The Girl in the Blue Beret

8.



THE FAMILY PICTURES ON THE WALLS DISTURBED HIM. HE WAS startled to see Loretta staring at him, or to see the young children smiling, frozen in time. On impulse, he began taking down the pictures.

At a loss for storage space, he decided to stack them in the master bedroom. He had avoided that room for months, but now he forced himself to peek in. The bed was made, and nothing was loose—books, shoes. He had forgotten that on the bedstand on her side of the bed, Loretta had kept a framed photo of him in uniform, taken the year he was promoted to captain. He turned the picture facedown, then noticed the photograph on the wall near the dresser, a publicity shot taken for the airline during the heyday of the Connie. There he was, the co-pilot, with the pilot and the flight engineer, followed by three stews in gray suits and pert little caps. They were crossing the tarmac, and the magnificent Lockheed Constellation was shining in the background. They were a team, the essence of aviation’s glamour. That was what they were selling, and he had been proud to be in the picture.

On the dresser was an earlier photograph: Marshall in his Air Corps uniform and Loretta in a snazzy broad-shouldered suit and an upswept hairdo. She was clutching a purse, and her toes peeked out of sassy pumps. He was her handsome hero; she was his glamour girl, his Loretta Young, his young Loretta.


ALBERT CALLED, TOUCHING BASE about the house. June was approaching.

“Have you figured out how long you’ll be gone?” he asked.

“No idea. I’m just going to go with the flow—isn’t that what you’re always saying?”

Albert was quiet. Then, in a disturbed tone, he said, “Well, I guess you know what you’re doing.” He paused again. “Is there something special waiting for you there?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You might as well tell me, do I have any other brothers or sisters?”

“What in the world? Good grief.” Marshall’s anger flashed through his normally rigid reserve.

“It’s O.K. if you do,” said Albert. “I don’t mind.”

Marshall, uncomfortable, stifled the impulse to hang up. He had always avoided contention by leaving.

Dear Albert,



I know we’ve had our differences. I know I wasn’t always around. That was my job—to go away. I don’t know what to do about it. I’m sorry your mom had to shoulder most of the burden of raising you. The schedule was brutal, but I wasn’t living a double life. I was flying. Now I can’t fly. So I’m going to try something else.



Love, Dad



He thought this letter but didn’t write it.

An unspoken dab of doggerel, a message to Albert, kept going around in his head:

You owe your existence



To the French Resistance.



Le petit Albert. That phrase shot through his mind from time to time, but he couldn’t explain it to his son.


MARY WAS PLEASED that Albert would look after the house. On the telephone, Marshall assured her that her mother’s things would remain undisturbed and that she could have whatever she wanted.

“Where are you going to stay over there?” Mary asked.

“I’ll stay in a hotel until I can find a place. I’ll let you know.”

Mary was silent. He heard her sigh then. “When are you going?”

“You know me. My bag is always packed.”

She was silent again, but then she said, in a small voice, a child’s, “When will I see you again, Dad?”


THE ODD-JOB GUYS had been working on the house—caulking, repairing windows and the roof. As Marshall mowed the yard with the gas-powered push mower, he realized that Loretta’s rosebushes and all the shrubs and flowers needed attention. He didn’t expect Albert to care any more about the yard than Marshall ever had.

The Garden Angels descended upon the place one day, working fast and chattering over loud music on a portable radio.

“It looks good,” he told them at the end of an hour.

He arranged for them to come every week and keep the yard in shape.

“I’m the man,” said the chief Angel, a young bronzed guy in a sun hat with a sort of halo wobbling on a spring.

When Marshall picked up his dry cleaning, Mr. Santelli said, “How’s the wife? I don’t see her anymore.”

Marshall said, “Oh, she’s getting along.”

Farewell.

The gas station. The insolent pump jockey in a T-shirt worn outside his jeans, no belt. Kids in France didn’t dress so disrespectfully, Marshall thought. Probably not, anyway.


AS HE WAS reorganizing his file folders from the war, his eyes fell on two photos of the Albert family. He remembered now that the Alberts had sent these pictures. They had been placed in the wrong folder. Here they were: Pierre and Gisèle, a romantic portrait of them, posed lovingly. It wasn’t a wedding picture. They were older, but still in love.

The other photo was a snapshot of the young boy, Nicolas, in long stockings and short pants that ballooned at the knee. He and two other children posed with a goat tied to a cart. Marshall studied the shaggy yard—a tangle of vines, the outbuildings, the fence, long tufts of grass that hid the children’s shoes. He had spent hours in that yard, mostly after sunset. He would recognize the place instantly.