The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [122]
They would start their hike in two days. It would be fun, not a hardship, she insisted, as they climbed to their room on the third floor of the small hotel. The wooden steps were scarred and creaky.
“We should have had the fourth floor,” she said. “For practice. We’re mountain climbers.”
“We can trot up and down the stairs a few times,” he suggested.
“Oh, I forgot my little kit behind the seat,” she said when they reached the room. “It has my sewing thread, and I see you have a loose button.”
“I’ll get it.”
“We’ll both go. Trot, trot.”
FROM THE WINDOW of their room they could see past the town to green forests, golden farm fields, scattered goats. The line of mountains beyond was obscured by clouds.
“I like this view,” she said. “Maurice and I came here to Oloron-Sainte-Marie for a week one summer. I remember it was so restful.”
Maurice had been a prisoner of war in Germany. Early in their marriage, she said, they had vowed not to dwell on the ordeal of their imprisonment. Together, they forged a life, pushing the past into oblivion.
“It was like after the horror movie ends and the lights come on. We French have a way of going on; the past is past. There had to be a forgiveness. Maurice and I, we never told each other the whole truth. My feeling is that there was more. He may have thought the same of me. Maybe we should have spoken more. But now I am telling you.”
“He didn’t get to know a side of you that I knew—the schoolgirl with the leather book satchel.”
“That time was ours,” she said, busying herself with his loose button. “That is what you have given me again. And with you it is bearable.”
In a few minutes she came to him at the window, her thread extended between the shirt in her left hand and the needle in her right.
“I need more light,” she said.
She finished the button decisively, then sat down on the bed and kicked off her shoes. She sat cross-legged against the pillows and tugged at her bare feet. She was like a young gymnast, he thought.
“You’re staring at me,” she said.
“Every movement you make is extraordinary,” he said. “Annette, how did you manage to come out of the camp with your good nature intact?”
She brought her knees up and hugged them.
“At Koenigsberg many women kept their spirits alive by making things, writing, sewing little things, dolls. It was all clandestine, of course, but as long as we could express ourselves with our hands, we still knew we were women.”
“You were very strong.”
She shrugged. “I was always the optimist,” she said, adjusting the pillow behind her. “Speak about your wife. Was she pretty? Were you proud of her?”
To his surprise, he was glad to talk about Loretta. Framing her in a way that brought her to life for Annette helped him to see her more clearly himself. It occurred to him that his marriage had been similar to Annette’s—two people agreeing not to reveal the worst of themselves, being strong for each other. He was glad to have this thought.
“I couldn’t have had with my wife what I have with you. She could never have understood. I feel bad about that.”
“You will feel guilt over your wife for a long time,” she said. “That is most ordinary—even when there is no reason.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Grandchildren,” Annette said. “It is very sad to me, Marshall, that you have no grandchildren.”
LATER, THEY WALKED OUTSIDE. They found a long stairway up to a high promenade leading to the medieval church at the top of the hill. From the promenade they could see the mountains, a natural fortress