A Song in the Night

A Song in the Night by Bob Massie Page A

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Authors: Bob Massie
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and whim. “Do you want to know what kind of grades you can expect from me?” one teacher asked us early in the year. “Here is my scale. Twenty is reserved for Almighty God. Nineteen is for the original author of the passage, such as Racine or Corneille. Eighteen is for the greatest scholar in the world. Seventeen would be for me. Your scores will all fall underneath—in most cases very far underneath.” Under these circumstances a student was considered a genius of the first order if she or he received a 15. Most students felt thrilled to pocket a 12.
    Like every Western society in the late 1960s, France seethed with turmoil. There were so many strikes and demonstrations by workers and students that the French government deployed a specially trained and brutal group of riot police, known as the Companies Républicaines de Sécurité, or CRS, virtually every week. The CRS wore black helmets, tall boots, and dark blue uniforms specifically designed for street battle; they carried truncheons and plastic shields. I routinely discovered on my way to school that CRS trucks had cordoned off some section of Paris. One morning my municipal bus became stuck in the middle of a fierce demonstration; I watched as demonstrators and CRS officers flailed away at each other on the street corners. At one point two CRS officers grabbed a young female demonstrator. One of the men held her arms behind her back while the other deliberately stomped sideways on her ankle, breaking it. They then dropped her on the ground and fled.

    There were also many good sides of French society. Like all the other countries in Europe, France had emerged from World War II with a deep commitment to provide health care to every citizen in the country. Unlike the United States, with its haphazard and unjust system of free-market insurance, France believed that everyone deserved health care as a right and created an interlocking system of national and private delivery and payment systems. To our surprise, my parents discovered that we were eligible for French health insurance, even though we were only residents, not citizens. Apparently the government considered it unthinkable that a child with a severe illness such as mine would not be treated on French soil simply because he or she had the wrong passport. In part because of this government policy, which gave me unlimited access to key blood products whenever I needed them, I experienced greater and greater freedom from bleeding at the same time that I was going through puberty and seeking more independence. Though I still had terrible problems from time to time, I was eventually able to stabilize my condition enough to travel on the subway at will and explore distant parts of the city for many hours on end.
    I also wanted to bring greater freedom to my classmates at school. I felt that the students lacked a voice and a venue in which to discuss the changes they wanted to see. The solution, I decided, was obvious: a school newspaper! When I proposed the concept to my friends, they all thought it excellent—and completely hopeless. Students expressing their own ideas?
Impossible
.
    I made an appointment with the formidable head of the school, known as Mme. la Directrice, and appeared at the appointed hour wearing a tie and carrying a pile of carefully prepared notes. She was a tiny woman who dressed entirely in black and whose silver hair was pulled back in a bun that suggested a helmet. She listened to me with a furrowed brow; I could not tell whether I was making progress or digging myself into deep trouble. Finally, at the end, she paused for a long time and then said she would consider it. The next day she called me back in, and to my surprise, she said that she would approve it as long as she could review the document before it was printed.
    The whole project quickly became an example of the adage “Be careful what you wish for.” A handful of overworked students had to solicit, write, edit, illustrate,

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