She was so pretty I asked God for a favor but was not certain I had the right to ask for it at my age. We were both in our early teens though she may have been older than me by a few months, and according to Catholic teaching, flirting at this age was frowned upon if not forbidden altogether. Still, I prayed to God that if she became my friend I would go to the church that was adjacent to the school and pray every morning before going to class.
We lived in Djibouti, then a French colony now a city state at the Horn of Africa where foreigners came, stayed for a while and left. Consequently we had no time to forge long lasting friendships with each other but some people handled the breakup better than others. The pain was felt to some degree by the very young but their parents were always here to shower them with love and ease the pain, so the children adapted to the new situation in no time at all. As for the adults, they anticipated the breakup and had control over their own lives anyway, so they did not suffer much. Those who felt the sting of the breakup more than anyone were the tweens, as they are called today; those who were my age and Claire’s age, the girl I asked God to help me befriend.
What made things worse was that Claire’s father worked at the self contained military base called Le Heron where her family lived with a limited number of other civilian and military families. This situation made it so that the only time I could see her was at the beach which, thankfully, was frequented by people all year round given that Djibouti is situated near the Equator where it is warm enough to go to the beach and swim in December as readily as you do in July.
Up to that time I had not had the opportunity to speak to Claire but the family was new to Djibouti and being with her parents all the time, I could see that she had no friends; at least not a boy our age. And all I wanted from God was to engineer the opportunity for me to speak to her once after which I was confident we would become good friends.
I was a good swimmer and a diver too. In fact, a few years later, a coach I befriended at the Holiolido club in Heliopolis, Egypt thought I should train continuously to make it on the team that will be going to the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. This was not yet the Summer of 1960 and I was of the right age but it was too late for me to go to the Rome Olympics because I was not ready yet and because the selection of the Egyptian team had been made already by a committee that included my friend the coach.
Little did he or I know that my family will be preparing to go to Canada in 1964 and that I would have other things on my mind than to prepare for the Olympics. And so, when the time came, I said Sayonara to Tokyo and sang Arrivederci Roma. But I am getting ahead of myself so let me get back to Djibouti when I was still a tween and all I could think of was Claire whom I was certain had noticed my swimming and diving prowess.
What was exceptional about her was not her ability to swim or dive but the way she appeared when she went under the water. The picture I retain of her to this day is that of a perfectly sculpted body gliding through the water with blonde hair trailing over her neck and shoulders. The sight was magnificent and rewarding in itself but I wanted more. I wanted the opportunity to speak to her and be friends with her, and damn the reality that we shall have to break up someday as surely as night follows day.
Still, I dreamed of the day I shall speak to her and start a beautiful friendship, and the dream almost came true one evening when, for the first time, I saw Claire in a setting that was not the beach. In fact, it was very late at night, one Silent Night when I saw her as she sat beside her parents in church attending the midnight mass on Christmas Eve 1954.
But nothing happened that evening because there was no opportunity for us to bump into each other. And the coincidence was so ironic as this was the church where I promised God I would come to pray if He granted me my wish. Was He telling me something? Did I ask for the forbidden fruit? Was I supposed to promise I shall not try something naughty? I agonized and I prayed some more.
The beauty about living near the Equator is that on Christmas day when everybody wakes up around noon, it is time to go to the beach again and that’s where I went. Claire was there too with her parents who, on that day, left their Land Rover not out on the street as they always did but on the sand close to the beach which is something that people did when they felt too lazy to walk the few steps.
As I walked along the shore I saw a number of people, Claire among them, appear out of nowhere and frantically wave at me calling me a name I was never called before. They called me "Monsieur! Monsieur!" I looked around to see if there was an older someone standing nearby but I was the only one around. I stopped cold in my tracks wandering what happened to turn this Christmas day into the frantic scene I was witnessing.
They came close enough for Claire to say that her father lost his ring in the water and they wanted me to find it. The trouble was that I did not bring the mask on that day, and without it I could not see clearly under the water. I said to Claire I would have to go home and get the mask, a round trip that will take 15 minutes or so. She said not to worry because she had her mask in the car to which she started running without further ado.
In the meantime I went to the area where they said the ring was lost and asked everyone to stay away so as not to disturb the floor of the sea where they would bury the ring under the sand. Finally Claire came with the mask and I started to sweep the area going back and forth at about four feet above the floor of the sea, surfacing every minute or so to take air.
After a while I saw something shine in the distance and I went for it. It was a gold ring which I was certain was the prize I had come for. I picked it up and came to the surface holding my arm way up in the air to signal to those on dry land that I found it. They cheered me and I went straight to Claire’s father and gave him the ring.
The man proved to be generous and said the ring was more valuable to him than the gold in it so I could ask him for anything. But a wave of emotions was sweeping me at the time, among them the feeling that I was rewarded already by the opportunity to talk to Claire. She was all I wanted and she was so close to me now that I said I did not want anything. I don’t know if he knew this but he turned my dream into a reality I could not dream of when he said I should go with Claire and have ice cream at the Bar du Soleil a few feet to the left of me where he has an account and Claire is known to the owner and his wife.
And this is when something happened that was beyond my ability to dream. As if the gates of Heaven had opened and showered me with all that is heavenly bliss, Claire grabbed my hand, squeezed it hard and started to pull me away to the right as if in a hurry to take me somewhere. We were not going to the bar for ice cream because she had something better in mind; she wanted to take the mask to the car and that’s where we went.
We got there, sat inside the car and talked for a few seconds. Wasting no time, she asked me if I ever kissed a girl and I said no, I never did. She said she never kissed a boy either, and I wondered if this was an invitation. She took my hand and I mustered the courage to kiss her on the cheek. I felt her face warm up and I went for the lips where I kissed her for two seconds. And this was long enough for me to discover that the lips were more delicious than anything I ever tasted before; even more delicious than ice cream. I knew Claire felt the same way too because I could see the expression on her face but we decided it was time to go for the ice cream anyway and so we did.
For a few months after that we saw each other almost on a regular basis and forged a relationship centered around the beach and the activities there. In the meantime I kept my promise to God and went to church two or three mornings in a row but found a new excuse every day after that to go to class without making the detour to the church. It is a good thing I did not include in my promise to God how many times I would pray if He granted me the wish.
Then came the day I dreaded the most; the day when Claire and her parents disappeared from the scene. I went to the bar and asked if they knew what happened to the family. They said the father was summoned back to France, and the family left in a hurry; something about implementing the Geneva Accord regarding the defeat at Dien Bien Phu. I never saw Claire again or heard from her. Gosh, I hate those stupid wars and the people who love them.
Once in a while on Christmas day I remember Claire and my first kiss, and I wonder if she too remembers that wonderful day in her father’s car. At times I remember her even when it is not Christmas and feel like it is Christmas again because I learned over the years that I can make everyday a Christmas day by recalling the few moments that gave me a lifetime of joyous memories.
Merry Christmas, Claire wherever you are.