The Girl in the Blue Beret - By Bobbie Ann Mason Page 0,8

It’s probably breeding germs.”

ALBERT AGREED IMMEDIATELY to house-sit. He could come the first of June, when his rent was due, he said when Marshall telephoned. Marshall hadn’t been able to figure out how else to find an occupant, and he knew Albert had little money. As an inducement, he threw in use of the car as part of the deal. But when Marshall stressed the need to look after the place and make any necessary repairs, Albert hesitated.

“I’ll pay the expenses,” Marshall said.

Albert had a contrary streak. He always resisted if Marshall made any demands. Albert had been a rebellious kid, and by his college years he was, in Marshall’s view, a hippie protester. Marshall was always thankful that Albert had gotten a deferment during the Vietnam War. But it separated him further from his son. Their experiences had been so different.

“You O.K., Dad? Are you O.K. with the retirement?”

“I’m dandy,” Marshall said.

After they hung up, Marshall reflected that both Albert and Mary had expressed concern for him. He was annoyed but also grateful. They were good kids, really. Maybe he and Loretta hadn’t done such a bad job.

His mind zipped back to the year when Loretta was first pregnant. She had done up her hair in a wavy mass that was supposed to imitate Hedy Lamarr’s rolling tresses in White Cargo.

Loretta said, “You can name the boy, and I get to name the girl.”

That was the plan. A boy and a girl. And it worked out. Albert was first. Loretta liked the name Marshall chose.

“Is Albert a name in your family?” she asked.

“No. It’s just a name I’m fond of,” Marshall said. He added, “It’s a name for courage.”

When the girl came along, Loretta announced that the name would be Mary. “I’m naming her for you,” she said.

“I don’t know how you twisted Mary out of Marshall,” he said.

IN A PLACE NORTH OF PARIS, a man and his wife dressed in dark, loose clothing were hovering over a radio, listening for a coded message from the BBC. In a corner, the boy was reading his lessons.

The message came, and the boy translated it for him. Blue tit birds will be nesting at twilight. Marshall could not make sense of it.

But the couple raised their heads, triumphant and tense. There was a bottle of wine on a worn wooden table, and a cat curled indifferently by the fire.

The boy’s father, Pierre Albert, disappeared into the night. A long two hours later, a muffled boom sounded in the north, and from the dark backyard Marshall could see in the distance a blaze erupting bright enough to show its angry smoke.

5.

IN A SHOE BOX (LADIES’ PUMPS) TAGGED “FRANCE,” IN LORETTA’S curlicue handwriting, Marshall found several letters and photographs, some French coins, a map, and some memorabilia from the war years. In the bottom were the letters he was looking for—two from Pierre Albert, one in English, one in French.

ALBERT, PIERRE

PAINTER

CHAUNY (AISNE) FRANCE

6 FEBRUARY 1947

Dear friend,

I am sending you a little word to ask you what are you doing and to tell you that we are going very well and hope that you are the same since we see you. Here, everything is going very well. I am always in the peinture and my boy works with me. He is now a young gentleman and I am very glad to have him. My wife go very well too.

I hope that you are now with all your family and all the hard days that you passed are now finished.

Here in France, the situation is always very hard. We always have the ration but it’s going a little better than the time the Germs were here, but it’s not tomorrow that we will have like before the war. I think that we will have to waite 2 or 3 year before that everything go all right.

My wife and I would be very glad to have some of your news. I join here some photographs. I am your friend, and I send you all my best wishes from my wife and Nicolas.

Pierre Albert

Marshall remembered answering Pierre’s letter in French, laboriously, freeing the Frenchman to respond in his own language, which Marshall could read more easily now.

CHAUNY 3 APRIL 1947

Dear friends,

I received your letter with joy. I know that your return was not known without difficulty, but at last we are very happy that you have returned, in sum for you the war has ended.

We would be very happy to receive your visit and also your wife