The Girl in the Blue Beret

by Bobbie Ann Mason

  Yours in Christ,

  Al

  Marshall lay sleepless in the heat, tossing on his new sheets, which were still stiff, even though he had had them laundered. They wouldn’t stay tucked, and he found himself wallowing on the bare mattress. Evidently he had bought two top sheets. Grainger’s letter preoccupied him. Al had dropped those bombs on their targets so gleefully. Hitler’s Focke-Wulf works was his favorite. Marshall had been surprised when Al became a lay pastor. Al, the evangelist bombardier.

  The sheets were damp and twisted around his legs. He wondered whether Gordon Webb had ever panicked in an F-101. His father had panicked and Marshall had taken over. Only Chick Cochran obeyed the order to bail out. Marshall was glad Gordon hadn’t been very curious about his father. Marshall had seized control of the plane in a mutiny that lasted about twenty seconds—until he saw that Webb had been wounded. Marshall saved the crew. He was proud of that. But any good pilot could have belly-landed the thing. Webb was dead.

  Marshall saw lightning flash, followed on the count of ten by muffled thunder. He imagined sitting in a cockpit, waiting for takeoff, watching the storm, waiting for clearance. Lightning hit his plane once, but it didn’t hit the fuel tanks. He remembered Saint Elmo’s fire dancing on his wings a few times. He liked spotting a glory in the clouds below—a rainbow ring with the plane’s shadow in the center. He heard himself as pilot, the instructor, telling the passengers, “Folks, on the left side of the aircraft you will see a magic rainbow.” It was a circle, seen from above. Telling Loretta. Her boundless enthusiasm.

  The advantages he had had in his life as a flyer were still a marvel to him, but now he had no schedule. He had no flights, no logbooks, no maps to study, no uniform to keep in pristine condition. He didn’t know what to wear. He was trying new things—a load of langoustines. Caroline bothered him. Her pop-out breasts. And the fact that he was still thinking about her slim, seductive hips in those deplorable blue-jeans.

  He turned the light on and sat up against the wall. The rain had stopped. His watch said 4:11.

  Who was Robert? Surely not a man who was mean to his children. Marshall was getting nowhere. In the turmoil of his nighttime thoughts, his wakeful dreaming, he thought he had been trying to find the young man he wished he had been. As a time traveler, he could jiggle the outcome. He could be a hero after all.

  “You jerk,” he said aloud.

  30.

  HE ATE SOME CORNFLAKES AND THEN STOPPED FOR AN EXPRESS at the tabac down the block. He was growing to love the strong French coffee. Quickly, he had another. Then he headed to the Everything Store, where Guy had just the tape recorder Marshall needed.

  For a change of scene, Marshall sat on a bench in the parc Montsouris, trussed up his ears, and listened to the tape James Ford had made for his family. In the direction of the rue d’Alésia, a police siren was yelling out its high-pitched hee-haw. A 747 flew overhead. He couldn’t make out its markings.

  You know, I never wanted to talk about it. I didn’t want to brag. And I didn’t want to wallow in self-pity either. It went both ways.

  I went into the Army Air Force in 1942 and trained in Texas. I qualified for flight engineer, and if I had to shoot a gun, the top turret was a pretty good place to be—much better than in the tail or the belly. I was sure thankful I didn’t have to be the belly gunner. The waist gunners were more exposed too. But on the top, I could duck down from my bubble.

  When it came time to go to England, we shipped out on the Queen Elizabeth luxury liner! Of course we were crammed twenty to a stateroom, but that ship was so beautiful, and we had the run of it. That was sure a fine trip. I always said Martha and I should take a trip on that ship—now they’ve got the QE-II. Well, never mind.

  Marshall listened to Ford describe Molesworth and then the missions. Matter-of-factly, he told at some length how the plane was hit on the mission to Frankfurt.

  It may surprise you to know, but when a fighter comes at you from the side, you don’t aim ahead. You always aim between him and the tail of your own plane because your own speed will add to the speed of your bullet, so you aim off to the side. And how do we do that? Skill and practice!

  At some point I knew we were going down. I didn’t hear when the pilot said “Bail out,” but I’d been firing and firing and didn’t always hear everything. Then, first thing you know, I turn and see somebody bail out! It was Chick Cochran! Oh, he was so quick. He’d be across the finish line before you said “go.” I was still on the lookout for the fighter that had hit us twice, so I didn’t know what Webb and Stone were up to. I just kept my eyes on the job, but then I saw the ground coming, and I tried to brace myself. It wasn’t too bad really. Then all hell broke loose. I think Webb was dead then, and the bombardier’s shoulder was hurt, and Stone and I were rushing every which way getting people out. We pulled Webb out, and then laid out one of the waist gunners on the grass—a funny guy we called Hootie.

  Marshall did not recall helping Ford with Hootie. Hootie was lying there pale as fog. Marshall’s mind drifted back to the crash, while on the tape Ford was describing a long period of hiding in a French town called Ham, an experience similar to Marshall’s own evasion. Then Ford was sent by train to Paris.

  When I got to Paris I was met by a young couple—sweethearts, I believe. The guy wore a thick overcoat and workman’s shoes. We didn’t speak, and I don’t remember now what our signal was, but they led me through the train station and onto a subway train out to a neighborhood sort of place with a lot of apartment buildings. The young girl went off somewhere, and the young man took me into a building. He rang the bell and a woman let me in.

  I stayed with that family in Paris for a week. The young man at the train came to the apartment two or three times, and he gathered with the family in the kitchen and they talked in low voices. I think he was the person they got their instructions from, and I understood his name to be Robert Lebeau. It took me a long time to figure out the name because they pronounce Robert “Robert” without the “t” on the end.

  I don’t remember that family’s name, but I never forgot his. Robert Lebeau was the one who took me—and about six others—on the train down to near the Spanish border and hooked me up with the guides who led me across the Pyrenees. In the time I was around Lebeau, I was fascinated by how committed he was. He was very devout, a loyal Catholic. He was polite. He was a dashing figure! He was a very courageous young man! Devoted to his country, his mother.

  Marshall’s mind had been wandering during Ford’s long hideout in Ham, but he was jolted when he heard what had happened in Paris. Robert Lebeau! He had to be the Robert Marshall remembered. Who was his girlfriend? Annette? Marshall thought about Annette’s thin wrists, the limp lock of hair lying against her cheek as she poised her pencil above a problem.

  He could hardly listen to Ford’s account of the arduous crossing of the Pyrenees (slow going, snow). He was thinking about Lebeau. Who was that family who hid Ford in Paris? Maybe Ford would remember. Marshall was eager to learn what else Ford knew, but he hesitated to impose on a dying man.

  He paced along the small lake in the park, calculated the time in Kansas (still early), and then headed back to his apartment.

  By the time he reached his place, he had decided it would be entirely natural to telephone the former flight engineer on his deathbed. Maybe Ford would be glad to hear from him. He should express his concern for Ford’s health, let him know the old crew was thinking of him. Marshall thought through his rationalizations. If he was sick himself, would he want the crew crowding around, watching him die, interrupting his reveries with small talk on the phone? Probably not. But most people would, he reasoned.

  “HELLO. ARE YOU JAMES FORD’S daughter? Sonia? This is Marshall Stone. I got your letter and the tape. Gosh, I’m really sorry to hear about your dad. That’s terrible. I remember him so well. He was the best top-turret gunner a B-17 crew could have. And he could have flown the plane himself, he was such a good flight engineer.�
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  Sonia said, “He wanted you to have that tape. He made it some time ago, and then he was so surprised and happy to hear from you.”

  “How is James doing?”

  “Well, he has good days and bad days. Today’s not too bad.”

  “Listen, do you suppose I could talk to him a minute? Say hello?”

  “Let me see. Can you hold on?”

  Waiting, Marshall rehearsed what to say to James as quickly and as efficiently as possible, so as not to tire him.

  Sonia spoke again. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stone. Could you call back later? We’re having thunderstorms, and I’m afraid we have to get prepared for tornados! You may not know how it is in Tornado Alley. Is that all right? Dad wants to talk to you. Call back tomorrow about this same time, O.K.?”

  Marshall was left to imagine Ford lying ill, being hauled somehow out to a storm shelter and down a hatch. He remembered Ford tearing along on a bicycle from the barracks to the mess hall one cold, dark morning. Something about the way he aimed the front wheel of the bike, as if it was his ammunition and weapon and vehicle all in one, had struck Marshall that day. Marshall remembered having deep confidence in Ford at that moment.

  31.

  IN HIS INSOMNIAC STRETCHES, MARSHALL REPLAYED HIS ESCAPE-and-evasion adventure through France, dredged up new characters in his long-gone drama, and finally reached Paris, where the girl in the blue beret met his train. She was alone, the toss of her head leading him to her parents’ apartment, where her mother cranked out his false ID as simply and skillfully as if she were sewing costumes for a school pageant. Robert came and went—always purposeful, always mysterious.

  Half-asleep, he let his mind wander over Ford’s taped memories—Ford hiding in Belgium, getting to Ham, then to Paris. At the Gare du Nord a girl and her boyfriend met him. Annette, no doubt, and Robert Jules Lebeau—one of those dashing, darkly handsome guys girls can’t resist.

  He didn’t remember Annette and Robert as a pair of sweethearts when he was with the Vallons. Had Ford been there before or after Marshall arrived? Did they fall in love after Marshall left?

  Caroline could be the daughter of Annette and Robert, he realized. Annette may have become the mistress who bore Robert so many children. The energetic, joyous girl he had known became the weary, neglected woman Caroline had described. It seemed incredible. Just as Robert’s shift to a loutish, inattentive father seemed incredible.

  The sun was already seeping through the cracks of the shutters when he opened his eyes, repeating Robert Jules Lebeau, the words jarring him awake. The good-natured young man he remembered had energy and brains—and commitment. Of course he and Annette became sweethearts. In retrospect, it seemed inevitable. Then he thought that Annette more likely was the wife, not the mistress. Either way, it seemed sad.

  “DAD HAS BEEN ASKING about you,” Sonia Ford said on the telephone. “He complained that I made you wait so long to call! I wasn’t sure how long the tornado watch would go on yesterday, and we had a doctor’s appointment later.”

  “Did you have a tornado?”

  “Not this time, but you never know.”

  “I’ve been thinking about James and the old days. How’s he doing?”

  “Dad—are you awake? I’ve got your old friend here. Marshall.”

  James’s voice on the line was shaky, but his midwestern cadences were familiar, and Marshall found himself talking easily with the former top-turret gunner.

  “I can still picture you standing up there in your greenhouse, James,” Marshall said. “Aiming that gun in every direction at once.”

  James laughed, a thin rasp. “Marshall, your letter was the best thing that’s happened to me since I got sick.”

  After more chitchat, Marshall explained his move to Paris and asked about Robert Lebeau. “I don’t know for sure, but I think he may have been the guy who helped me too. Do you remember the family you stayed with?”

  “No, not very well. They went off to work and left me in a little room, so I didn’t see them much.”

  “Was there a daughter?”

  “Might have been.”

  “Annette? The Vallon family?”

  “No, that doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “I’m trying to find the family I stayed with. There was also a guy who was there a lot. I think he might have been Lebeau.”

  “I don’t even know why I remember his name. But he impressed me a lot.”

  “You said he had a girlfriend.”

  “He had a girl with him at the train. I thought they were sweethearts, because they seemed so interested in each other I wasn’t even sure they saw us flyers. But I don’t remember seeing her again. When he came to visit the family I stayed with, he was alone. I think he came over with information, what they were supposed to do and so on.”

  “The guy I knew didn’t speak English,” Marshall said.

  “This boy didn’t either … but somebody translated for me. That’s how I knew something about him. He talked about church a lot. I guess he was Catholic.”

  “Do you remember where in Paris this was?”

  “Oh, a ways from downtown, I think.” James’s voice broke, and he began to falter. “I just can’t remember.”

  “You said he was dressed in heavy country clothes and workmen’s boots?”

  “He dressed like he was going to cross the mountains himself.”

  “I’m glad somebody had good shoes,” Marshall said.

  They laughed together. “That’s the truth!” James said. “I never thought I’d live to think that was funny, but I had these shoes that were like bedroom slippers! I cried for my good old A-6 flying boots, but I’d gotten rid of them.”

  “Yeah, all of us Americans with our big feet and GI boots.”

  James laughed again, but he sounded weak. “I’m sorry, Marshall.”

  “I’d better let you go,” Marshall said, regretting that he couldn’t continue his relentless probe.

  “I’m so glad to hear from you, Marshall. Maybe I never told you this, but you did a damn fine job landing our Fort.”

  “Thank you. You could have done it yourself, James. You were a flight engineer second to none.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “See you, old buddy.”

  Marshall felt guilty, pouncing on James’s last good moments, moments that belonged to his family. He wasn’t sure he had learned anything worthwhile. He was wandering through a land of ghosts, slivers of memory, clues floating like summer midges.

  32.

  CAROLINE’S NARROW STREET WAS ONE SPOKE IN AN INTERSECTION of five streets. It reminded him of an étoile, like the design one could see from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. Marshall had picked up more tourist lore in his past few weeks in Paris than he had in all the years of flying in and out of the city. Then, he was thinking only of his next flight, or reviewing his last flight for mistakes. Now, he was surprised to notice occasionally that he hadn’t been thinking about flying. It had been twenty-two days since he had been at the controls of any vehicle. Instead, he had been zipping around on the Métro, the subterranean opposite of the limitless friendly skies. He liked the speed of the trains. He liked the way the train to Saint-Mandé twisted and turned just before it reached the station.

  At the intersection he passed two drugstores, a tabac, and two small cafés. He detoured around a minor motorcycle accident—a disheveled, shaken biker, his mangled moto, two police cars. Caroline’s building, a stone structure with pale blue shutters, was a block from the accident. She had told him to ring number 3A. There was no name listed. After she buzzed him in, he walked up the three flights, proud of his sturdy heart and hardly out of breath.

  Caroline was waiting on the landing outside her open door. She was wearing a short, silky Indian dress in a soft pale green color. Her lipstick was slightly off-center, accentuating the slant of her smile.

  “Please be comfortable,” she said, settling him on a hard divan. Her dog slept through his arrival.
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  “Bobby is getting old,” she explained, caressing the dog’s head. “He must have his little naps.”

  “People are crazy about dogs in the U.S.,” Marshall said. “And cats.”

  “Did you have a pet?”

  “No. Well, my children did, but I never had one that was my own pet.”

  She gave him an aperitif, something sweet and gingery. Her apartment was chock-a-block with bric-a-brac, hanging beads and bells, and curling posters of movie stars and impressionist painters. There was an atmosphere of musty old Paris in the room. He couldn’t take in all the gewgaws.

  Sitting down with the dog between them, she said, “Tell me about the United States! Tell me about your home, and where you were born.”

  “I started out in Kentucky.”

  “Kentucky! Oh, I want to go to Kentucky. What a marvelous word. My life’s dream is to go to the United States.”

  “Really?”

  “I used to know an American who said he would marry me and take me to the state of Minnesota, but he was teasing me. He never meant it.”

  The talk meandered. She seemed less nervous with him, more aware of him. He was aware of her legs, her smooth knees, her lips, her clinging dress. Her earrings struggled inside the flow of her hair. But as she talked, he examined her features for hints of Annette. The slight curl in her lip? The same shade of hair?

  At her insistence, he described the life of an airline pilot. He avoided the technicalities, skipped the frustrations with the management, skirted the stews, and probably made the whole enterprise seem as glamorous as she wanted it to be.

  “I flew to Rome five years ago and got airsick on the way back,” she said with a frown. “Did you get airsick when you crashed your bomber?”