The Way the Crow Flies

by Ann-Marie MacDonald

  Jack reaches for the car radio and turns it on, twisting the dial across the band, looking for news of the crisis…. represents a major shift in the balance of power…. His excitement at meeting Oskar Fried has been put into perspective. It’s no longer an adventure, something to spice up the sleepy prime of Jack McCarthy’s life. No longer theoretical, as Henry Froelich might say. Oskar Fried has come to join our side in the war we call peace. When “Major Newbolt” called this afternoon, Jack went straight to the phone booth and returned the call. “Our friend has arrived,” said Simon. Jack was surprised. Fried already in London? Just twenty-five miles down the road? Simon had to have worked pretty quickly—Berlin must be locked down tight by now. Still, Jack had expected, if not advance notice, then Simon himself. Had looked forward to introducing him to Mimi, showing off his family, then sinking a few over at the mess. But Simon has already been and gone. Nothing personal, mate.

  … on September 11 when Gromyko denied that the weapons were offensive in nature…. Jack turns up the volume.

  Madeleine runs the rest of the way home, then all the way upstairs, and checks her underpants. It’s okay. She knew it would be. He didn’t do any poking today. Just strangling. Of himself.

  Simon said, “You might want to look in on him tonight.”

  Jack knows it was no mere suggestion. In any case, he has no intention of waiting until this evening. Not only is he eager to meet the man—to shake his hand in this week of weeks—but he’s also not in a position to disappear for an unexplained evening visit to London. He would have to offer an explanation, and that would mean lying to his wife. Lies are like clutter on a radar screen: they obscure your target.

  … and the first direct confrontation between the two superpowers….

  Jack asked Simon about procedure. “Can I have him to the house for Sunday brunch? What’s the drill on introducing him to my family, making him feel at home?”

  “Your call, mate. I suggest you meet him first.”

  “Who should I say he is?”

  “Tell the truth as far as possible. His name is Oskar Fried and he’s a German scientist.”

  “At the university?”

  “That’s right. On sabbatical. Keep it simple.”

  “How did I meet him?”

  “You met him in Germany, through your German friends—you did have German friends?”

  “Of course.” But Jack and Mimi had the same friends. If the scientist were someone closely enough acquainted with Jack to look him up on arrival in Canada, Mimi would have at least heard of him. Simon makes it sound simple, but Simon isn’t married. “Here’s what you need to know,” he said, and gave Jack instructions as to how to pick up the money he would wire. No more than six hundred dollars a month. It sounds like plenty to Jack, and will seem like a fortune to someone who has spent the last seventeen years behind the Iron Curtain. It must be difficult even to get a decent meal there. In that respect it’s not unlike living in England, thinks Jack, and smiles, reminding himself to say that to Simon next time they’re talking.

  … risk war unless Khrushchev agrees to dismantle all offensive weapons….

  Madeleine pulls her jumper off over her head, undoes her strangulating school blouse, pausing only to smell her hands—they smell fine—and hollers from the top of the stairs, “Can I go fishing?!” Colleen has not invited her but she doesn’t want to be with Auriel and Lisa yet, so—

  “Madeleine, don’t yell!”

  If she were allowed to watch TV right after school, all her problems would be solved, but she is not. She could be watching The Mickey Mouse Club, or Razzle Dazzle, with Howard the Turtle and beautiful Michele Finney, and the after-three feeling would ebb away. “Can I?!” She hurtles down the stairs, jumps the last five steps, whips perilously around the banister—

  “Doucement, Madeleine!”

  She stands stiffly in front of her mother, feeling like a collection of hard sticks in her play clothes, this is what a wooden puppet must feel like—

  “Permission to go fishin,’ ma’am.” She salutes, banging her head, crossing one eye.

  Mimi laughs; Madeleine takes it as a yes and turns to flee.

  “Attends, Madeleine! Where do you fish?”

  She stops and turns. “Rock Bass.”

  “C’est où, Rock Bass?”

  “It’s down a dirt road, you can almost see the airfield, it’s close.” She doesn’t mention burnt-out campfires, she doesn’t mention Colleen Froelich.

  “Who are you going with?”

  “Um. Can I call on Colleen?”

  “You know what I said about Colleen Froelich.”

  Madeleine suppresses a groan, because she senses that her mother may be about to relent on the Colleen issue.

  “All right. But I want you home in one hour.”

  “Yabba-dabba-doo!” She races from the kitchen.

  “And no TV over there,” calls her mother behind her.

  Madeleine jumps down the three steps to the front door—she would like to burst right through the screen, the way the Cartwrights burst through the Shell sign at the beginning of Bonanza. She runs like a hard puppet across the street, but slows and turns back into a real live girl when she sees Ricky Froelich. He’s drinking from the hose. He is in red jeans and a sweaty white singlet. The water runs down the front of his shirt, pasting it to his chest; his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, his collarbones rising and falling with his breath.

  “Hi pal.” He holds out the hose and she sips, ice-cold; then he offers it to Rex, who bites the water, pink gums and white fangs. The best drink in the world.

  “Hi Elizabeth,” says Madeleine.

  “Ay Ademin.”

  She walks up to the Froelichs’ front door and knocks on the glass panel above the screen.

  “Go on in,” says Ricky. But Madeleine doesn’t. It’s as though there were an invisible force field around other people’s front doors, you can’t just walk up and open them. Just as you can’t open someone else’s fridge.

  Mrs. Froelich appears. “Hi Madeleine, come on in.”

  Madeleine doesn’t have time to say, “Can Colleen come out and play?” She follows Mrs. Froelich in and back to the kitchen. There are dirty dishes on the counter. Breakfast things still on the table.

  She says, “Mrs. Froelich?”

  “Call me Karen, kiddo.”

  Madeleine opens her mouth to say it but cannot. Now she can’t call Mrs. Froelich anything. She watches silently as Colleen’s mother feeds the baby boys, each in a battered high chair. There is a splotch of crusty baby gunk on her vest. It’s a long plaid wool vest, loose and groovy. Madeleine slowly, deferentially sits down on one of the chairs, a tear in its vinyl pad, and wonders what will happen next. Mrs. Froelich has long straight hair parted in the middle with silver streaks. Her face looks different from the other mothers’. You can’t picture her sitting at a vanity table. No offence, but Mrs. Froelich looks like a young witch—a good one.

  Colleen walks through the kitchen, mutters “Hi,” then goes out the back door. Madeleine is unsure whether to follow so she stays put. Ricky comes in with Elizabeth and starts talking on the phone. He makes a peanut-butter bender and eats it in one bite. He makes another and hands it to Madeleine. He is talking to Marsha Woodley.

  Even when he’s all sweaty, Ricky Froelich looks freshly showered. He shaves too, she can see a patch of stubble at his chin and along his jaw, his cheeks are stained red with air and exercise. His legs are long and lean, one foot crossed over the other. His hands do everything casually and perfectly, such as make a sandwich and hold it for Elizabeth to bite. Even if his house smells like old stew and Elizabeth is drooling peanut butter, Ricky Froelich is clean. Like a teenager on TV, he seems carefree. He seems … American.

  Mr. Froelich comes in, smoking a pipe and carrying a German newspaper.

  “Madeleine, wie geht’s, hast du Hunger?”

  “No, I just had a peanut-butter sandwich, danke.”

  “G
ood, fine und dandy, komm mit mir, wir haben viel Lego in den living room.” His dark eyes twinkle, his red lips moist around his pipestem, like Santa.

  She follows him into the living room and sees a mountain of Lego piled next to the playpen. And sitting on the floor next to it is Claire McCarroll. It’s like discovering an elf under a mushroom cap, Claire in the Froelichs’ living room. With her bracelet full of lucky charms. She is building a house out of Lego.

  Madeleine sits next to her and starts hunting for wheels to make a car to go with the house. Mr. Froelich puts on a record. A woman with a deep voice sings a tune that Madeleine recognizes, but with French words, Qui peut dire, où vont les fleurs…. ? Madeleine hums along.

  Mr. Froelich says from his armchair, “You like Dietrich?”

  Madeleine nods politely, yes. Who is Deetrick?

  There is the soft sound of Lego clicking together and the occasional rustle of Mr. Froelich’s newspaper. Madeleine sings along softly in English, “‘ … gone to soldiers, every one. When will they ever learn? When will they e-e-e-ver learn? …’”

  Maman needn’t have worried. The Froelichs don’t even have a TV.

  Jack follows the curve of the cul-de-sac that is Morrow Street and parks at the foot of the manicured lawn of the yellow brick lowrise. … in other developments, U.N. Secretary General U Thant sent identical letters to Mr. Khrushchev and President Kennedy—He switches off the radio.

  He gets out and walks up to the front doors beneath the porte cochère. He enters the empty vestibule and sees a house phone. Through a glass wall to his right is a small lobby, likewise deserted. Couch, leather armchair, coffee table with three or four magazines fanned out. A potted benjamina gathers dust in one corner.

  He scans the framed directory on the wall and finds what he’s looking for: O. F. apt. #321. As he dials the number he glances at the wall of small metal mailboxes: the discreet typed initials reappear there, O. F. Our Friend. Of course! Jack shakes his head. Simon.

  The line rings a third time. There is a brief pause followed by a reedy voice. “Ja?”

  “Hello, Herr Fried? This is Wing Commander McCarthy, sir. I’m here to welcome you.”

  There is no reply. Instead, Jack is startled by a loud buzzer. He hangs up in time to grab the handle of the glass door. Two steps lead up to the elevator. He takes them in one stride.

  After a sluggish liftoff, the elevator stops at the second floor and an elderly lady gets on. Jack nods but she seems not to register his presence. When the doors close and the elevator rises, however, she looks up at him. “Down,” she says accusingly.

  He exits at the third floor. The smell of lavender follows him out and down the hall, where it’s joined by the fug of a thick gravy. Someone’s dinner will be ready long before five.

  It crosses his mind that you would never in a million years walk into this apartment building, along this corridor with its carpet-muffle of orange and red paisley, through the duvet of dinner smells and geriatric perfume, and expect to find a high-level Soviet defector. Simon has selected everything for invisibility.

  The door marked 321 is at the end of the hall. A corner unit. Jack removes his hat, stands in front of the peephole and knocks. He has butterflies in his stomach. Simon has been characteristically low-key about the whole thing, but the facts speak for themselves. Jack is about to meet—has been entrusted with the well-being of—a man whose life and work and presence here derive from the crucible of international relations which at this very moment are affecting the lives of everyone on earth. He takes a deep breath. Considers knocking again.

  Finally, a fumbling behind the door. Slide of a deadbolt, the knob turns, the door opens a few inches. Above the safety chain, a stripe of white face, scant grey hair. Spectacles.

  “Herr Fried?” he says. “I’m Jack McCarthy, sir. Willkommen in Kanada.”

  The door closes. The slide of the safety chain and it opens again, a little wider. Jack extends his hand. “It’s an honour to meet you, sir.”

  Oskar Fried takes his hand briefly. The man feels frail.

  Jack looks into the light grey eyes. Fried’s face, delicately lined parchment, pale. He is somewhere between fifty and seventy-five. “May I come in, sir?” he asks, because Oskar Fried has made no move. He appears shell-shocked. He must have been through one hell of a trip.

  Fried turns and retreats slowly, almost at a shuffle. Jack follows him into the apartment. The smell of tobacco. Familiar. The lights are off, the curtains drawn, as though he were in hiding—which he is, though presumably the Soviets haven’t the first clue where to look for him. Jack glances around. The dull greens and browns of a furnished apartment; the tobacco masks a generic air freshener designed to mask a generic loneliness—the smell of the solitary male. Wall-to-wall indoor-outdoor, respectable lampshade yellowed with years of nicotine, a cheap print of Niagara Falls over the perfectly decent couch. Jack will have to get the man out to the PMQs for a visit to a real home as soon as possible.

  “How are you settling in, sir?” he asks. “Uh, brauchst du, uh, brauchsten Sie etwa?”

  Fried doesn’t smile at the attempted German, but says by way of reply, “Do you bring money?” His voice is thin, his accent more raw than Henry Froelich’s. Uneroded.

  Jack smiles. “I’ve got it right here, sir.”

  He takes a small brown envelope from his inside breast pocket and hands it to Oskar Fried.

  Fried takes it. “I thank you,” he says, with an old-world inclination of the head that puts Jack in mind of Froelich again.

  “You’re most welcome, sir.”

  Oskar Fried is a spare man—as though he had been drawn with a pencil. His glasses are wire-rimmed, not the robust black frames Jack had pictured. He was right about the bow tie, otherwise there is no trace of the meaty Brylcreemed physicist he had envisioned. Fried’s white dress shirt is buttoned up but still loose at the neck, revealing the narrow cords and loosening flesh of undernourished and advancing years. Jack recognizes the permanently starved look of some Europeans—no amount of good food can possibly make up for the war. Henry Froelich has that look, although, even with his stoop and lean cheeks, Henry’s face is warm and mobile. Oskar Fried looks to be etched in sandstone. Seventeen years behind the Iron Curtain will do that. His suit jacket and trousers are of indestructible brown wool manufactured sometime in the last fifty years. But even in a lab coat, he would look like … a clerk. Jack feels disappointed, then immediately guilty. The man is exhausted. Traumatized. Stranger in a strange land.

  Jack walks over to the window—“May I?”—and opens the curtains, squinting at the flash of daylight.

  Fried jumps to his feet. “Nein, bitte.”

  Jack draws them closed once more and turns to see Fried holding an ice bucket. He blinks to readjust his eyes and sees that the bucket contains bits of bark and stone. Growing up from its midst, supported by a coat hanger, is a flower. Purple, almost black.

  “Orchid,” says Fried.

  Jack smiles and nods.

  “Dunkel,” says Fried. “Not light.”

  “It grows in the dark,” says Jack.

  Fried nods, almost smiles.

  Jack feels a rush of pity for the man. Is it possible to be farther from home than he is now? And has the U.S.S.R. ever really felt like his home? He may very well have found himself in the wrong part of his homeland at the end of the war, trapped in what was suddenly East Germany. Forced to make the best of it. And now, a chance at freedom. He has been brave enough to grasp it, this wisp of a man. And perhaps generous enough too. “Herr Fried, I want you to know that we appreciate what you’re doing.”

  Fried listens closely, nodding.

  Jack continues, slowly and clearly, “I want to thank you for coming.”

  “You are welcome,” says Fried.

  Poor bugger holed up here, taking the thanks of the free world from some RCAF type he doesn’t know from Adam. Answering to a name not his own. “Look, sir, when you’re settled in, you
call me at work, okay?” Jack takes the money envelope from Fried and writes down his office number and below it his home number. “This number here,” says Jack, pointing to it, “is my home. But only for emergency, verstehen Sie?”

  “Ja. Emergency.”

  Once Jack has arranged to bring Fried out to Centralia—for brunch this Sunday, perhaps—there will be no reason for him not to use the home number. But until Jack has been able to introduce Mimi to the “visiting professor,” and to think of a plausible friend-of-a-friend scenario, it is best that Fried call him only at work.

  “Would you like to come for a quick spin around the city?”

  “Spin?”

  Jack moves his hands as though on a steering wheel. “In ein Auto. A drive?”

  “Yes, I drive.”

  “No, would you like to come for a drive with me? Now?”

  Fried shakes his head.

  “Well when you change your mind, sir, this is a beautiful part of the country—sehr schön.” He points to the sad painting on the wall. “Niagara Falls. Magnificent. And if you like flowers”—Fried nods—“there’s a greenhouse at Storybook Gardens, wouldn’t be surprised if they had orchids.”

  Jack rubs his hands together and looks around—hi-fi, good, no TV, however, although there is a set of rabbit ears on the win-dowsill. Too bad, it would help Herr Fried’s English. “Have you got enough food, sir?”

  Jack steps into the small galley kitchen and opens the fridge. Fried follows and stands at his shoulder.

  It’s well stocked—Simon has seen to that—but it’s bound to get lonely, eating alone night after night.

  He longs to ask Fried what he will be working on; to hear his opinion on the current crisis in Cuba, get him to talk about the space program. But that subject is off limits for now, Simon has made that clear, and anyhow the poor chap is already spooked. Culture-shocked.