Chapter 17. Patton too Slow

Early September must have been one of the times Patton and his 3^rd Army ran into unexpected delays advancing from Paris into Germany.  Scheduled to follow Patton, apparently, the 95^th was held up in Paris for a week or 10 days. Away from our outfit, we five Red Cross workers had a few days on our own right in the center of the city.

Ballet and musical events continued at the Paris Opera House and I got to see one or two ballets.  It was amazing how completely the Parisian ballet differed from the highly structured Ballet Russe of London.  Rather than looking automated and worrying about each dancer keeping a uniform movement of the arm in height and angle and timing—extremely unlike the NY Rockettes—each French dancer seemed to strive for the intense individual emotional expression called for at that moment.

A vivid memory from those early days in Paris has been my getting lost in the bowels of the Paris Opera House.  At intermission I was looking for a restroom.  I couldn’t find one and couldn’t figure out how to get back.  Miles of different floors and hallways later I finally heard voices and saw human beings.  It really was terrorizing for me.

In the heart of Paris I had another agonizing experience, “enjoying” a Chinese pedicure.  This was a must according to Margaret, our social worker.  She, as a student at Radcliffe, had spent a year On the Tour in Europe so knew all the experiences a well-bred person should have.  Of course I didn’t want to miss a thing.  So at the appointed time I arrived in a nondescript looking street somewhere and found an even less imposing entry door with a drawn curtain across the one big window just beyond the door.

Upon entering I found no one at the small reception table and I couldn’t hear a sound.  I could see a solid line of housedress-like cotton print curtains drawn across each of four or five small rooms at the right side of a narrow hallway.

Soon a little Chinese man shrouded in a white robe appeared and motioned me to follow.  He drew a curtain and we entered a throned cubby hole of a room perhaps 9 feet long and 7 feet wide.  This malicious looking foreigner, with whom no English person could communicate through speech, motioned for me to sit on the throne.

Then he turned his back and weighed carefully which of the brightly highlighted dozens of viciously shiny steel, sharp-pointed, shovel-like, or scraper-shaped weapons to draw from the wall opposite me for his first attack.  Each different shaped tool was emphasized, showing off its variable sizes, marching across its set from tiny to extra large.  The wall itself was a sparkling, artfully arranged still life picture, depending on your viewpoint.

But that was only the beginning.  The instant the Angel of Death in White picked up my bare foot I realized I was out of my mind to have come.  All my life I’ve suffered from being unusually ticklish, especially in my feet.  The utter torture went on for several hours (not really, of course).  Two things I learned.  Do my own pedicures—I’ve never had another pedicure—yet.  And never count on fainting!  Even though I tried to slump in a faint to avoid the situation, I couldn’t.  And I never have been able to, yet.