53.

THEY WOULD HIKE INTO THE MOUNTAINS ON A WELL-DEFINED trail in the general region where Marshall had crossed the border in 1944, southwest of Oloron-Sainte-Marie. Marshall never knew the exact location of his night crossing.

They drove straight south down from Bordeaux, through an expanse of farmland and villages with gray spires and red-tile roofs. Annette’s car needed brake shoes, so Marshall had rented another car, a small Citroën 2CV. It was like driving a snail, he thought.

They were easy driving companions, and for long stretches they were quiet, only now and then murmuring over scenery or road conditions. She praised his driving, and he congratulated himself on his new alertness at the wheel. He was starting to appreciate the pace on the small French highways—the numerous stops and detours and villages, alternating with straight stretches of earnest speeding. When they stopped for a picnic, he contemplated the leisure of it, the pleasure of the food. She was teaching him to be French. He was Julien Baudouin, grown up.

Marshall had not counted on plunging in so deeply. Getting together with Annette turned out to be both simpler and far more complicated than he had imagined. He faced something that demanded uncommon understanding and intimacy. He was inexperienced. With Loretta he had simply turned the marriage over to her. She ran the marriage, the home, the children, while he flew away.

OLORON-SAINTE-MARIE was an old town lodged in the foothills of the Pyrenees. An ancient church was perched on a hill within the old ramparts. As they drove down the main street a second time, having missed the turn for the hotel, Marshall noted the tabac, the boucherie, the épicerie, the boulangerie-patisserie—the essentials of a French town. A group of schoolchildren was blocking the street, protected by two guides directing traffic. Marshall recalled a flock of sheep in a road once when he was driving with Loretta and the children in Scotland. He remembered his impatience then, but now he could wait.

They would start their hike in two days. It would be fun, not a hardship, she insisted, as they climbed to their room on the third floor of the small hotel. The wooden steps were scarred and creaky.

“We should have had the fourth floor,” she said. “For practice. We’re mountain climbers.”

“We can trot up and down the stairs a few times,” he suggested.

“Oh, I forgot my little kit behind the seat,” she said when they reached the room. “It has my sewing thread, and I see you have a loose button.”

“I’ll get it.”

“We’ll both go. Trot, trot.”

FROM THE WINDOW of their room they could see past the town to green forests, golden farm fields, scattered goats. The line of mountains beyond was obscured by clouds.

“I like this view,” she said. “Maurice and I came here to Oloron-Sainte-Marie for a week one summer. I remember it was so restful.”

Maurice had been a prisoner of war in Germany. Early in their marriage, she said, they had vowed not to dwell on the ordeal of their imprisonment. Together, they forged a life, pushing the past into oblivion.

“It was like after the horror movie ends and the lights come on. We French have a way of going on; the past is past. There had to be a forgiveness. Maurice and I, we never told each other the whole truth. My feeling is that there was more. He may have thought the same of me. Maybe we should have spoken more. But now I am telling you.”

“He didn’t get to know a side of you that I knew—the schoolgirl with the leather book satchel.”

“That time was ours,” she said, busying herself with his loose button. “That is what you have given me again. And with you it is bearable.”

In a few minutes she came to him at the window, her thread extended between the shirt in her left hand and the needle in her right.

“I need more light,” she said.

She finished the button decisively, then sat down on the bed and kicked off her shoes. She sat cross-legged against the pillows and tugged at her bare feet. She was like a young gymnast, he thought.

“You’re staring at me,” she said.

“Every movement you make is extraordinary,” he said. “Annette, how did you manage to come out of the camp with your good nature intact?”

She brought her knees up and hugged them.

“At Koenigsberg many women kept their spirits alive by making things, writing, sewing little things, dolls. It was all clandestine, of course, but as long as we could express ourselves with our hands, we still knew we were women.”

“You were very strong.”

She shrugged. “I was always the optimist,” she said, adjusting the pillow behind her. “Speak about your wife. Was she pretty? Were you proud of her?”

To his surprise, he was glad to talk about Loretta. Framing her in a way that brought her to life for Annette helped him to see her more clearly himself. It occurred to him that his marriage had been similar to Annette’s—two people agreeing not to reveal the worst of themselves, being strong for each other. He was glad to have this thought.

“I couldn’t have had with my wife what I have with you. She could never have understood. I feel bad about that.”

“You will feel guilt over your wife for a long time,” she said. “That is most ordinary—even when there is no reason.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Grandchildren,” Annette said. “It is very sad to me, Marshall, that you have no grandchildren.”

LATER, THEY WALKED OUTSIDE. They found a long stairway up to a high promenade leading to the medieval church at the top of the hill. From the promenade they could see the mountains, a natural fortress rearing along the border between France and Spain. Marshall thought he could see snow but decided it was only the glitter of the afternoon light.

“It is beautiful,” she said.

“Yes, from a distance.” He shaded his eyes and stared toward Spain.

“Are you sure you want to go?” she asked him.

“I’m willing to go—with you.”

“But do you want to go?”

No, he didn’t, but he didn’t say so. He just pointed and said, “It is beautiful.”