The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [51]
As dawn approached, he sank into slumber at last.
Late in the morning he bought a telephone, but there was nowhere to set it except on the floor by the window. In search of hardware, he wandered the neighborhood until he came upon an odd little shop that he had passed once or twice before. It called itself a librairie-papeterie, a bookstore-stationery store, but the windows displayed cases of small items—clothespins, light bulbs, shower caps, transistor radios, doll clothes, candles, hedge clippers.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” said the man behind the counter. He was wearing the typical long blue work smock.
“Bonjour, monsieur. I see that you have a little of everything here.”
“Oui, monsieur. Just ask me for anything.”
It took Marshall a moment to summon the French words. “Shoe polish.”
“Oui.”
“Clock radio.”
“Bien sûr.” The man tapped the counter confidently, his gold ring clicking.
“Hammer. Nails.”
“You are a good client! The Americans are the best clients, because they want always everything.”
“You have everything I need here,” Marshall said. “This is the Everything Store! Le magasin de tout?”
“It is a bazar,” the man said, smiling. “C’est le bazar ici.”
Marshall left with all the items on his list, and also a notebook, envelopes, a supply of batteries, a flashlight, an extension cord, a small table for his telephone, and an antique postcard of Napoléon’s Tomb.
THE CONCIERGE WAS astonished that Marshall’s telephone service was hooked up in two days.
“People wait and wait,” she said. She was sweeping the floor and smoking. She mumbled something about the weather.
He called Albert, to let him know where he was, and asked him to call Mary for him.
“Mary was sick last week,” Albert said.
“Oh, what?”
“She had food poisoning—salmonella, I think. She was really sick for about four days, but she’s over it. I never trusted her cooking.”
“Should I call her myself?”
“No, I’ll call her. She’s O.K.”
Albert reported that a tree had come down in a thunderstorm, but he had called the Garden Angels, who had dealt with it promptly. It was the tree in the back outside Marshall’s den. Marshall would miss the shade—if he returned to New Jersey. At the moment, he couldn’t quite imagine living there again. What was there for him in New Jersey?
“I’m sorry to hear that, Albert. But thanks for dealing with it.”
“It missed the other trees, and it missed the shed. So I guess we’re pretty lucky.”
“Yeah. Don’t forget to send me the bill.”
“I forwarded some mail for you to the American Express.”
“Thanks, Albert.” After an awkward pause, he said, “Well, gotta go.”
“Wait. How’s it going over there, Dad? Did you find those people you were looking for?”
“Some of them. I found the family that helped me in that little town. They were still there, same house, all these years.”
“That’s good.”
“It was great to see them again.”
“Great. What else are you doing? Going to museums?”
“Not much. I haven’t had time. But that sounds like a good idea.”
“Don’t worry about the house.”
“O.K. I appreciate it. Take it easy, Albert. And tell Mary I’m glad she’s O.K.”
Marshall left a message for Nicolas, giving his new number, and another one on Jim Donegan’s answering machine.
Later, as he was walking through the parc Montsouris, he looked up to see a 747 above the city, on its way out of De Gaulle. The gear was up, the wings clean, the nose jacked high. Things would be quieting down in the cockpit, the crew squaring things away, getting ready to hand control over to the autopilot. “Let George do it,” they used to say.
19.
A SMARTLY DRESSED WOMAN SAT AT THE SMALL ROUND TABLE next to his on the sidewalk at a corner brasserie on the rue d’Alésia, where he was waiting for Nicolas. Struggling with the diabolical