31.
IN HIS INSOMNIAC STRETCHES, MARSHALL REPLAYED HIS ESCAPE-and-evasion adventure through France, dredged up new characters in his long-gone drama, and finally reached Paris, where the girl in the blue beret met his train. She was alone, the toss of her head leading him to her parents’ apartment, where her mother cranked out his false ID as simply and skillfully as if she were sewing costumes for a school pageant. Robert came and went—always purposeful, always mysterious.
Half-asleep, he let his mind wander over Ford’s taped memories—Ford hiding in Belgium, getting to Ham, then to Paris. At the Gare du Nord a girl and her boyfriend met him. Annette, no doubt, and Robert Jules Lebeau—one of those dashing, darkly handsome guys girls can’t resist.
He didn’t remember Annette and Robert as a pair of sweethearts when he was with the Vallons. Had Ford been there before or after Marshall arrived? Did they fall in love after Marshall left?
Caroline could be the daughter of Annette and Robert, he realized. Annette may have become the mistress who bore Robert so many children. The energetic, joyous girl he had known became the weary, neglected woman Caroline had described. It seemed incredible. Just as Robert’s shift to a loutish, inattentive father seemed incredible.
The sun was already seeping through the cracks of the shutters when he opened his eyes, repeating Robert Jules Lebeau, the words jarring him awake. The good-natured young man he remembered had energy and brains—and commitment. Of course he and Annette became sweethearts. In retrospect, it seemed inevitable. Then he thought that Annette more likely was the wife, not the mistress. Either way, it seemed sad.
“DAD HAS BEEN ASKING about you,” Sonia Ford said on the telephone. “He complained that I made you wait so long to call! I wasn’t sure how long the tornado watch would go on yesterday, and we had a doctor’s appointment later.”
“Did you have a tornado?”
“Not this time, but you never know.”
“I’ve been thinking about James and the old days. How’s he doing?”
“Dad—are you awake? I’ve got your old friend here. Marshall.”
James’s voice on the line was shaky, but his midwestern cadences were familiar, and Marshall found himself talking easily with the former top-turret gunner.
“I can still picture you standing up there in your greenhouse, James,” Marshall said. “Aiming that gun in every direction at once.”
James laughed, a thin rasp. “Marshall, your letter was the best thing that’s happened to me since I got sick.”
After more chitchat, Marshall explained his move to Paris and asked about Robert Lebeau. “I don’t know for sure, but I think he may have been the guy who helped me too. Do you remember the family you stayed with?”
“No, not very well. They went off to work and left me in a little room, so I didn’t see them much.”
“Was there a daughter?”
“Might have been.”
“Annette? The Vallon family?”
“No, that doesn’t ring a bell.”
“I’m trying to find the family I stayed with. There was also a guy who was there a lot. I think he might have been Lebeau.”
“I don’t even know why I remember his name. But he impressed me a lot.”
“You said he had a girlfriend.”
“He had a girl with him at the train. I thought they were sweethearts, because they seemed so interested in each other I wasn’t even sure they saw us flyers. But I don’t remember seeing her again. When he came to visit the family I stayed with, he was alone. I think he came over with information, what they were supposed to do and so on.”
“The guy I knew didn’t speak English,” Marshall said.
“This boy didn’t either … but somebody translated for me. That’s how I knew something about him. He talked about church a lot. I guess he was Catholic.”
“Do you remember where in Paris this was?”
“Oh, a ways from downtown, I think.” James’s voice broke, and he began to falter. “I just can’t remember.”
“You said he was dressed in heavy country clothes and workmen’s boots?”
“He dressed like he was going to cross the mountains himself.”
“I’m glad somebody had good shoes,” Marshall said.
They laughed together. “That’s the truth!” James said. “I never thought I’d live to think that was funny, but I had these shoes that were like bedroom slippers! I cried for my good old A-6 flying boots, but I’d gotten rid of them.”
“Yeah, all of us Americans with our big feet and GI boots.”
James laughed again, but he sounded weak. “I’m sorry, Marshall.”
“I’d better let you go,” Marshall said, regretting that he couldn’t continue his relentless probe.
“I’m so glad to hear from you, Marshall. Maybe I never told you this, but you did a damn fine job landing our Fort.”
“Thank you. You could have done it yourself, James. You were a flight engineer second to none.”
“I don’t know about that.”
Marshall felt guilty, pouncing on James’s last good moments, moments that belonged to his family. He wasn’t sure he had learned anything worthwhile. He was wandering through a land of ghosts, slivers of memory, clues floating like summer midges.