The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [79]
Robert must be dead, Marshall had decided. If his body was still alive, his spirit was gone. Marshall was sure Caroline had told him the truth. And he was repelled by the thought of pursuing the broken wreck of the gallant young man he had known, if only fleetingly. Marshall knew he was overreacting, but the wave of revulsion was overwhelming. It was pointless, perhaps even perverse, to keep hunting for people he had known long ago, in a wholly different world. He should stop, pack up, go home. Home?
“She’s alive? Annette?”
“It is true.”
“I’m …” Marshall cast about for words. “I don’t know what to say. How did you find her?” He hardly knew if he was awake.
“We were searching in Paris, but she lives in a village southwest of Angoulême, in the Charentes. Her name now is Bouyer.”
“Bouyer? Are her parents still alive?” Marshall couldn’t collect his thoughts.
“I don’t know,” said Nicolas. “I spoke to her, but she didn’t mention her family. Listen, Marshall, she is eager to see you. At first she seemed hesitant, and I wasn’t certain that she remembered you, but she spoke with great eagerness after I explained to her how my family knew you. She was very gracious then, as if I had used a password!”
Two days earlier, Marshall had telephoned Nicolas about the disappointing end to his search for Robert Lebeau. He didn’t feel like tracking down someone at a mental institution, he had said. Now he said, “Nicolas, you are like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.”
“I should have accomplished this much sooner, but I foolishly followed some false trails.”
Marshall rose from bed and stood by the window. Across the street several similar cars nested in a row. A small truck was backing into a narrow space. He took a deep breath. He was awake now.
Nicolas apologized for limiting his search to Paris. “I found her through another résistante in the Bourgogne line, a woman who knew her and had seen her in Paris a few years ago. She should have been easy to find, because so many aviateurs have stayed in touch with the people who helped them. I must tell you that I was deeply afraid the Vallons had met a bad fate, and I was overjoyed to locate your Annette.”
Annette had suggested that Marshall come on Wednesday afternoon for tea, and Nicolas had the directions for getting there.
“The train to Angoulême is simple,” Nicolas said. “I would drive you, but it is necessary to tutor my pupils.”
“Thanks, Nicolas. Don’t worry. I think I’ll rent a car down there and go exploring.”
Marshall scribbled down Annette’s telephone number and promised to come to Chauny soon for Sunday lunch.
35.
IT FELT GOOD TO HANDLE A VEHICLE AGAIN. FROM THE TRAIN station at Angoulême, in a boxy Citroën with a balky choke, he headed toward Cognac, an affluent town near the Atlantic coast. After Angoulême, the expanse of vineyards opened out—the grapevines responsible for cognac, the fine brandy that Marshall never drank but that was plentiful in the dollhouse bottles served to airline passengers. The vines were in full growth, twisting and hugging close together, supported by wires and pruned at the top into flat hedge roofs. Grapes. How did anyone take an interest in something so specific and yet so broad? Of course he knew that for the workers vineyards were like the coal mines—not a choice, usually, just an ineluctable fate.
He was afraid she wouldn’t really remember him from 1944. In a brief conversation on the telephone the day before, she had been cordial, and although he still pictured her as the girl in his memory, her voice was high-pitched and unfamiliar.
Following the directions she had given him, he left the main route to Cognac and drove south a few miles to the sign for her village. It was a small farming community, with no trace of commerce or wealth. Slowly, he followed several turns until he found the street, then parked at #4, a large wooden portal,