his eyes ran from one end of the playground to the other, photographing the scene in his mind and making a final picture of us all.  With obvious pain he uttered the following words:

"Children of France!  Our country is at war.  The Germans have just landed in Tunisia.  The school is closed."

He stood there motionless; unable to say anything else, he gestured with his hand for us to go home.  But no one budged.  We left the lines very slowly.  It was hard for us to understand the real meaning of the situation.  Never before had our school seemed so dear to us. Suddenly we loved it as we had never loved it before.  My eyes wandered over and embraced the whole building as if to say goodbye to it, but at the last minute I walked back to my classroom, where I could read these few lines left over on the blackboard.

"We are the children of Béja       
A humble city of our great France
And we have already understood
That love......" Then, further on,
"Let us walk with pride and joy,
Let us live in happiness
Let us live for France,
Land of immortality."
I read over and over that last line which to me symbolized the greatness of France.  Then I went out to join my schoolmates.  We smiled at each other as if to gain confidence and courage.  I was far from realizing that the glance, our teacher,  Mr. Vilmai had given me, was to be the last one.  He was drafted and died a few months later.

Rumors said, the British were coming, others said that they were Germans.  We were poorly informed and their names were only known to us through history books.  At the thought of war, a feeling of mistrust came over us.  We were unclear about the future.  Germans and British were disturbing our childhood and our peaceful life.  A few days later, early in the morning, little men holding on to colorful balloons came down from the sky.  The sky had become clouded with them.  They were British parachutists. 

“Brand new men sent by God, said one French boy, “

“No!” said an Arab student, “our prophet sent them to us”

“No!” answered Nicholas, “they are angels”.  Both were wrong.  They were neither angels nor messengers of God.

”They are the vanguard of the allies; better to see the British than the Germans," said our elders.  We, the little ones, did not have any opinion.  All of this was disturbing to us.  We did not have the least desire to welcome anyone, and even less soldiers.  The sky was downcast and menacing; the air was losing its purity.  A warlike spirit deriving from the earlier times of the Carthaginians, the Numidians and the Romans pervaded the atmosphere with a repulsive smell which stifled the velvety perfume of lilacs and jasmine.

This feeling was suddenly interrupted by the news so feared by our grown‑ups.  The Germans had just reached Tunis; they were already holding all the cities along the coast.  The grown‑ups were sad and so was I.  I was musing, remembering the beautiful summer days, the games on the warm sand, the waves stroking the young and beautiful girls lying by the sea, the evenings on the beaches washed by the cool breezes of the Mediterranean soothing our sun burnt bodies.  I was recalling the merchants of "bonbolonis" (a type of donut) coming out of nowhere at this time of day when the sun sinks below the horizon.  The ruins of Carthage would appear in the background and that was the sign for the ending of the day.
Suddenly we heard a terrible sound!  Seventeen airplanes were flying over the city; we had never seen so many at once.  One of them headed for the town, dropped a black object and flew up again.  A terrifying sound burst out.  I fainted.