The Girl in the Blue Beret - By Bobbie Ann Mason Page 0,31

a sliver of soap. Later in the day she brought him newspapers and books and kept him company while he ate bread and cheese.

“I will teach you my language, a little. Un peu.”

“I know a little.”

“Say ‘s’il vous plaît.’ Please.”

“S’il vous plaît. I know that much. Merci. I know that.”

His college French had been in books. Pronunciation was guesswork.

“Say my name. Jeannine. Jan-neen.”

“Jan-neen.”

She offered him a French grammar book, and the next time she came, he had reviewed the verb forms. He heard her doing the barnyard chores, feeding the hens and ducks. Her sister cooked him a duck egg, which was delicious. Years after the war, he asked Loretta why she never bought duck eggs. Why always hen eggs? She laughed so loudly. “I never heard of people eating duck eggs,” she said.

HE SPENT THREE DAYS in the barn studying French vocabulary. La table, la fenêtre, le canard. Table, window, duck. Sometimes the words in the lessons were sad. Teapot. Fireplace. Pillow. Tender words that could spontaneously pierce his heart like shrapnel. Jeune fille. Bébé.

“My son is in Germany,” she said. “Say la guerre.”

“La guerre.”

She lowered her eyes. “The boys cannot fight the war,” she said. “They are in the work camps.”

She did not ask about his life in the States or about his plane crash. She brought him a piece of bread fresh from her oven. She had hoarded some flour for special occasions. He savored the bread, its chewiness a challenge.

He rested in the nest of hay. Outside a goose honked. He watched dust motes in the crack of light across the dirt floor; in them he imagined he could see swarms of aircraft. In the night he heard RAF bombers, and soon after daybreak he heard a lone B-17. The familiar sound was unmistakable. He tried to see through the cracks in the barn walls. He couldn’t spot it, and the sound faded. It was another straggler, another crew in trouble. He fantasized being rescued by it. He listened for a crash, but he heard nothing, and he did not mention it to Jeannine.

On the third night his interrogator reappeared.

“We checked you thoroughly with the English authorities, and you are Marshall Stone, of the 303rd Bomb Group. I am happy to say that we will help you get back to your base in England.”

“Excellent. Thank you.” Marshall was elated. The coil inside him began to unwind. “Can I get over the mountains to Spain?”

“I do not know the next stage. I know only one stage.” The man handed Marshall the dog tag. It was still warm from the man’s trouser pocket. Marshall held it tightly in his hand, as if it were a good luck charm and he suddenly believed in magic.

The man said, “Tomorrow you will be driven to a safe house.”

A WOMAN WAS HURRYING up a winding stair. The cramped house had uneven floorboards, perhaps centuries old, with a threadbare carpet. He could see her hand at her bosom, holding her dark shawl tightly together, her black scarf tied beneath her chin. She came swiftly up the stairs, signaling for him to retreat from his room into the hiding closet. Grabbing his bedding, he crawled into the dark, hidden recess, and she pushed a chest in front of the small, low door. Dogs were barking on the street. Several heavy vehicles drove by. After a while, she mounted the stairs again and moved the furniture aside, releasing him.

The room contained one bed. Marshall was shut away like an attic child with nothing to do. On the walls were a crucifix, a picture of the Madonna and child, a pastel landscape of something that looked like misty mountains, and a photograph of a young man in a double-breasted suit. There was no chair, only the chest, the narrow bed, and a tiny mat on the floor. Each morning he heard a certain whistling from the street. Was someone so happy, or was it a signal?

The first morning, a shy adolescent girl brought him down the stairs into the kitchen, where four women in black garb were bent over large wooden bowls. He imagined they were widows or mothers from the first war, women aging with painful memories of young men. The women were working with cheese. The woman who had shown him upstairs the previous evening rose from her work and poured him a cup of coffee from a pot on the wood-stove. The small cup was fiercely hot, and the ersatz coffee was bitter