The Way the Crow Flies Page 24

  “Tell me, Henry, are you ever going to drive that thing or are you planning to donate it to the Smithsonian?” Jack nodded across the street to the Froelich driveway, where a litter of auto parts was growing around the hybrid chassis now recognizable as a ’36 Ford Coupe; its doors and fenders, its broad running boards and low-slung front end, all scavenged from different wrecks and welded together. In the midst of it all was Henry’s son, bent over the engine. “Like father like son, eh?”

  Froelich smiled, obviously pleased. “It’s for my boy, when he is sixteen. That is when I go completely grey, when he will be driving.”

  “Hank, I’m getting worried; that car is like the loaves and fishes, every time I look there’s more of it. I just hope you don’t get as interested in my lawnmower as you are in that car, or I’ll be up to my knees in grass next summer.”

  “Don’t worry, Jack, your Lawn-Boy is very much less interesting than the Froelich-wagen. You maybe like to know that when finished, this car will contain parts from many other makes of automobiles, as well as a secret ingredient from a washing machine to improve fuel efficiency.”

  “Wow, really?”

  “Nein.”

  Jack laughed.

  “I will work on your car next,” said Henry.

  “Nein, yourself!”

  Jack sipped the wine and blinked at the taste—terrible stuff.

  Henry asked, “How do you like the wine? We pick ourselves the chokecherries at the Pinery.”

  “Chokecherry, eh?” Jack nodded. “Not too shabby.”

  “‘Shabby’?”

  “That’s the highest compliment you can get from an air force type. It means just great.”

  “Good, good, I bring you a bottle, I have plenty.”

  Jack said casually, “Henry, why don’t you let me treat you to the Oktoberfest dance. You and Karen come as our guests….”

  Froelich slipped the blade onto its axle, reached for his wrench, tightened the bolt but didn’t reply. Jack feared he might have made a faux pas, implying a money problem, which had not been his intention. “You’d be doing us a favour. It’s just what the party needs, an honest-to-goodness German, and you wouldn’t believe the food. How long since you had a good bratwurst, eh?” Again he sensed that he’d said the wrong thing. Perhaps Henry thought he was criticizing Karen’s cooking.

  Henry tossed the wrench aside and fished in his toolbox for a screwdriver. “You are very generous, Jack, and I would like on another occasion to accept your gift, but I am not German.” He snapped the lid on over the engine.

  Jack flushed. What had he missed?

  Henry twirled the wing nuts into place. “I am Canadian,” he said, and smiled. He pulled the cord and the motor roared to life.

  On the Friday before Thanksgiving, Jack came home from beer call at the mess with an immense frozen turkey. “Mimi, I’m home!”

  “Oh Jack,” she cried, “you won!”

  “Yup,” he said, thunking the thing down on the kitchen table.

  The young woman from next door rose with her baby. “Hi Jack. Mimi, I better run.”

  Jack said, “How are you …,” and hesitated.

  “Dot, you must stay,” Mimi put in, tactfully supplying the girl’s name.

  “How are you settling in, Dot, okay?” Yes, her husband was in the accounts office, name of Bryson.

  “Just great, Jack, thank you,” she said, blushing, then left, in keeping with domestic etiquette. Mimi saw her to the door, then returned to kiss her husband—he was so proud of that turkey, shrugging, saying, “It’s over to you now, Missus, I only dragged it home.”

  She poured him a beer and teased him about forgetting the neighbour’s name, gratified that a pretty young thing like that should get barely a glance from him. He took a second glass from the shelf and poured half his beer into it for her. “I already had two at the mess. You don’t want to bring out the beast in me, do you?” He winked.

  “Ça dépend.” She clinked glasses with him.

  There are men who, if they make it home for Friday night supper at all, are too “happy” or too belligerent to sit at the table and eat with their children. Snoring in their uniforms on the couch or glazed in front of the television set. Perfectly nice men, and thank goodness Mimi isn’t married to one of them. Her older sister, Yvonne, is, though; married to one of those men whom other men find harmless.

  Madeleine watched her mother slide the huge turkey into the oven at noon, and when Maman said, as she always did, “Bon. There goes Monsieur Turkey,” Madeleine could not help but see the pallid flesh in a whole different way. Like someone’s bare backside—ashamed and curled to hide their face. And when Maman had taken the loose skin around the neck and tucked it under the body, Madeleine felt somehow that the turkey was embarrassed to be dead and naked. “I’ll call you when the neck is ready,” said Maman.

  The McCarrolls were coming to Thanksgiving dinner. American Thanksgiving was not until November and, as Mimi told Sharon over the phone, “We can’t let you be the only ones in the PMQs without a turkey dinner next week.” The Bouchers were supposed to join them, and the women had pooled their card tables for the occasion, but at the last minute Betty phoned to say they were in strict quarantine. “Steve Ridelle’s threatened to paint an X on our front door if we don’t sit tight all weekend.” Their youngest, Bea, had come down with mumps.

  Twenty-four pounds of turkey and only four adults and three children. “What a feast!” said Jack.

  Madeleine passed around a plate of Ritz crackers with smoked oysters, and celery sticks with Cheez Whiz. Jack lit the first fire of the season in the fireplace and poured a rye and soda for Blair. Mike joined them in the living room with a ginger ale while the women saw to the kitchen. Jack was grateful for his son’s presence, because McCarroll had not become more loquacious with the passing weeks—like pulling teeth, getting the fellow to talk. Mike kept up a steady stream of questions about flying, and it occurred to Jack that McCarroll appeared more at home chatting with the boy than he ever did at the mess with his fellow officers. Pity he didn’t have a son.

  “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 briefc
ase.

  “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 narro
ws 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 retard.”

  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.