Shhh by Raymond Federman

de vacances organized by the city of Montrouge for the children of poor families. But it was ...

Federman, why don’t you ever say how old you were when you tell one of these stories of your childhood. You say, I was still a small boy, I was little, or I was older and bigger, but you never give the exact age. It’s confusing.
    The reason I don’t tell how old I was is because it’s impossible for me to remember exactly. I am trying to tell thirteen years of my life. Thirteen years of confusion and obliviousness. So I cannot organize chronologically with precise references the age I was.
    From time to time, I do give a date. And since you know when I was born, it’s up to you to calculate.
    OK, this is how I became a member of L’Amicale de Natation.

The day I got my bathing suit I went to the swimming pool with Bébert, and that day I almost drowned. This is what happened.
    At the swimming pool there were cabins in which to undress. So I took off my clothes, folded them neatly, and put on my bathing suit. I was a bit ashamed to come out of the cabin because my body was so white and skinny. The boys who were swimming in the pool were all suntanned. It was summer. Timidly, I approached the edge of the pool and watched how people were swimming. It looked like it was easy to stay on the surface of the water by slapping it with your arms and legs. While I was watching, two big boys approached me and started shoving me around.
    I had forgotten to take off my socks. I hadn’t realized. The two boys kept laughing and pushing me and suddenly I fell into the pool. In the deep end. Since I had never been in the water before I didn’t know what to do. My arms were flailing about, but I was sinking. I had water in my mouth, in my nose. I panicked. When the life-guard saw that I was drowning, he jumped in and pulled me out. He stretched me on the side of the pool, and made me breathe by pressing on my chest. I was trembling. All the boys were standing around me, some of them still laughing because I still had my socks on, which were all wet now. Finally I was able to stand up. I was so ashamed, but I didn’t cry.
    When Bébert saw what had happened he came to get me and explained that when you don’t know how to swim you have to stay in the shallow end of the pool. I was afraid to go in, but when I saw how he was able to stand up, and the water reached only to his waist, I climbed down the ladder on the side of the pool, and slowly entered the water. I stayed close to the edge, holding on to it. It felt good to be in the water. But I didn’t dare duck my head down like Bébert was doing.
    After that, every Thursday Bébert and I went to the swimming pool. Little by little we both became more daring. We imitated how the other boys who could swim were moving their arms and legs, but we did it only in the shallow end and not far from the edge. After a while we were able to stay on the surface of the water without having our feet touch the bottom of the pool.
    One day a man who was there every Thursday showed us how to move our arms and legs to do the breaststroke. Soon Bébert and I were able to swim across the narrow side of the pool.
    The man who was teaching us was the coach of L’Amicale de Natation, and one day he told us that we could join his club for free and be part of the team that competed against other swimming clubs. The man explained that he went from pool to pool to recruit young swimmers. He told us that by looking at the bodies of young people he could determine if they could become good swimmers.
    I wonder how he could determine that I could become a swimmer, me who was so skinny then, and undernourished, me whose knees knocked together when I walked, whose ribs were showing through my skin. And yet, I did become a good swimmer, specializing in the backstroke, and almost made the 1948 US Olympic Team, as I mentioned before.
    My mother was pleased that I went swimming