Free Tita by Marie Houzelle

of Mary (nothing to do with the Children), which starts today. Tonight. And for which we need to get ready.
    “Can we have our baskets, please?” I ask Mother, who is studying the fashion pages in Modes et Travaux .
    She doesn’t even look up.
    “Our Month of Mary baskets!”
    “Oh. Of course. They’re in the main attic. I’ll get them for you later.”
    She’s totally engrossed in the beach outfits. “Can I go and get them now?”
    She doesn’t answer, and I decide it means yes.
     
    Downstairs in the kitchen, Loli is amazed at how fast I eat my porridge, on my own. “Hey, you’re making progress!” she says. “Soon you might even get hungry like the rest of us.” While Coralie goes on with her breakfast I run up to the main attic, look around, and finally make out the baskets in the top of the white cupboard, above the Christmas decorations. I climb on a chair to reach them, and the chair is wobbly, but I hold on to the shelf and reach for one, then the other. Mine is oval, larger and slightly deeper than Coralie’s round one. Both are covered with white muslin and have ribbons that will go around our necks.
    Tonight, like every Friday, our parents are going out, probably to the cinema. For once I don’t care. Every evening of this month we too will be away from home. In church, with our friends. May is the Month of Mary, and the hymn says it all: it’s the most beautiful month, le mois le plus beau .
     
    In the afternoon we join our friends in the back street, but we’re all so excited about tonight we can hardly concentrate on our games. We try cops and robbers, hopscotch, Mother May I, but every time neighbors walk by we stop them to ask what time it is. When the sun finally sets, I appeal to Eléonore’s grandmother, who is sitting outside the cellar in her garden, reading a book of poems. She tells me it’s five past seven. “Are you going?” I ask her in Catalan. She and her husband are famous for coming to France on foot before the war. From Ripoll, over the Pyrenees, pushing a wheelbarrow with their belongings. She shakes her head, and grins. “I’m an atheist, remember? Have a good time!”
    We dine at quarter past seven, in the kitchen with Loli. At ten past eight, Coralie and I hang our baskets around our necks and go to the garden to choose our flowers. Peonies, dahlias, sweet peas, narcissi. Mother said we can take only those that are completely open, and where at least one or two petals have started shrivelling. I snip off the whole blossom (Coralie is not allowed to use the clippers), and we pull the petals off into our baskets. Then, intoxicated by the surfeit of scents, the sharp red ones, the acid yellow, the many shades of pink, the quiet white, we stand among the rose bushes, fingering the supple membranes, the soft shallow cups, warm from the afternoon sun.
    Eléonore is at the back door. Roseline, Monique, Nicole are waiting for us around the corner, and we all walk up the avenue with our full, fragrant baskets hanging from our necks. Further on, we pass friends from both our schools, all hurrying to church while the bells break out in fancy chimes. In the church, Coralie and I go and sit with Sainte-Blandine on the left; our friends from the state school are across the aisle with their catechism classes.
    Soon the organ starts and we’re all on the move again, for the procession. In front, four choirboys carry a statue of the Virgin Mary, and we follow, first Sainte-Blandine then the rest of the children, reciting the rosary as we walk, one Our Father, ten Hail Marys, and again, five times, while the organ punctuates our prayers with crisp, cheerful chords. After each decade of the rosary, the bearers stop in front of a different side chapel, where incense burns and lights shine on the statue. Then, as the rest of us pass the chapel, singing, we throw our petals to the Virgin. I so love to sing, I tend to get carried away and not pay attention to what I’m doing. But we need