The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [54]
“I believe I knew him during the war,” he said. “I’d like very much to find him again.”
“I know nothing of him and the war.”
“Do you know a family named Vallon?”
“No.”
Anger erupted in him, and he turned away quickly. “Au revoir, madame,” he said, his back to her. He thought she grunted a perfunctory au revoir.
She seemed young, but Marshall couldn’t judge age anymore. He didn’t feel old himself. Physically, he felt no different from ten or twenty years ago. He frequently searched his face in the mirror for signs of age. He didn’t have wrinkles, just a few vague sags. He touched his face now. His skin was rough and his beard was scratchy. He needed a new razor.
He returned to the Métro, where several streets met and angled off in different directions. Still irritated, he paused near the stairway down to the trains and surveyed the busy intersection, with its bountiful trees and striped crosswalks. Nicolas had suggested that Saint-Mandé was where Marshall had hidden with the Vallons, but Marshall did not recognize this space. One building opposite the Métro was shaped like a crescent, and he thought he would have remembered that, but he didn’t.
AT AMERICAN EXPRESS he collected his mail—a letter from Mary, a newsletter from the airline, some financial statements, letters from his crewmates Tony Campanello and Bobby Redburn, and a letter from an address in White Plains, New York.
He decided to walk over to the Madeleine, a neoclassical church that Nicolas said had been a meeting place for aviators stashed in Paris. It was easy to find, Nicolas explained, and the men simply blended into the crowd on the steps in front. Marshall had not come here when he was hiding in Paris, but now he sat on a step and read his mail. The open sun warmed him, and the crowd disappeared from his consciousness. Mary’s gentle inquiries touched him. She didn’t mention her food poisoning.
Marshall was glad to hear from two of the three crewmates who had finished the war in a POW camp. Bobby Redburn, the ball-turret gunner, wrote from California:
You asked what I remembered about the crash. I remember scrambling up out of that bubble when Webb said bail out, but then Hootie stopped me from bailing out. And that was after Cochran had already flown out the door. Chick was always impulsive—he had a hair-trigger reflex. That’s a great gunner for you. But I grabbed the chute pack and was ready to dive. I guess I’m glad I didn’t. It tore me up what happened to Hootie—and he may have even saved my life.
Marshall found Redburn’s letter painful to read. The mission seemed to be there again—the plane descending, crew scrambling, the tumult that followed. He folded the letter and turned to Tony Campanello’s letter. Tony was the navigator.
I called your house and your boy told me to write you in Paris. He said you’d retired and become French. Couldn’t get enough of it, huh? When I got out of the stalag I never wanted to go to a foreign country again in my life. And I haven’t.
But I’m kind of misty-eyed about what you told me about going to Belgium. You know, I never thought back. I just hated those Krauts so much and wanted to get out of that hellhole camp I was in and get home. I thought I’d finally gotten that behind me. Truly, it made me feel proud to think of those people in Belgium remembering us, so many years later. A very nice family took me to the hospital. They knew the Germans would come and get me, but my leg was busted so bad they couldn’t have hidden me. I think Ford or Hadley might be able to help you out with your questions about the Underground.…
It would be mighty fine to see you again. I’ve done pretty good for myself, working at Boeing. Real good money, Marshall.
Marshall continued reading about Tony’s job in Seattle, his house on the beach, his children and grandchildren, the club he belonged to, all of it remote and almost meaningless to Marshall now. He felt like a rare bird. What did he think he was doing? He had always had a tendency to set out on his own, without advice or help. During the years