The Girl in the Blue Beret

27.



MISSION TO SAINT-MANDÉ. DEPART AT 1400 HOURS. ALL systems ready. Marshall was on the case now. No more dillydallying. He had slept well the night before. And he had downed two expressos.

He could have walked, but the Métro was convenient—Alésia to Châtelet, changing to the #1 train for Château de Vincennes, exit at Saint-Mandé. The épicerie was in a middle-class neighborhood, on a side street of old apartment buildings and a few small shops.

The woman he had tangled with previously was not in sight. Marshall bought a banana from a kid in a long apron who was slapping a towel at flies. When Marshall asked for Robert Lebeau, the kid tossed a long, dark lock from his forehead and said he hadn’t seen him in a long time.

“Could I reach him by telephone?”

“Beaucaire is a long way, monsieur.”

“I can afford a long-distance call.”

“He has no telephone.”

The kid pointed to a minuscule notepad next to a basket of apples.

“Write a note to my cousin,” he said. “She runs things.”

Marshall scribbled a message, with his telephone number. A small dog—an animated mop-head—appeared from a nest beneath the counter, yapped at Marshall sleepily, circled, and tumbled back into his basket.

“Merci. Au revoir,” Marshall said to the kid.

Marshall was unworldly, ignorant about the real preoccupations of the people around him. He had tried several times to strike up conversations with various people about the war but got nowhere, except with Guy at his shop. After seeing the old woman on the boulevard Montparnasse, he began to think he saw a sadness in the faces of older people on the street.

He strolled on through Saint-Mandé, looking for anything that might prod his memory of 1944. He didn’t recognize the shops on the main avenue. Nicolas suspected the Vallons had lived here and that the Bourgogne network had been active in this area. That spring, the Bourgogne had become the main channel for transferring fallen aviators from Paris to the south. Marshall tried to imagine the clandestine activity that occurred here, when people lived out their secret, seething anger. This was an ordinary neighborhood—busy, but American flyers being shepherded down the street would have been as obvious as astronauts at a hoedown, he thought.

The Vallons’ flat was expansive, with airy, bright rooms off a long parquet corridor. After six weeks of confinement in the small house in Chauny, sometimes sleeping behind the armoire, Marshall luxuriated in the spaciousness of the apartment in Paris. More and more American bombers were falling from the sky, and the airmen were streaming into the city. Some of them came to the Vallons for false IDs before going to ground in scattered safe houses. He heard murmurs about the snow melting in the mountains; waiting for the right connections; waiting for a particular message concealed within the French news from the BBC. Robert came every couple of days, often bringing a flyer in need of a new identity. Robert was an earnest youth in a heavy overcoat, with a rucksack, from which he drew money and news and papers. Marshall had envied Robert. Damn, he had those wheels. On his bicycle he could go anywhere. Marshall imagined him checking designated “letter boxes” for secret messages or biking to outlying towns to finagle with secret suppliers. Mme Vallon had said Robert’s ability to gather scarce foodstuffs was a miracle. He brought olives and almonds. Once he brought a chicken.

Marshall walked from Saint-Mandé to the Bois de Vincennes, remembering that Annette had led him and three other aviators on a long walk through a park, for exercise. It was probably this park, he thought as he crossed the street. They were not to acknowledge her, or talk to one another. They had to remember what they had been taught about the French way of smoking. It was better not to smoke. They had no change to jingle in their pockets, and they would not have dared to buy something at a kiosk even if they had. They followed this sprightly, fearless girl, who walked along, carrying her book satchel through the park as if she was on her way home from school. She would pause sometimes to look at a plant, or pet a dog, or sit on a bench to consult a book or write on a scrap of paper, allowing the flyboys to saunter in different directions for a few moments, so that they weren’t a conspicuous troop moving together.

Now, near the entrance to the park, Marshall knew with certainty that this was Annette’s neighborhood. He recognized the enormous boulder across the street. The zoo was there, right where he remembered. This was the zoo Annette had taken him to, not the one at the Jardin des Plantes. Just inside the entry was a rock mountain rising out of the earth, several stories high. It was for the mountain goats. He remembered seeing a pair of German soldiers who were looking up at the giraffe and did not realize there were American B-17 crewmen in their midst. Marshall held his breath. He was thrilled. Being up in the sky in a bomber was one sort of unreality—one form of surreal dislocation—but moving among the enemy as they strode around in their hostile regalia was even more improbable. His life had become a weird drama he could scarcely comprehend.

Turning back, he crossed the busy street and tried to get his bearings—the space, the shape of the place. Annette had led the airmen to the Bois de Vincennes from her apartment. He thought he would recognize the building. Saint-Mandé was a long main avenue with dozens of other streets running into it. He decided that the correct direction was to the left. He walked down a long road parallel to the avenue. He turned onto a street at random, saw an unfamiliar church. He tried the next street. The apartment had been on a corner. Maybe it was two blocks in. He walked past abundant trees, along small streets, toward the centre ville.

For an hour or more he crisscrossed the streets. From time to time he thought he recognized an intersection, a set of windows, a small alley. But something would seem wrong and he would try another street. Memory was a bitch, he thought. The Vallons’ apartment was probably not here at all. But he was sure of the zoo.

A group of children was entering a small park behind a blond woman carrying a green canvas satchel. He came to a corner, turned left. Another corner. Was it here? He studied a pale gray stone-block building with green frilly ironwork on the tiny pigeon-walk balconies. It was an attractive building, solid and clean. This could be it. He stepped back, considering, remembering how he had stood far away from the lace curtains but could see a triangular section of the street. His heart lifted. This could be it.

Maybe they had an unlisted telephone number and were sitting at home right now.


IN HIS MEMORY, perhaps exaggerated, the Vallons had treated Marshall as a privileged guest—their privilege as much as his. He had confidence in them. They could get him safely to his next hideout, farther south, farther on to Spain. Despite air raids and the possibility of the Gestapo dropping in unannounced, they seemed unafraid. Their company was so pleasant that he would not complain.

He had wanted to do something to repay the Vallons, but he could only watch and wait. One day from the window he saw a couple hurrying along the street, heads down, talking worriedly. He could see some French police and two German officers down the block. He was alone in the apartment. He knew what to do if he heard jackboots stomping up the stairs. He was to retreat through the kitchen window onto the balcony and into the kitchen window of the next flat. M. Gilbert lived there, “a nice man who will take care of you.” But what if the jackboots were coming for M. Gilbert? No, they assured him. This could not be.

He watched the uniforms advance down the street. He was sure he could not be seen from below, but he was careful not to touch the curtains. The man and woman walking ahead of the police paused, the woman clasping the man’s arm. The Germans marched past, but the French police stopped the couple, and Marshall could see the pair rummaging for their papers.

A black Citroën pulled up beside them. The police directed them into the backseat, as if offering them a lift. The car drove off.


THE CONCIERGE ANSWERED when he rang the doorbell. She was a sweet-faced woman, maybe in her forties.

“Excusez-moi, madame, je cherche les Vallon.” He explained more than he needed to, his words tumbling out.

There were no Vallons. She shook her head. She had never heard of Vallons here. She had lived here fifteen years. If there had ever been Vallons, they had moved away before she arrived. He thanked her, and she wished him bonne journée.

He went on his way. When he passed the mairie, the city-government building, he thought he could inquire about death certificates. But he hadn’t the heart.


THE YOUNG WOMAN had returned to the épicerie. She was alone, and for a moment Marshall observed her standing dreamily behind the counter. She was nice-looking. Her little dog jumped out and barked ferociously as Marshall entered.

“Bobby, arrête-toi,” she said.

He stooped to greet the dog, turning his palm out for the dog to read his benign intentions.

“Bobby, bon chien. Good dog.” He tried to pronounce “Bobby” the way she did—BOE-bee.

“Bonjour, monsieur. You are here again.”

“Naturellement. I’m a steady customer.” He chuckled, in what he hoped was a pleasant manner.

“I apologize for before,” she said, surprising him. “I had too many tasks that day, and I had lost my head.”

“In English, we would say, ‘I would lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on.’ ”

She laughed, and he said, “But I was the rude one. I came, in part, to apologize.”

She smiled. She had on an embroidered blouse and long earrings like a hippie, but she wasn’t grungy. Her short skirt revealed shapely legs, smooth knees. When she raised her eyelids to acknowledge him, he caught a glimpse of color on her upper lid, just a tinge of lavender, the shade of her blouse. She was very pretty. He realized that she was regarding him with interest, which pleased him.

“Do you like dogs, monsieur?” she said.

“I haven’t been around them much.”

“My petit chien is so bored. I must take him for a tiny walk.” She called through a door to the back, “Michel, vas-y.”

The kid appeared with a broom. The woman bent down to lift the dog, her knees flashing.

“Bobby, mon petit artichaut.”

She held the tan fluffy dog in her arms, hugging him. Then she let him down. As she fastened his lead, the dog wagged his entire body. Marshall did not recognize the breed, but the pooch was about half the size of his brain bag.

“Michel will take care of the store for a few minutes,” she said. “Bobby is so good. He works with me all day. But he needs some air. Come along, monsieur.”

“My name is Marshall,” he said, following her from the shop.

“And I am Caroline.”

“Did I guess correctly that Robert Lebeau is your father?”

Nodding slightly, she said, “Come, Bobby.”

They walked on the side streets, the dog sniffing happily along the way while Marshall ambled beside Caroline. Her perfume was strong, and her brown hair was shiny in the sun.

“Viens, Bobby, allons-y.”

The dog picked up his pace, and Marshall found himself quickly explaining his search—the shot-down aviator seeking his past. As before, she told him she had never heard of a family named Vallon.

“I think I may have known your father,” he said. “He may have been one of the Résistance agents who helped me get out of Paris and back home. I didn’t have names, and I have very little to go on.”

“But surely you are not so old?” she asked.

“I am sixty.”

“I was born after the war,” she said. “I have heard that my father was résistant, but I have not much to tell you. He never talked to me about the war.”

“Did you ever ask?”

She stared ahead. “He was not the type to talk,” she said.

“Weren’t you ever curious?”

“No.”

They were passing a small park, where children were cavorting on slides and teeter-totters. One section of the fence came close to the edge of the narrow sidewalk and made passage difficult. They had to walk single file—dog, Caroline, Marshall. When the sidewalk widened, she stopped, leaned against the fence, and gazed through the iron bars at the children.

“I never really cared about the war,” she said. She turned to him. “It is the past. Let’s talk of something else. Tell me about the United States.”