The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [57]
Mme Vallon said gently, “But my dear, if they see you making fun, they will not be amused.”
“One must make fun nevertheless,” said Annette. “Play the innocent! Confuse them with a perfect stream of beautiful French words. ‘Monsieur, you are in France. In France, one speaks French!’ ”
Annette’s mother worked on Marshall’s work-permit card after dinner. Marshall practiced writing his new name, Julien Baudouin, on a sheet of paper before signing the card. He was Julien Baudouin, a stonemason, a tailleur de pierre, born in 1917 in Blois, residing in Montreuil.
That night they heard a commotion in the streets again—a heavy, distant sound, then a siren.
Mme Vallon, regal in her robe, stood with her family in the center of the living room floor. Marshall watched from his doorway. “We have to do something more,” she said. “They only strengthen our resolve.”
M. Vallon embraced his wife and daughters, and they stood together, listening. The siren waned, and then the streets were quiet.
“It could have been anything,” he said.
No one was ready to return to bed, so they sat together for a while in the dark at the dining table. M. Vallon said, “When I was on the rue de Rivoli today, I had to pass the Hôtel Meurice. I was not allowed to walk in front of it, where there is the white barrier, so I walked through the Tuileries for some distance. It sickens me, the enemy headquartered in such a magnificent place, in the heart of the pride of Paris.”
He slammed his fist on the table, an unexpected gesture from this elegant man, Marshall thought.
In the morning Marshall chatted with Annette as she and Monique prepared for school.
He said, “Your parents are magnificent. You too. You’re all very brave.”
“No. We have to be careful, but we must help you. You are our cause. If we don’t help the aviateurs and get them back safely, then we have done nothing.”
He remembered he was sitting on a divan. She leaned over and gave him a quick two-cheek kiss. Then she lifted her satchel and headed for school.
“You are very nice,” she said, turning at the door.
THE PHOTOMATON WAS NO longer there. In its approximate place was a souvenir shop selling gaudy silk scarves, postcards, plastic Eiffel Towers, even berets. The legendary Paris that had been saved from obliteration was now burlesqued by tourist-happy gay Paree. Marshall walked down the Colonnade, past the swank Hôtel Meurice, M. Vallon’s anguished tone echoing in his thoughts. At the place de la Concorde, the view before him was vast and open, like his ardent heart.
22.
HE WAS LIKING THE WIDE-OPEN SPACES OF PARIS, THE EASE of movement, the pace. One afternoon he strolled through the Jardin des Plantes. Annette had taken him and another aviator to see animals in a large park, but today the layout of the menagerie at the big botanical garden did not seem at all familiar. He stared at the sad apes and headed for the exit on the rue Linné.
“MONSIEUR GUY, BONJOUR!” he said with exaggerated good cheer when he arrived at the Everything Store. Guy was his best friend in this city, he thought rashly.
“Bonjour, Captain, how do you go today?”
“I go just fine today. And you, Guy?”
“Comme-ci, comme-ça. A little of the gallbladder.”
“Quoi?” Marshall didn’t recognize the French term.
“Next to the liver.”
“Too much rich food, Guy?”
Guy shrugged. “It is necessary to eat.”
Marshall enjoyed poking around the store, gabbing with Guy about his stuff. He seemed to be a pack rat. Marshall had recently discovered some artifacts from the forties among the piles of outdated merchandise. He pored through postcards and photos of warplanes and old sheet music, a miscellany scattered among batteries, shower attachments, art supplies, nails. Guy knew that Marshall was a pilot who had been in France during the war and was seeking the past, but he had volunteered