Free The Girl in the Blue Beret by Bobbie Ann Mason Page B

controls, he joked to Marshall, as always, “Now it’s relax time.”
    Grainger leaned into his bombsight, making only the slightest adjustments of their course. Here in the heart of enemy territory, they stopped all their evasive maneuvers and plowed ahead, straight and level, as if begging the German flak gunners to pick them off. Just when they needed to twist and skitter most, they renounced defensive maneuvers. They drove toward the target until the eggs finally streamed from the Dirty Lily ’s belly and the pilots could take control again.
    Marshall heard Grainger call “bombs away.”
    As the bombs—M-17 cluster incendiaries—fell away, the plane lifted like a balloon. Suddenly lightened, she soared with relief.

12.
    C HARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT WAS BELLIGERENTLY MODERN, WITH bleak, functional terminals and hangars, but today the morning mist gave the place a touch of mystery.
    I can start life over , Marshall said to himself as he marched through the jetway. He had to, he thought. What else should a retired pilot do but effect un grand changement ?
    He hitched a ride into the city with the crew. Captain Vogel had insisted, since Marshall had reserved a room at the regular crew hotel. Accustomed to carry-on bags, the crew had waited for him while he detoured into baggage claim, and after enduring some small talk and inane senior-citizen jokes, here he was again at the familiar place. It was a modest hotel with breakfast in the basement.
    “ Bienvenue , Captain Stone,” said Charles, the clerk, an old acquaintance, at the desk. “You fly your airplane to us again.”
    “No, no more.” Marshall touched the sleeve of his blazer. “No uniform this time.”
    “Vacation?”
    “No. I’m retraité . They say I’m too old to fly now.”
    “That is good, Captain! Now you will enjoy yourself.”
    “But flying is what I do, Charles. I’m really a bird!”
    Marshall was pleased that his French was good enough to keep Charles from switching to English.
    His room wasn’t ready. He left his bags with Charles and set out, intending to force himself to stay awake all day by walking the spacious city. On layovers, he usually wandered for hours or went to the movies. He tried to stay on East Coast time, so he was often up late, reading in his room. But now he was going to be on Paris time.
    He walked along the Seine, a long gray stripe through the city, toward Notre Dame. It was a fine June day. He had a kink in his leg. Ever since his wallet was stolen in London a few months earlier, he had been stashing his money in a contraption that fit beneath his trouser leg, even though he suspected it was conspicuous and that every thief knew precisely where to look. It came loose once today, when he was in the toilettes . He readjusted the strap, which now pinched.
    The quai Saint-Michel was crowded, and he hurried to a quieter area. He noticed the fluttering lights and shadows in the young trees on the boulevard. At a sidewalk café he ordered a coffee, and when it came he ordered a sandwich. He had learned to order coffee first. Otherwise the waiters would not bring it until he had finished his sandwich. He always enjoyed his layover routines. He often sat on one of the boulevards at a place like this and read the papers. Smoking used to be essential. Marshall was still tempted at times by a whiff of European tobacco in the street, but sometimes the smell reminded him of the odor of a mangy dog. After quitting, he learned to divert himself by watching people, but they were usually smoking. Today a teenage couple, locked at the waist, sauntered by, each brandishing a cigarette with the free outside hand. He chuckled, thinking of life in a cockpit—the captain and the first officer used the outside hands for the yoke, the inside hands for the throttles. He wondered at the blithe confidence of mothers crossing the street with baby carriages—there were two in sight. He watched well-to-do women in their glad rags, walking dogs