The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [99]
She laughed. “My parents were very strict! At the table with adults, we did not speak. We listened. But during the war, my parents released me! They set me free! Ironic, is it not? During the Occupation, when no one was free, I was freed!”
Her exuberant tone shifted, and she leaned forward.
“My parents understood the perils, but it was, for them, the greatest emergency. Young or old, we had to do whatever the war demanded. Our shame is that many French people did nothing. Or even worse, some aided the Germans.”
She paused. “Some of the aviateurs were with us only a day or an hour, and some—like you—for longer. When you were with us, the Gestapo had a thousand eyes. It was very dangerous to move you south on the train, even though the snows were melting and the passage through the mountains was easing. But the Gestapo was behind every bush, and they had broken some of the escape lines. The Bourgogne survived, when others did not. We had to wait for the right moment to send you out.”
“I was stupid,” he said. “I didn’t really know the risks you ran.”
“It makes me chill,” she said, holding herself against imaginary drafts. “And yet it makes me glow with warmth to have you here, to remember the good moments. We were young. We were open.”
Her smile made him see the young girl in her again. He looked away.
She said, “When you first appeared from Angoulême in that large Citroën, I thought I was dreaming. Could it be true that one of my boys had returned and was looking for me? I had often thought of a path back to that time, with those pilots we helped. And yet it was so hard.
“I must confess—when you first came from Paris, I wasn’t even sure I remembered you. I mean, I knew who you were, and I recall your stay with us. But I wasn’t sure I recognized you. Then the next day on our drive, I remembered how you laughed. It was very specific, and it filled me with joy and anticipation. When I saw how eagerly you listened to Odile tell of her parachutists—how fervently you wanted to know the past, I was so glad you found me! This week last, while you were away, I turned it over in my mind. It is very complicated. The war is always with me, and yet it is not with me. I have wanted to remember and wanted to forget. Is it not true for you, as well? My own past seems like a stranger’s sometimes. It has so little to do with how things are now. Now I live normally. Then, nothing was normal.
“I began to look forward to your return today. I grew more eager. In my mind I began reliving what had happened. And I kept telling it in my mind. Again and again I was insistent in my mind. I made you listen. I am not sure you wanted to listen. I could not stop myself.”
Marshall tried to speak, but he stalled again. He thought about the men of wartime France—defeated, unable to protect their families. The humiliation must have been excruciating. He thought about M. Vallon, his elegant brown suit.
Marshall thought Annette would have told him everything then, but she grew quiet, and he did not press her.
THEY HIKED AT A PARK near Cognac. The trails were wooded and moderately inclined. The hike was vigorous, and his boots were fine. The day was balmy, not hot, and walking offered them a growing intimacy—the two of them together, out in nowhere. When the trails ascended, she went ahead, and conversation dwindled. He regarded her energy and enthusiasm with wonder, not able to square it with the dark imagery in his mind.
She had made a small picnic lunch, which he carried in his new backpack. He also carried a canteen of water, but she wanted wine with a meal, with glasses, so he carried those too. She had fruit and cheese in her little pack. He had not yet given her the beret he had bought for her. He was still unsure how appropriate the gift was.
They paused near a waterfall that emptied into a churning green pool. The rush of the water obliterated the sounds of other people on the trail, and the faint spray cooled them as they sat on a flat rock and spread the picnic on a blue floral-patterned