The Girl in the Blue Beret

by Bobbie Ann Mason

  “Are you still in love with him?” Marshall asked.

  “That is not a practical question,” she said sharply.

  She switched on a lamp and began preparing for bed, searching through her suitcase. Her clothing was perfectly organized and folded, but she seemed flustered. She closed the case and disappeared into the bathroom. He heard the roar of the bidet.

  Later, when she was in her silky gown, he drew her to him and embraced her tightly, feeling her warm breasts against him. He held her while she cried, her tears running onto his shoulder. In a while, she drew back to speak.

  “You know, I must think of what Father Jean did for the Bourgogne. I must find Robert and confront him. We cannot let the abbé disappear into oblivion, without being acknowledged. We must commemorate him somehow.”

  “Is that what your mother wants?”

  “Maybe. I think she despairs of Robert, but I must get him to remember how he loved Father Jean.”

  “If he lost his religion, wouldn’t he be reluctant?” Marshall said.

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter,” she said almost dismissively. “The abbé was a person, and he sacrificed his life. He loved Robert. I must remind him.”

  Marshall imagined setting out with Annette to find Robert Jules Lebeau. He had searched for the bright young man Robert had been, only to find that the trail had taken a dreadful twist—Robert damaged by the war, the young lovers split apart. It would serve him right, Marshall thought, if he helped reunite the two now.

  “Thank you, Marshall,” she was saying. “Thank you, thank you.”

  “For what? Don’t thank me,” he said. Not me.

  He held her and she did not cry more. He thought she felt an immense relief in knowing him. She snuggled with him, letting him hold her a long time. She kissed him deeply. He was right to hold her close.

  “Do I have a chance with you?” he ventured to ask.

  “When we get over the mountains,” she said.

  “Then what?”

  “We will know.”

  Later, he tossed around in bed, wondering where he was headed. He had come to France hopefully, pie-eyed, imagining a pleasant jaunt down memory lane. Now the faces of the absent characters—Annette’s father, Robert and all his children, Robert’s mistress, his priest, even the mysterious chief of the Bourgogne—paraded through Marshall’s waking dreams.

  At dawn, hearing water trickling somewhere, then birdsong, he felt his mind clearing. Annette was lying close to him, curled toward him, her fine hair tangled, her lips hanging open. Were they thrown together inevitably, or had he imagined them into a couple with a destiny? After the war, Robert was crushed, but Marshall had been rescued, and he thrived. No matter what else he might feel, he was indebted to both Robert and Annette. The logic of that was undeniable. He wept inside for the priest—Marshall, whose religion ended when he was eight and heard that an old woman’s house had burned down with her picture of Jesus over the stove and her grandbabies sleeping on a pallet nearby.

  56.

  ANNETTE AWOKE LIVELY AND PLAYFUL, RISING SWIFTLY FROM the bed to throw open the shutters.

  “How did you sleep?” he asked.

  “I slept completely,” she said, smiling.

  Marshall had slept little. He hadn’t thrashed and flailed as he often did. Instead, trying not to wake Annette, he had lain quietly, trying to capture his runaway thoughts.

  Coffee and croissants arrived. Annette hurried to the door to accept the tray from the young woman in a blue smock. A flurry of bonjours and mercis followed. Marshall was glad to see the large pot of coffee.

  “I really should try to find Robert,” Annette said later, emerging from the bathroom with a towel on her head. “For the sake of Father Jean.”

  “I believe you could march over the Pyrenees and then get right to work.”

  She laughed. “It would be necessary to march back across the border first.

  “I don’t know,” she said after a minute, falling into doubt. “Perhaps Robert is beyond rescue. Since the war, he has led a life of dissipation and irresponsibility. I don’t know if his true nature can be reawakened.”

  Marshall was suddenly tired of hearing about Robert.

  “Maybe we’ll find him behind a bush in the mountains.” His attempt at humor fell flat, he saw by the startled expression on her face.

  He touched her moist cheek. “I’m sorry. But I have to point out that I feel insanely jealous.”

  “Peuh! Do not think that way.” She was combing her hair, carefully easing a fine-toothed comb through her wet curls.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I have the idea that someone sympathetic should go to him, with something from the past. I will take you. You are a success story. A success for him. And for me,” she added quickly. “Everything we did—we are confirmed, in seeing your success.”

  He was embarrassed. “You and Robert, both of you, made a terrible sacrifice,” he said.

  Annette would not accept such thinking.

  “What were we to do?” she asked. “Just sit there and let our country be stolen? Not just our buildings and our churches and our lives, but the very culture that is our life! To see it all replaced by German beer and sausage? My family could not abide it. Whatever we did, regardless of the risk, we had to do it. For my parents, it was automatic. For me also. We simply did it. You would too! Absolutely.” Her voice was vigorous, almost shrill.

  Not every Frenchman had taken such chances, Marshall thought. Would he have taken them? He had been willing to bomb Germany—not only factories but, inevitably, citizens—and then to sneak through Occupied France, thinking only of his own survival. But Annette …

  She twisted the towel around her head and placed her hands on his shoulders. Gazing into his eyes, she said, “Once, during the war, from our window in Saint-Mandé, we saw two parachutists. An Allied plane was shot down. I think the target was a factory at Pontoise. The plane was far away and we didn’t see it fall, but we could see the parachutes in the distance. Then we saw the men being shot as they drifted down. German soldiers on the ground shot them as they descended. We were hiding a pilot, and he watched this with us, and he began to cry when he saw the shooting of his comrades.” She paused, as if replaying the scene in her mind. “ ‘Poor men!’ he said. ‘Poor men.’ ”

  “My God.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I’ll cry now,” he said.

  “No, you will not do that.”

  “Did Monique—”

  “Yes, Monique saw it.”

  Annette touched his cheek. “You have encouraged me so much,” she said, waving her hands for words. “I cannot explain how your return has affected me. What I just said about France—that is what I should tell my students. Maman wants me to make a scrapbook for them.” She smiled. “Do I make sense? I could make an exhibit of you for the students—my aviateur!”

  “Would I have to wear my old flight suit?”

  “For us, this project could be jubilatoire!”

  “Come here,” he said. “If you’re not careful, I’ll fall in love with you for sure.” He lifted her hand and kissed her palm.

  57.

  THE DRIVE UP TO THE MOUNTAIN PASS WOULD BE SIMPLE, Annette had said, pointing to the map. Marshall had given no thought to the squiggly line leading up into the mountains, but as he drove the route now, he felt the mountains closing in. The cliff-edge road twisted alongside steep woodlands, and it seemed to become narrower with each hairpin curve.

  “You must have been a very good pilot,” she said, patting his arm. “I trust you to drive me anywhere.”

  “How far is it to that hotel?” he asked.

  “Thirty-two kilometers. Not far.”

  He was aware of the deep valley on the right, but he kept his eyes on the road, the spiraling climb.

  Some bicyclists came hurtling past the car, curving and zipping downhill, as smoothly as fish in water.

  Some of the curves were bordered by foot-hi
gh stone guardrails, but some equally precipitous were not.

  “The whimsical placement of these little walls is entertaining,” he said.

  She laughed.

  He pulled over slightly for an oncoming car. His tires skittered on gravel.

  “The view is breathtaking,” she said.

  His eyes were fixed on the winding road ahead. They climbed higher. He was guiding a lumbering aircraft through an insane corkscrew ascent. After a while, the switchback turns became rhythmic. Higher up, the day turned gray, but visibility was still good.

  The lip of the valley beside him, five feet away, opened onto an abyss.

  The stone barriers were even less frequent at higher altitudes, and the road was barely wide enough for two small European cars. Good thing he had rented the smaller Citroën, he thought.

  “I’m enjoying the view,” she said. “C’est magnifique!”

  They drove for nearly an hour. His fingers were stiff, and his eyes were burning.

  “It is only another kilometer,” she said, rustling the map.

  A small settlement appeared ahead, complete with a church, and soon he was scooting into a parking area beside a faded hotel that seemed to be waiting patiently for them.

  “I’m glad it wasn’t rush hour,” he said, setting the parking brake.

  THE HOTEL HAD a white stucco façade and an unpronounceable Basque name that sported an x. The lobby was pleasant, inviting, with landscape paintings and a fireplace. The propriétaire, a rugged woman wearing large beads and a red sweater, was writing the evening menu on the dining room chalkboard as they entered.

  “You are with the hiking group?” she asked. “I was expecting you! Your guides are already here.”

  The guides had walked over from the Spanish side that afternoon, she said. She finished writing the menu and moved to the small desk in the minuscule lobby. Marshall made some small talk with her as she was checking them in.

  “Okey-dokey!” she said. “I am very happy to welcome an American.”

  Annette explained that they would be leaving their valises at the hotel in the morning and would return for them in two days.

  “Okey-dokey. Not a problem,” said the propriétaire. “We get many hikers this summer!” She handed Marshall a large key with a metal tag shaped like a sheep. “I do not go over the mountains anymore. My husband and I used to keep cattle and sheep in the mountains, and twice a year it was necessary to search for them. But no more.”

  The room, up a flight of stairs, had two narrow beds placed close together, a tall lamp, and a window seat. The toilet and shower were down the hall.

  Annette began unpacking, sorting items for her hiking pack—cotton wool, Band-Aids, sunglasses, her canteen. Marshall found his eyedrops, and he began searching for the little foam blister preventers he would stick in his boots.

  Annette wound her arms around him affectionately.

  “The mountains are bothering you,” she said. “The drive—it reminded you.”

  “I like mountains better from a cockpit—preferably at thirty thousand feet.”

  “You were elegant behind the wheel,” she said.

  They sat on one of the beds and laughed. The bed was lumpy and squeaked.

  “We don’t have to stay here,” he said, teasing. “I’m sure there’s good straw bedding in the animal refuges up in the mountains.”

  “Oh, good. We can sleep in a barn if it snows.”

  “Don’t worry. It won’t snow.”

  He scrutinized the room—the worn carpet, the weighty drapery, the freestanding coat rack next to an armoire bedecked with carved birds. There were thumps on the wood floor above, apparently someone jumping. The bells of the church across the road rang, although it was no special time of day. Marshall’s watch said 4:37.

  “Happy bells,” she said. “Perhaps a marriage.”

  Accordion music drifted in from the road.

  “What luck,” he said, groaning. “Wild dancing and music all night long.”

  “Well, we will not linger here long,” she said, shutting her bag. “Should we swim?”

  “I don’t have a suit.”

  “If they had a pool, we could swim.”

  “Let’s don’t swim.”

  “I didn’t want to swim anyway.”

  “Okey-dokey.”

  They laughed again.

  IN THE EVENING THERE was a good dinner. They sat with the hiking group at a long table, and the conversation was convivial, although a Canadian couple who spoke no French seemed forlorn. The mountain air was chilly, even indoors, but Annette was wearing a blue dress of some flimsy material and no stockings. She looked healthy, lovely. Marshall liked to see her in a group of people, the best-looking woman in the room. His eyes had stopped burning.

  The guides, Marie and Roland, moved with the fluidity of flirting youth. Their muscular bodies were tanned. Marie’s hair was short and curly, while Roland’s long locks trailed down his neck.

  “One of us will take the lead and the other will follow at the rear,” Marie told the group. “We have the talkie-walkies, and if you require aid, we will be there.”

  “You’ll be right there if we fall off the mountain?” Marshall joked.

  “Absolutely,” Roland said. “We never permit our guests to jump!”

  “We’ll be O.K.,” said Marshall, wondering what the young people made of his age.

  After dinner, Annette wanted to go outdoors. She said she didn’t mind her legs being bare, but she got cold around her neck and chest. He dashed upstairs for their jackets.

  She was chatting with Roland when Marshall returned to the lobby, but she said a quick smiling au revoir to the guide. Marshall held her jacket for her, taking care as she slipped each arm into its sleeve. He had brought their berets. They walked out the side door, past the parking spaces, and sat on a small ledge across from the church. There was no sign of a wedding, and the accordion music had ended. They could see lights far down the valley. An intermittent, moving flash in the distance seemed to be a car driving up the road they had come.

  The foothills made Marshall think of the squeezed-together hills of Kentucky, which could trap the smoke from someone’s woodstove and send it circling through the holler, the scent lingering until morning.

  “The mountains are bothering you,” Annette said again. She ran her hand along his arm reassuringly.

  “Mountains are deceptive,” he said. He stopped her hand with his. “There’s no horizon—no level land to get your bearings. And the perspective keeps changing. There’s no objective view.”

  “Is there ever, anywhere?”

  “I always want things to be clear,” he said. “I get impatient if they aren’t.”

  “You would not be impatient behind the wheel of an airplane. You must have been a very precise pilot.”

  “Yoke, not wheel.”

  “Oh, pardon, monsieur.” She was teasing him. “Just be with me,” she said. “Isn’t this good? We have the night. There is no war. My dog is safe with Anne and Georges.”

  “Did you name your son for Georges Broussine?”

  “Bien sûr.”

  “Does your son know?”

  “Oh, yes. However, I think the original Georges may be a little embarrassed.”

  “A modest man, you say.”

  “Yes.” She laid her hand on his knee.

  “I named my son Albert,” he said. “After the family that helped me in Chauny.”

  “Yes, you told me.”

  “The name means ‘courage.’ ”

  The waning moon resembled a hat hanging in the sky. He pointed it out to her.

  “A beret,” she said.

  “Aren’t you glad I bought this chic headgear from the stall on the rue de Rivoli?”

  “Yes. My beret is warm,” she said.

  “It feels strange to be in the Pyrenees again,” he said after a moment. The rocky peaks were out there, somewhere in the dark.

  “Tell me about the time before,�
� she said. “I know it has been on your mind.”

  He stared into the darkness, toward Spain.

  “What are you seeing?” she asked. “I would like to know.”

  A meteor dashed silently across the sky then.

  58.

  MARSHALL GAZED AT THE SKY AS HE BEGAN TO SPEAK.

  “When I crossed the Pyrenees in ’44, I thought if I could just get to the summit, it would be like flying. To get back to my base, I was prepared to face whatever dangers lay ahead. The train was the first hurdle. I think Robert was my guide on the train.”

  “Yes. After Perpignan, he had begun making journeys to Pau.”

  “And there was a girl, a girl with blond pigtails.”

  “I think that was my friend Hélène. She was two years older than me, and she had an aunt in Montauban, so she could travel on the pretext that her aunt was sick. Her parents didn’t know she was résistante!”

  “The night train to Toulouse was miserably slow. The tracks had been sabotaged in several places. Now and then the train jolted on a bad roadbed, and sometimes we stopped for a long time. It was hard to stay awake. I had to be fully alert, but I was dead tired and miserable. It was dark and the windows were covered, so we couldn’t see the terrain. I carried a newspaper—the one your mother had pressed into my knapsack before I left to meet you.”

  “At the Jardin des Plantes.”

  “Yes. I went there last week. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “Oui, oui.”

  “In the daylight on the train I kept reading the newspaper, and I tried to play ‘deaf and dumb.’ I had to make sure I was never startled by a noise. It was a useful discipline. People now are going to meditation classes to learn how to be mellow.” He laughed. “By noon I had learned all the French in the collaborationist news, but my companions in the compartment probably thought I was an exceptionally slow reader. No one really spoke. Under German eyes, everyone kept to himself. No one wanted to speak or even offer common courtesies to the enemy. I have to admit I was terrified. Any minute and their pistols could be at my head. Your mother had made my hair dark, and I hunched down to conceal my height. But one thing I hadn’t thought of. When I went to the lavatory, the floor inside was wet, and I made boot prints down the aisle when I walked back to my seat. After I turned to open the door of my compartment, I faced the other way and I saw my footprints—a trail of little USA insignias, written backwards! The letters ‘USA’ were in the rubber on the heels of my boots. I must have turned red as a cherry at the sight of that. I retraced my path, sliding my feet to blur the prints. The next time I went to the lavatory, I dried my boots off before leaving.”