Way the Crow Flies (31 page)

“What’s in store for you next, Blair? I take it you’re only here for the year.”

“Ohio, sir.”

“Call me Jack.” Blair nodded and flushed. “Wright-Patterson air base?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“They got some pretty good R&D going down there, eh?”

“That’s what I’ll be doing. Human factors testing.”

“What the heck is that?”

Blair became almost animated. “I’ll be testing high altitude full and partial pressure suits. Space suits.”

“Wow!” said Mike.

“’Course I’m aiming for Edwards, then … who knows, maybe Houston.”

Jack raised his eyebrows appreciatively and nodded—McCarroll is gunning for astronaut training.

Mike said, “I’m going to start flying lessons in the spring.” He looked at his father.

“That’s right, Mike, I’ll wander over and check out the civilian flying school next week.”

In the kitchen, Mimi made gravy and Sharon heated up the pan of candied yams she had brought.

“That smells so good, Sharon, I’ll have to get the recipe from you.”

“Okay,” said Sharon. The entire conversation had been like that: Mimi’s gambits followed by Sharon’s shy non-starters. It wasn’t so noticeable around a bridge table, but it was a tad difficult one on one. Mimi’s impulse was always to hug Sharon, but you could only hug someone so many times without getting to know them. Mimi had prepared for the Thanksgiving meal well ahead, so that, other than gravy, there was little to do, but she set Sharon to work carving radishes into rosettes in order to make the silence less obvious. “Why don’t you put on a record, Jack?” Charles Aznavour would be a great help.

Claire had brought a box of animal crackers as a hostess gift for Madeleine—it came with a string attached so that you could pretend it was a purse or a briefcase.

“Wow, Claire, thanks.” Upstairs in her room, Madeleine showed Claire her books and toys and the beautiful green glassie Elizabeth had given her, as well as a plastic bag containing bread mould that she was incubating under her bed. At their age there was no social embarrassment over silence; Madeleine pulled out
Green Eggs and Ham
and read aloud, although she had it mostly memorized. They sat on the floor against the bed and Claire leaned against her—which felt perfectly normal somehow—and listened, and laughed.

“Madeleine! Claire!
Venez
, come get a treat,” called her mother.

In the kitchen, Mimi lifted the neck and giblets from the sauce, put them on a plate and offered them to Mike and the two little girls. Madeleine’s parents always say these are the best parts of the bird, perhaps because you get to eat them straight out of the pan when you’re starving and tantalized by the roasting smells. Or perhaps it’s because during the Depression you were lucky to have anything at all—gizzards for supper, fried bread and molasses for dessert. Still, Madeleine has always savoured these bits, so when Maman offered her a morsel on a fork she took it willingly. But she declined a second one; she had become suddenly aware of chewing someone’s stomach. And when Mike offered to share the neck, she said, “No thanks.” She folded her hands and watched while Claire McCarroll daintily picked the meat off it and ate.

They sat down at the table and Jack poured from a bottle of good
Qualitätswein
that Blair had brought. “That
schmecks
, eh?” said Jack.

Oddly enough, Madeleine found she wasn’t hungry. Her parents had mercy on her and, apart from some minor encouragement, she wasn’t forced to empty her plate. She ate a slice of Mrs. McCarroll’s excellent pumpkin pie in order to be polite, and a piece of Maman’s wonderful chocolate pound cake in order not to hurt her feelings, and when the guests left, went to bed with a stomach ache.

Maman said, “Well that’s what happens when you only want dessert.” But she gave Madeleine a glass of ginger ale and stroked her forehead until she fell asleep.

In bed finally, Jack and Mimi laughed. “Not exactly the life of the party, eh?” Lovely people, the McCarrolls, but
mon Dieu
, sometimes silence wasn’t golden. “Do you think they talk when they’re at home?” Well it was a good reminder: next time they had the McCarrolls, they’d make sure to invite not just one other couple but two—in case of mumps.

They stretched out gratefully and reached for magazine and book.

Hers:
How to Tell Your Child about Sex

His:
Decision in the Case of Dr. J. R. Oppenheimer

On the Tuesday after the long weekend, Madeleine walks down the empty school hallway with her cut-out turkey. Thanksgiving is over and the next special art they do will be for Halloween. The turkeys and the horns of plenty have come down, including those over the window of the hallway door, but Mr. March has replaced them with a patriotic collage of red maple leaves in Saran Wrap.

It’s ten past three. Mr. March said as usual, “Side door, little girl,” but Madeleine said without turning back, “I have to go to the bathroom,” and exited by the hallway door. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even call her back to complete her sentence: I have to go to the bathroom,
Mr. March
. She didn’t have to go to the bathroom, she simply wished to avoid Marjorie handing out the candy. So she automatically lied.

She is on her way to the foyer when she passes the grade eight classroom on her right and sees Mr. Froelich cleaning his blackboard. There are fractions and x’s and numbers with minuses next to them, a clash of jagged chalk smearing now into white dust,
disappearing like a headache under Mr. Froelich’s smooth brushstrokes. She watches, soothed, unaware that her feet have stopped until she hears, “Why are you still here, Madeleine?”

His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. His arms are skinny white under his black hairs.

“You want to help me clean the board?” he asks. “Or maybe you better hurry home, eh? Your
mutti
will worry.”

But Madeleine comes in and stands beside him, watching his arm move in a broad arc across the board.

“What’s that?” she asks, aware that it is rude to ask about marks on a person’s body. It’s bad manners. But she has automatically asked Mr. Froelich about the mark on his arm without thinking, because often after the exercise group she has a feeling of just waking up, as though she has sweated out a flu in the night and may still be dreaming. And when you are dreaming, you say whatever comes into your head.

Mr. Froelich doesn’t seem offended. He glances down at his arm where the blue marks are. He says, “Oh. That’s my old phone number,” and begins to roll down his sleeve, but Madeleine reaches out and puts her hand on his arm. This also is a strange thing to do, and she is watching herself do it—you shouldn’t just go around touching people, especially grown-ups, that too is rude. But her hand rests lightly on his forearm; she is looking at the small blue numbers there.

“Does it rub off?” she asks.

“No.”

“’Cause it’s a tattoo.”

He nods.

She asks, “Were you in the SS?” It feels like a normal question.

He shakes his head. “No.”

She looks up at him. “Were there some good Nazis?”

“Not that I know of. But people are people.”

“I know.”

He waits. Looking at her, but not staring. They stay like that for a bit. He is like talcum powder, like a nice priest. The smell of chalk is gentle.

“Are you feeling all right?” he asks.
“Was ist los, Mädele?”

“Nichts
.”

He puts his hand out and touches her forehead. His fingers are dry and cool. She begins to wake up.
“Du bist warm
,” he says.

A man’s voice behind her says, “Everything okay?”

Madeleine looks up, her hand still on Mr. Froelich’s arm. The principal, Mr. Lemmon, is standing in the doorway. He always has a five o’clock shadow and looks worried.

Mr. Froelich feels her cheek and says to Mr. Lemmon, “I wonder if she’s a little feverish.”

“Are you okay, Madeleine?” asks Mr. Lemmon.

Madeleine nods.

“Shall we walk home?” Mr. Froelich asks her.

“No thanks,” she says. “I’m going to run all the way.”

He smiles and says, “All right then, you run.”

She walks out of the room, past Mr. Lemmon. The hallway looks brighter now—she can see more of it. Perhaps someone has opened a window somewhere, it feels cooler. There is no running in the halls, and she knows Mr. Lemmon is watching, so she restrains herself until she reaches the corner, then she turns and bolts through the foyer. Past the Queen, past Prince Philip and all their fighter planes, she doesn’t slow her pace before the glass doors but runs at them, the heels of her palms thrust forward to bash down the metal bar that opens the latch. She accelerates off the steps, stretching her legs as far as possible—
Elastoman!
She runs, arms outflung, paper turkey fluttering from her fingers.

Halfway across the field, she sees someone emerging from the dry corn on the other side of Algonquin Drive. Colleen Froelich. She has something in her hands, a rope; green and yellow, too short for a skipping rope. And Colleen Froelich doesn’t skip. Madeleine calls to her but Colleen ignores her and keeps walking. Madeleine follows and calls again, “Hey, Colleen, watcha got?” Colleen doesn’t answer.

She tries again. “How’s Eggs?” Colleen gives no sign she has heard.

“Hey kid!” yells Madeleine, her throat seared by anger, “I asked you something!” Colleen’s back is impervious. Madeleine runs to catch up. “I said, how’s Eggs!” she screams. Dizzy with the force of it.

Colleen stops and turns around suddenly, so that Madeleine almost bumps into her and the thing she is holding. A snake. Madeleine’s anger deserts her. She doesn’t like snakes.

“What the hell’re you talking about?” says Colleen.

Madeleine takes a step back and says in a small voice, “Your dog. Eggs.”

Colleen narrows her icy blue eyes. The enormity of having messed with her dawns on Madeleine. The snake drips from Colleen’s fingers, she winds it around her wrist and says, “His name is Rex, you
re
tard.”

Madeleine is shocked. Colleen has used the word that people use on her own sister. Madeleine starts to say something nice about the snake, hoping to make everything all right, but Colleen turns her back and starts walking away again.

Madeleine’s anger roars back, she scoops grit from the side of the road and hurls it like shrapnel. “Everyone hates you, kid!”

That night she asks her father, “Dad, in the olden days, did people write their phone number on their arms?”

“In the olden days they didn’t have phones.” Jack gets up and puts away the
Treasury of Fairytales
. “Whom do you know with their phone number on their arm?”

“Mr. Froelich.”

“Mr. Froelich?”

“Yeah.” She hesitates. She doesn’t want to make her father think Mr. Froelich was a Nazi, but she needs a definite answer. “He has a tattoo.”

“A tattoo?” Jack sits back down. “What does it look like?”

“It’s blue. It’s here.” She points to her forearm.

Jack takes a breath. Holy Dinah. But he smiles at his daughter and says, “That makes sense. You’ve heard of the absent-minded professor?”

“Yeah.”

“Well that describes Mr. Froelich to a T.” He kisses her forehead. “’Night-night, sweetie.”

“Does it mean he was a Nazi?”

“No.” He has spoken too sharply, he softens his tone. “No, no, sweetie, nothing like that, don’t ever think that.”

He turns off her light and slips out. She hugs Bugs, relieved. As she closes her eyes it strikes her as odd that, within the course of only minutes, she should have had such a gentle time with Mr. Froelich, and such an opposite time with Colleen. How can Colleen and Ricky come from the same family? The only one in her family Colleen seems related to is Rex.

Mimi gets up from the kitchen table and pours Jack a cup of tea. She has been writing out cheques, paying bills.

Jack says, “Son of a gun.”

“What?”

“I think Henry Froelich is Jewish.” He pronounces it
Jeweesh
with his vestigial east coast accent.

“Oh Jack, everyone knows that.”

“Who’s everyone?”

“I don’t know. Vimy told me. I asked if they ever went to church and she told me Henry is Jewish. I don’t know what
her
excuse is.”

“Whose?”

“His wife’s.”

“No one tells me anything.”

“Well what difference does it make?”

“Nothing, except….” Mimi returns to her paperwork. She sets the baby bonus aside—Michel has grown out of his new sneakers already. Jack continues. “Henry was in a concentration camp.”

Mimi makes the sign of the cross.

Jack sighs and shakes his head. “Holy Dinah.”

“I’m glad we never went there….” She doesn’t even want to say the word.
Auschwitz. “Pauvre
Henry.” There are tears in her eyes.

Jack reaches across and takes her hand. “Why are you crying, Missus? The war’s over, Henry’s fine, happy as a clam.”

Mimi shouldn’t be shocked by the information, she knew it was a possibility as soon as she learned Henry was Jewish, so she is surprised at her inability to get the words out. Maybe she’s getting her period—in itself a disappointing event—maybe that’s why she is overreacting. What she can’t manage to say without crying: Henry may be fine but his family is not. His first family. Not only parents
and relations, but children—she is suddenly certain. She blows her nose, she’s fine. She resumes working on the bills.

Jack finds himself replaying conversations with Henry Froelich.
Einstein is a Jew
. It had sounded anti-Semitic from Froelich’s lips last summer. Of course there is nothing wrong with the word “Jew”—especially if you are one—but there is something about the single syllable, it sounds less polite than “Jewish.” Perhaps the noun sounds anti-Semitic because Jack has rarely heard it pronounced by people other than anti-Semites. Vivid in his memory are radio broadcasts of Hitler railing against
“die Jüden!”
And in newsreels after the war, when the horrors began to come out, a narrator’s voice describing in solemn tones “the persecution of the Jew …”—even then it bore a stigma, the shame of death. And Jack has known few Jews—Jewish people. There was one family in his hometown in New Brunswick, the Schwartzes—they played rugger like anybody else, fished, never had a Christmas tree, no one gave it a second thought. Jack has come across the odd Jewish fellow in the air force, but they are Canadian. You don’t expect to run into too many German Jews. Not any more. His cheeks burn a little at the thought of how often he has jokingly accused Henry of being “typically German.” Not to mention that crack about lederhosen. Christ. Well, the tattoo explains why Froelich is content to be here, teaching grade school.