The Girl in the Blue Beret Read Online Free PDF Page A

connection with the escape networks in Paris .
I profit some at the same time to make you know that Nicolas, my wife, and I wait in order to receive each the distinction “Medal of Freedom” by the American authorities .
In response to your questions I would tell you that the coffee, sugar, ham, soap, butter, rice, tobacco, are very rare, also the clothes and shoes. On the other page, we give you the dimensions for Nicolas, who is very large .
In the expectation of reading you and of seeing you, receive dear friends our good kisses to your little Albert from all our family .
Best wishes to you and your family and le petit Albert .
    Pierre Albert
P.S. I beg you to pay attention for there are some thieves in course of the parcel’s route. Don’t forget to write how much money it will cost for all you will send .
    Marshall was dismayed. He had answered Pierre’s first letter, but had he bothered to answer this second letter? He had been so eager to get on with his sun-kissed American life—new wife, baby, airline job—that he had neglected his French friends. He had never returned to Chauny. He didn’t even know if he had sent the goods Pierre had requested. Yet how well he remembered Pierre and Gisèle! And their son, Nicolas.
    Nicolas: “Gary Cooper!”
    Marshall: “ Je ne suis pas Gary Cooper!”
    Nicolas: “Tireur, tirez!” Shooter, shoot!
    The child’s gestures had made Marshall homesick for western movies. With his revolver—something he should have ditched when he began his trek into hiding—Marshall had attempted a fast draw and a twirl, to sensational acclaim and pleas for repeats.
    Nicolas: “Howdy, pard-ner.”
    Marshall remembered secret bustlings, hurried dinners, and nighttime tappings on the door. Pierre went out to fight a war, while Marshall glumly played cards and tried to read Maupassant in French.
    “The neighbor says she saw you peek out beside the curtain this afternoon. That neighbor is good, but I don’t know if all the neighbors are good. You can’t trust. Stay away from the windows.” Pierre’s voice had been severe, Marshall remembered.
    Le petit Albert . It dawned on him that news of Marshall’s son signaled a great achievement for the Frenchman. Pierre had risked his life to help Marshall survive the war and start a family. Marshall’s own son knew nothing about the source of his name—the Albert family, Pierre and Gisèle and Nicolas, who had been so important to Marshall for a few weeks long ago. He had given them his aunt’s Cincinnati address, and they had written it in a ledger. He remembered that little book now. Pierre had squirreled it away behind a small cupboard that had loose slats.
    Marshall lectured himself, You weren’t that ignorant and unfeeling. You knew enough to name your son Albert, and evidently to write at least one letter to a family who took care of you .
    He remembered Loretta saying, You can name the boy, and I’ll name the girl . Marshall wondered now if he had chosen the girl’s name, what would he have chosen? Gisèle?
    If he went to Chauny again, he might find the house where he had hidden. Maybe it would be immediately familiar, like the field where the Dirty Lily had crashed. He could imagine Pierre and Gisèle still in their same house, their son living down the block.
    Le petit Albert: the words shimmered.
    Restless, he found some ice cream in the freezer and scraped the ice crystals off. It tasted old. In wartime France, ice cream was scarce, he remembered. No one had ice. The same word worked for both. La glace .
    “In the war he couldn’t get ice cream,” he had heard Loretta explain to someone about his love for ice cream.
    They used to have a hand-crank freezer, and when he first tried it, in his attempt to be efficient, he turned the crank as fast as he could and then let it rest a moment, then cranked it again at full gallop.
    “That’s not the way you’re supposed to do it,” Loretta said several times. He paid no attention.