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“Viens, Bobby, allons-y.”

The dog picked up his pace, and Marshall found himself quickly explaining his search—the shot-down aviator seeking his past. As before, she told him she had never heard of a family named Vallon.

“I think I may have known your father,” he said. “He may have been one of the Résistance agents who helped me get out of Paris and back home. I didn’t have names, and I have very little to go on.”

“But surely you are not so old?” she asked.

“I am sixty.”

“I was born after the war,” she said. “I have heard that my father was résistant, but I have not much to tell you. He never talked to me about the war.”

“Did you ever ask?”

She stared ahead. “He was not the type to talk,” she said.

“Weren’t you ever curious?”

“No.”

They were passing a small park, where children were cavorting on slides and teeter-totters. One section of the fence came close to the edge of the narrow sidewalk and made passage difficult. They had to walk single file—dog, Caroline, Marshall. When the sidewalk widened, she stopped, leaned against the fence, and gazed through the iron bars at the children.

“I never really cared about the war,” she said. She turned to him. “It is the past. Let’s talk of something else. Tell me about the United States.”

28.

“MY FATHER HAD TEN CHILDREN,” CAROLINE TOLD HIM THE next evening. She had met him at a café-restaurant she had suggested, near the Sorbonne. “He had five with his wife and five with his mistress. I am one of those from the mistress.” She lowered her head for a moment. “I detest to think of my mother like that. It makes my father less to love. It has been a misery knowing this. I do not even know my brothers and sisters who are from his wife. They grew up in Montreuil and were respectable and went to the Catholic school.”

The room was large and comfortable, with wicker furniture and plush cushions, pastel colors, soft lighting. A peek at the menu confirmed his guess—this was an expensive restaurant. They were sipping aperitifs, something amber in small glasses. She was wearing a low-cut embroidered blouse tight on her breasts. He tried not to stare.

“Let’s order the langoustines!” she said, giving the menu only a glance. “A specialty.”

“Sure,” he said, wondering—and not caring—if langoustines might be pig snouts, or some obscure organ meats. They were the most expensive item.

The waiter came, and Marshall ordered the langoustines for both.

“I like this place!” Caroline said with a smile that illuminated her features. “I come here with my friends whenever we have something to celebrate—not so often! But there are birthdays.”

Her mouth turned up in a crooked half smile—a hint of flirtation. The waiter asked about wine.

“It’s all the same to me,” Marshall said to Caroline. “I’m woefully uncultivated.”

“I’ll choose it,” she said. “It is no bother.”

She said something unintelligible to the waiter, who agreed vociferously.

Marshall asked her, “So you grew up with your mother in Saint-Mandé? Your father did not live with you?”

She nodded. “It is near my father’s other family. He must have wanted to keep his two women close so he wouldn’t have to travel far between them!” She laughed flippantly. Marshall was charmed.

She said, “My mother accepted the arrangement, but when he was at our apartment, it was an obligatory appearance only. This we understood. He didn’t supervise us. He left that to my mother. Maybe he thought he didn’t have that authority. I do not know. My mother kept some distance from him, for she had dignity. She did the cooking for him when he came, and he took care of her, in his fashion. I think she was afraid of him. I was afraid of him.” She stopped, concentrating on tearing a piece of bread.

“Afraid he would hurt you? Hit you?”

“No. But he was a stranger. He was there but not there. I don’t know what played in his mind.” She shuddered.

Marshall was uncomfortable, thinking of his own home life. Albert and Mary would chatter about school or friends or games, and he would gaze out the window.

The