A man had already reached the site, coming from one of the other paths into the forest.
“Stupéfaction! I knew this man!” she cried. He was a donneur, one of the men who had turned a parachutist over to the Germans the week before for the reward.
“I said to him, ‘I’m taking care of this, monsieur. You return to the village.’ Once again, as the teacher I commanded respect, so the donneur left!”
“What about the parachute?” Marshall asked. The twigs he had been playing with scattered on the stones.
Odile and her neighbor helped the American gather his parachute and hide it in some brush. They insisted that he hide in the thick bushes until dark, and they promised to bring clothing and food.
“On the way back to the school, I encountered a workman who was pushing an American, slightly wounded, in a donkey cart. He was taking him to the factory to turn him in. I said, ‘You can’t do that!’ I stated that it would be treason to France if he turned the man in for money.”
“Odile was very courageous,” Annette said, turning to Marshall.
“The workman left,” Odile said. “And I hid the second American with the first. They were glad to see each other, and they let out a few loud sounds. I hushed them. Then they began to search for their cigarettes. I cautioned them—no, no, messieurs! It is dangerous!
“I did what I could with the flyer’s wounds. He had a little first-aid box with some medicine and patches. I told them, ‘I’m going to leave you here right now, because we cannot take you into a home in the day. The Germans will be looking. If their dogs sniff you out, do not resist. If you do, you will be killed. If you do not resist, the worst that can happen is that you will be a prisoner of war. Be silent. Remain hidden. Do not smoke.’ I instructed them carefully, repeating my cautions, especially because I was uncertain of my English.”
While the schoolchildren went home for lunch, Odile, her aunt, and the neighbor gathered supplies and contacted people who could help harbor two Americans. When the students returned, a boy was crying, telling her that his parents had seen the third parachutist hanging at the top of a pine tree, with a pool of blood at the bottom.
“I instructed this boy very carefully. ‘You must go home right now,’ I said. ‘Tell your parents to cut that tree down and rescue the American before he loses any more blood.’ So this child did just that. His parents cut down the tree, but they declared him to the authorities because he needed hospitalization. If they had cut the tree earlier, he might have survived. His arm was torn almost off. I went to their house immediately, but by then it was clear he was dying from the loss of his blood. His last word, I will never forget, was ‘coffee.’ ”
Marshall had been listening intently. The arm, the falling pine tree. He could easily imagine coffee being his own dying request. But landing in a tree, hanging there, his arm wrenched …
“I will never forget the Germans who came to take him to the hospital,” Odile was saying. “They came into the house, saw he was dead, and one lifted him by the arm and head, the other the feet. They swung him through the house as if he were a heavy sack of potatoes, and they threw him onto their vehicle, on top of some green canvas bundles. He landed facing the sky, limbs spread, his eyes still open. They drove away without a word. They would salute a portrait of a stranger long dead but treat a fresh body like this! I was trembling with furor and fear. I knew we had a difficult job to undertake.”
“Were the other two all right?” Marshall asked.
“In the night I went to get them. They were still in the bush, and to my relief I did not smell cigarettes. They had not smoked. I stowed them in a barn, and the next night I found a room for them with a factory worker. Several people helped me to move them. They spent nights in different homes. One night they were in our kitchen! The German officer went down the corridor, as usual, and we heard him salute the portrait. The Americans were crouched behind the flour barrel in the storage pantry. My aunt decided that one night was all she could bear of having Americans and Germans in such close quarters. The next night we smuggled them out to another home. Everyone in the village knew! They cooperated because I was the teacher. I think the students all knew, but we did not speak of it at school.
“We had much work to do to get clothing for the aviateurs. The shoemaker in the village produced some coarse work boots, and I measured them for vests and trousers. I remember there was a beret that we had to stretch.”
In the end, the baker drove the airmen to another village in his car. He was allowed a car and a pass into the forbidden coastal zone, for he had to deliver his bread to the Germans. By then the Americans were dressed as French workers, with false papers. The baker knew a group that could arrange their passage across the Pyrenees.
“I was so nervous. I thought we would never get all the details to work. On the Sunday before they left, I went to the house where they were staying to give them some instructions, and a German spotted me on the road.
“ ‘What are you doing, miss?’ he asked. ‘You usually go home to your parents on the weekends.’
“ ‘Oh, I couldn’t go this weekend,’ I said. ‘I had schoolwork to do. What are you doing here, monsieur?’
“ ‘I am looking for my lost dog,’ he said.
“The aviateurs returned to England safely. The Résistance received a message through the BBC. But after the war, the aviateurs never answered my letters. I kept their American dollars for them. I had told them they must not be caught with American dollars. I didn’t know what to do with the money. I kept it until 1947, and finally my mother suggested I give it to charity.”
Odile took a sip of her wine, set the glass down, and folded her hands neatly in her lap. Marshall was moved, identifying with the parachutists, remembering being dressed as a workman and plunked down in someone’s car, being driven along dark roads.
Annette said, “Thank you, Odile. You see, Marshall, here is courage.”
“The parachutes—we gathered them, and after the war we sewed them into clothing. I made my wedding dress from one of the parachutes.” Odile smiled. “My Jean returned to me.”
Annette, her voice slightly unsteady, urged Marshall to tell about his own evasion.
He gave Odile a truncated account of his escape from France, making light of his own actions while praising the families who had helped him.
“I might not be alive if it weren’t for people like Annette and her family,” Marshall said.
“Bien sûr, monsieur. It is my effort to make all the witnesses of that time go out to the public and speak about it, but Annette has not been ready to do this yet.” Odile nudged Annette affectionately. “At the school I am able to talk about it, although some of the parents might prefer I did not. I don’t frighten the children. I merely talk to them of history and what France endured when our country was assaulted, when it was taken over and we were robbed of our resources. The children take notice. They sense that there is something in the past, a great storm cloud hanging over us. They know this from home.”
“Tell us about the boy who drew the swastika in his notebook,” Annette said.
“Oh, mon Dieu! I said, ‘Do you know what that is, young man?’ I was very stern. He was terrified and he said no.
“ ‘It is the Nazi symbol of hatred, of all the darkness that was rained down upon France.’ I told him this with much severity! I made him hold out his palm for the ruler. It made him cry, and it is necessary for the boys to hold their tears.” She sighed. “I was filled with remorse later, but I decided that what I did was correct.”
“So many don’t know,” said Annette. “It is too painful for their parents to tell them.”
“Yes. And now there are attempts to change the history, to say the worst atrocities never happened.” Odile’s voice grew shrill.
“The négationistes!” Annette said.
“Annette teaches art classes. That is perfect, because she could instruct the young ones about what it was like during the war, but perhaps she hasn’t the heart.
I am trying to persuade her.” Odile’s voice dropped.
“I might not be here if she hadn’t helped me in 1944,” Marshall reiterated.
“I see how eagerly you listened, and I feel you are a friend. You can imagine the three men who parachuted into my schoolyard that distant day.”
“Yes.”
“It makes me enormously unhappy that I never heard from them again. I wrote to them. They had given me their addresses, but they never responded.”
“A lot could have happened to them on the way home.”
“I know they reached England, although I’m sure they suffered from crossing the Pyrenees when it was still winter.”
LATER, WHEN ANNETTE and Marshall said their goodbyes, Odile implored Marshall to locate the two Americans flyers for her. “I will write their names for you.”
“I’ll do what I can.” Marshall wasn’t confident, but he said he would try. He thanked her for telling her memories.
Odile clasped both of Marshall’s hands in hers.
“Please help me to find my pilots,” she pleaded.
37.
IN THE CAR, THE REST OF MARSHALL’S OWN STORY TUMBLED OUT. He told Annette more about his landing in France during the war, about hiding in barns, about sleeping behind an armoire, about Pierre Albert’s Resistance work. Even the boy Nicolas was a local scout, he said. She listened, nodding attentively. He told her about returning to the crash site in the spring. He described finding the Alberts again.
“I was a child when the war began,” she said abruptly. “Papa sent us away from Paris a few days before it fell to the Germans. That infamous day—June 10, 1940. He stayed behind, hoping to keep his job in the finance ministry, and we went to our summer house in Normandy. A few weeks later, Papa decided we should return to Paris. The travel was abominable—my mother with two children and innumerable possessions. Monique must have her dolls, and I must have my books. We arrived at Paris, and the sight of the Nazi flags on the rue de Rivoli—it made the stomach sick. We hated the Germans! It was insupportable that we should be ruled by these detestable people in their ugly uniforms, the color of mold and ash. Monique was lively and I tried to play games with her, but I was serious about my studies, and I was alert to my parents’ views. They had friends for dinner many times, and all were inconsolable over the plight of France. The Germans had tried this twice before. Could they not see that we were never going to give in to their brutal aggression? It was all horrible.”
“It still seems very real to you.”
“Bien sûr. But we made the best of it. Papa lost his job but managed to get another position in the mairie, the city government. Maman had difficulty getting enough food. She was outraged that the Germans should make the French go hungry, when it was certain that the Germans would not appreciate foie gras or a fine sauce à la bordelaise.”
Annette was concentrating on her driving. Traffic was increasing now.
“I’m sorry I never tried to find you,” he said.
“No, no, no. I did not contact you either. The boy who wrote—I did not answer.”
“I still think I must have seemed ungrateful all those years.”
“And so did I,” she said, turning to smile at him.
It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was behind them. She turned to the last road into her village, eased down the quiet street, and pulled up to her doorway. He got out and opened the large double door to the courtyard. After she parked, he closed the door and greeted Bernard. The workmen were gone. Marshall’s rented car stood there, waiting to take him back to the train. He didn’t want to leave. Then he had an inspiration. He waited for her to get out of her car. As she shut the door, he said, “Let me take you to dinner tonight.”
“I would like that.”
“I’ll drive,” he said, patting the rented car as if it were Pegasus.
SHE CHOSE A SIMPLE place on the river. They sat at a table with an umbrella and watched ducks and geese waddling up the riverbank for bread crumbs. She laughed, holding her wineglass daintily. She talked about her husband’s work as a veterinarian. Annette had assisted him very little, for it broke her heart when an animal suffered. She raised the children, kept pets, fed chickens, gathered eggs, helped raise lambs.
“I rejoiced when the animals got well, but I did not have the sensibility, the stomach for enduring the losses! I was a coward, I think! One day I will never forget, a woman came in with a small white dog in her arms. She was in tears. Her large shepherd dog had killed the little one, it was apparent, but she was disbelieving. Very kindly, Maurice took her and the little dog into the examining room, and in a few minutes they emerged. She was weeping uncontrollably, and the little dog was in a cardboard box. It should not have been done—trusting the large dog with the little one. She just did not believe it had happened, or that it had been her fault.”
“That’s sad.”
“I cried,” Annette said. “That day my husband said, ‘No more. You cannot be the assistant.’ He was being good to me, not forbidding me. So I found other occupations! The children, always. And work in the schools. Art teaching. Now I am a floating teacher. I go from class to class, school to school—like the troubadours of old, I suppose.”
She smiled, as if seeing herself as an itinerant bard, in a traveling costume.
The waiter poured more wine for Marshall. He was getting used to wine. He liked seeing her across the table, her face lighting up.
“I remember you drawing in your notebook,” he said. “You were at your parents’ table, drawing, and working over your school lessons in the evenings when I was at your house. You were the most cheerful person I had ever seen.”
“One had to be, you know, Marshall.” Her eyes went down.
“And I remember how happy everyone was when Robert came on his bicycle.”
“Robert—yes.” Annette was contemplating her hands, which rested firmly on the table, one on either side of her plate. “An interesting young man.” She paused, turning her head aside. “He was very brave during the war,” she said. “A good person.”
“So I’ve heard.”
On the lake, a goose was taking off in the water, flapping and skidding and finally getting lift. Some lights were coming on in the distant houses. The birds were disappearing, roosting for the night. The last duck quacked.
“Could you come again?” she asked. “Would you like to go hiking after I return from Saint Lô? A real hike into the wilderness?”
“Yes. Sure. I’d love to.”
“Do you have some good boots?”
“I’ll get some. I’ve worn out my shoes walking all over Paris.”
“Be sure to break them in.”
“Where do you hike?”
“There are many places, but I will take you to a good trail, where we will see magnificent scenery.”
“I should be in good shape,” he said. “All the walking I’ve done.”
“Good. Do you have to be in Paris?” she asked.
“Oh, no. I can be anywhere.”
“You should get your boots in Paris. I will tell you where to go.”
THE WAITER REMOVED their plates. It was growing dark, and the thrumming insects had struck up a symphony.
She drank more of her wine and began laughing. “I look back on those times, and it was exhilarating. It was amusing to torment the Germans! They occupied half of my school, as they did many schools—like Odile’s. Once, I chose the precise moment to let my books fall from my arms onto a German’s feet. The vache buckled at the bottom, so you could let it fall open and the books would fly out. Robert told me later I could have been arrested for that! But the pleasure of seeing that German forced to pick up my books, as though he were my servant, was worth the risk.”
“You and Odile took a lot of chances.”
They laughed and he finished his wine. He had rarely had so much wine in one day.
“It was an exulting time, something I’ve thought about very much since. Everyone felt intensely
alive—expressing joy much more readily than has been possible since. For us, it was jubilatoire.” She paused, smiling broadly.
“You were young,” he said. “When you’re young you can feel that.”
“But it was the same for Maman! Everybody felt this. I do not mean we were happy, you comprehend? We were in misery. But each day handed out possibilities of little victories. Each time you passed a German and could assert your Frenchness, it was a little triumph. Or if you had a dear friend with you and could show your pleasure with each other, to the soldier’s face, it was a little triumph.”
The waiter was bringing some sort of dessert of soft chocolate.
“I remember sharing some black-market ice cream with you,” Marshall said.
“We did not resort to the black market!” she protested. “We went to people we knew.”
She took a spoon of chocolate and savored it.
“Only the children were allowed rations for chocolate,” she said. “I was too old, but Monique wanted to share her chocolate. We wouldn’t allow it.”
He tasted the chocolate and tried to picture Annette’s little sister.
“The moon is coming up,” Annette said. “It is near the full. I never want to miss the full moon. It is one of my principal joys!”
38.
PARIS WAS WARM AND MUGGY. THE SKY FELT CLOSE, THE AIR HEAVY with coming rain. A storm cloud was like a piñata waiting for thunder to whack it, Marshall thought, but he knew that thunderstorms were infrequent in Paris, so he walked to his apartment from the Gare Montparnasse with his small duffel. He told himself he was getting in shape for his hike with Annette, but the weight unbalanced his shoulders, and he began to wish he had taken a taxi. He arrived at his apartment sweaty and feeling lopsided.
Marshall was moving around his own apartment as if exploring it. The bedroom was stuffy, so he pulled open the windows and leaned toward the street. Children on the playground were hurrying away as large drops of rain began to fall. The dark, heavy shadows of pigeons rushed past the windows. He could feel the breeze pick up.
The Girl in the Blue Beret Page 21