Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 Read Online Free PDF Page B

other team quit and stalked off the field, inspiring Sister Francis’s familiar lecture about sportsmanship being the love of Christ in practice. Then her brother caught her eye, and she said, “Class dismissed.”
    A short time later, Lou was working in the gym with Sister Francis, scrambling down the rope ladder when she looked over her shoulder and saw that the brother had set up his cane-stool and was sitting there, watching Lou. She began to tremble.
    Sister Francis waved her over. “Mademoiselle Villars,” she said. “This is my brother. Dr. Marcellus Hadrian Loomis.”
    Dr. Loomis shook Lou’s hand and motioned for her to sit on the balance beam. He joined his hands in front of his chest, hunching his shoulders and interweaving his fingers so his elbows flapped against his sides as he spoke in slow, ungrammatical French.
    â€œOfficially, I am a doctor, but in fact I am a researcher. Years ago I heard a colleague say, in a public forum, that the female body was not designed to bear more weight than a baby or a frying pan. Never both at once. Our girls must be crated and packed away, like fragile porcelain teacups, until they are ready to marry and reproduce. But that didn’t sound correct. I began to look into the subject, to conduct my own studies, and do you know what I learned?”
    Lou shook her head no, as did Sister Francis, though the nun must have heard this before.
    â€œOur madhouses are full of girls whose minds have been twisted and shattered by society’s refusal to help their blood reach their brains. The TB wards are crowded with girls hemorrhaging to death for lack of exercise and fresh air. Our slums seethe with the physical slackness that leads to decadence and Bolshevism, all because of insufficient oxygen and physical training.”
    He thrust his folded newspaper at Lou, pointing to the front-page photo of a man in a helmet and goggles. “Do you recognize this man?”
    â€œMonsieur Lindbergh,” Lou said. He was a hero among the girls.
    â€œVery good,” said the doctor. “I am not a gambling man, but I’ll bet that, when you were a child, you imagined you could fly.”
    Lou gripped the balance bar. What other secrets did he know?
    He said, “If you are willing to work really hard, my sister and I can help you conquer gravity without leaving the ground. Are you willing to work hard?”
    â€œYes,” Lou said. “I am.” Finally, someone had asked.
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    Dr. Loomis moved into a cottage near the convent and attended every training session, race, and game. Sister Francis surrendered the stopwatch, and now he was the one who called out the times and told Lou how to move, how to breathe, where to put her knees and elbows. It was pleasant to discuss her body in that distanced way, as if she were a new machine they were perfecting. Dr. Loomis said that athletics were the hope of the future, along with speed, the automobile, and loyalty to one’s country.
    One afternoon, the literature nun was reading aloud from Racine when Lou was called out of class. She found Dr. Loomis and Sister Francis waiting for her in the Mother Superior’s office. She assumed she’d done something wrong. But Sister Francis and her brother were telling the Mother Superior that Lou’s achievements would reflect well on the school and attract talented students whose enlightened parents shared the convent’s modern ideas about education. They’d come to persuade the headmistress that everything should be done to encourage and nurture Lou’s gifts.
    Lou’s bed was moved beside the window, which Dr. Loomis insisted be kept open. When the others complained about the draft, she got a room of her own. Special shoes were ordered so her feet could grow. Her ankles got their own regimen of hot water baths and massages from Sister Francis. She ate food that was different from what the others ate: raw vegetables, whole