The Way the Crow Flies
Page 39
The sun feels so warm, suddenly it’s like summer. Over on the swings is Claire McCarroll. She has folded her pink raincoat on the ground next to her schoolbag. She is swinging, not high but happily. Madeleine ditches her own jacket and schoolbag on the ground. She has made a decision. Do not try to be nice to Marjorie, and do not try to be mean. It all backfires. The trick is not to be anything to Marjorie Nolan. Something slips away as Madeleine climbs onto the swing next to Claire’s.
“Hi Madeleine.”
“Hi Claire.”
Madeleine swings higher, and as she does she kicks off one of her red boots. Claire laughs and kicks off one of her pink ones. Madeleine kicks off her other boot. Then so does Claire.
Grace and Marjorie scuttle past, looking pointedly at Madeleine over their shoulders, whispering behind their hands. Marjorie has her Brownie notebook out and is writing in it, but Madeleine doesn’t care. Why did she ever? She tilts back and hangs upside down, pumping her swing higher and higher, feeling her hair flying at the nape of her neck like grass. Claire McCarroll follows suit, and soon they are laughing, because it is so easy to laugh when you are upside down.
SLEEPING DOGS
Anyone who has been tortured, remains tortured.
Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved
“DORA!” HENRY FROELICH cries out the word that springs, not to mind, but straight to his mouth. The man turns and looks at him, past him, unrecognizing, searching the crowded marketplace for the source of the single word that forced him round. Froelich was showing his baby boy the puppies asleep in a heap in the window of the pet store when he turned and saw the face. “Dora!” Again the word flies from his throat, as though dislodged by force. This time the man looks straight at him. No flash of recognition, but fear in the pale eyes. Then he turns and hurries away.
Froelich follows but loses him in the crowd—no matter, he knows where the man must be heading, so he hugs his baby closer to his chest and fights his way upstream toward the wide entrance of the Covent Market building in London. By the time he gets there, the man is already across the street, head down under his fedora, getting into a blue car—a 1963 Ford Galaxy coupe. Froelich can tell that much without his glasses, but what about the licence number? He grabs for his glasses, clawing his breast pocket, the left, the right, frantic at the inside one—and almost drops his child.
Across the street, he sees the car climb the sidewalk in reverse and come to a sudden stop against a parking meter before jolting forward again. Froelich gives up on his glasses, leaves the building, trots along the sidewalk parallel with the traffic and the car, which is gathering speed. The baby starts crying. Froelich runs faster, slipping in his shoes on the icy sidewalk, cupping his hand around the child’s head—screaming now—straining for a glimpse of the licence plate. Cars pass, punctuating his view like frames in a reel of film, making him dizzy. He glimpses a blur of blue numbers and letters—an Ontario plate—is that an O, an X? or is it a Y?—and next to it, folded in the brand-new dent, is a bumper sticker. He doesn’t need his glasses to recognize it. Bright yellow, etched with the silhouette of a castle. Storybook Gardens.
The car picks up speed through an amber light. Froelich stops in his tracks; he has found his glasses. They lie broken on the sidewalk at his feet. They were pushed back on his head the whole time. His baby is red-faced, tears and mucus streaking his face. “Shhh, shh, kleiner Mann, sei ruhig, ja, Papa ist hier.” But it’s no good. Froelich is weeping too.
On his way back to his own car, he makes a decision. He will tell his wife about seeing this man. But he will tell no one else. This means he will not tell the police, even though it’s clear this man must be in the country under false pretences and therefore illegally—but so are thousands of others. The government has turned a blind eye and, in some cases, recruited such men as immigrants—for whatever else these men are, they are not Communists. Henry knows; he waited years for a chance to emigrate to Canada, while men with SS tattoos under their arms received passage and the promise of jobs. But he has enough—his children have enough—to cope with, never mind taking on the past. To report this man would not only be futile; it would be to exhume what is cold and can never heal. To haunt his new family with the inconsolable griefs of his old one.
He places his baby, asleep now, into the basinette in the back seat, and tries to remember where he was going next. The orphanage, to pick up Karen. He gets behind the wheel. His wife, his children—he himself—living monuments to hope. The only possible response. Heinrich Froelich is an atheist. He pauses before he starts his car, still weeping, to thank God for his blessings.
Diefenbaker’s government was brought down in February, over his refusal to take American nuclear weapons, and Monday, April 8, is election day. Jack has just been to the rec centre and voted. He has a feeling of vindication, as though by a single vote he has struck a decisive blow.
He is fresh from a weekend, just he and Mimi. They stashed the kids with the Bouchers and went to Niagara Falls for their anniversary. He is relaxed and happy, spring has rolled in and, like a Hollywood studio team, Mother Nature has worked overtime, transforming the dregs of dreary winter into vivid spring, seemingly in the space of a day. In the poplars overhead, fat buds are ready to yield to the next warm breath; tulips bloom on the grounds of his building; and on the parade square, a flight of cadets in gym shorts jogs by. Soon there will be a wings parade and the cadets will leave the Centralia nest. This weekend Jack will see whether or not his fitness regimen has paid off, when he squeezes back into his mess kit for a formal dinner in honour of a visiting air vice-marshal.
He enters his office to find a message on his desk. “Mr. Freud called. Call back ASAP,” and Fried’s telephone number. He shakes his head—“Freud.” That’s about the size of it. He finds himself looking forward to hearing old Oskar’s reedy voice, it’s that nice a day, and as he picks up the phone he wonders to what he owes the honour of a call. Freud would say it was all Fried’s mother’s fault. He dials. Pictures what Fried’s mother must have looked like—like Fried in a bonnet.
The phone is answered on the first ring. The cautious voice. “Hello?”
“Hi Oskar, it’s Jack.”
He enjoys annoying Fried by calling him Oskar. Not only has Fried never invited him onto a first-name basis; Oskar, being an alias, is bound to be a double irritant.
“I have been recognized,” says Fried.
“What?” says Jack. “Recognized? By whom?”
“I do not know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Search me,” he says earnestly.
Jack almost laughs aloud—Fried has been watching too much television.
“Where, when?”
“I was to the market on Saturday and I call you immediately and all throughout the Wochenende—how says one—?”
“Weekend.”
“Ja, but you are not at home.”
“Just tell me what happened, Oskar.”
“I get away, I do not hesitate.”
“So someone saw you and you have no idea who he is or where he’s from?”
“I know where is he from.”
“Where?”
“I don’t tell you this.”
“Oskar, how am I going to help you if—”
“Tell Simon I am recognized.”
“Did this man call you by name?”
“He calls me by a name.”
“What name?”
“I recognize this name, this is how I know—”
“Is it your name, or not?”
Silence.
“Sir,” says Jack, “I don’t care what your real name is and you don’t have to tell me, just tell me if this fella called you by your real name.”
“No,” says Oskar, and Jack can almost see him licking his dry lower lip. “He does not say my name.”
Jack can feel the fear through the phone. He speaks gently. “Good, that’s good, now tell me, what was the name by which he called you?�
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Silence again.
Jack is worried, but he is also weary. Oskar Fried does not understand the chain of command; the fact that, in the absence of Simon, Jack for all intents and purposes is Simon. Not merely the delivery boy.
Fried hesitates, then says, “Dora.”
“‘Dora?’ Why would he call you that?”
“He is from Dora.”
“Dora sent him? Who is Dora?” His wife? A KGB agent? Jack waits for Fried to answer. “Oskar? Who is Dora?”
“You are not qualified me to—you are not qualified to interrogate me.”
Jack bites his tongue and squints. Stay cool. Fried is frightened. Terrified of being taken back to the Soviet Union.
Fried says, “Tell Simon, ‘Dora’. He understands this. You tell him to call me on the telephone.”
“Fine. Meantime, just sit tight, Oskar—”
“Sit—?”
“Don’t leave your apartment. No drives.”
“I do not drive, he sees the car.”
“The car?”
“I am running to my car, he follows, he sees.”
The licence plate. Whoever saw it may see it again. May go looking for it. May find it on Morrow Street, in front of Fried’s apartment building…. “Where’s the car now, Oskar?”
“I park behind the building.”
“Good. Now don’t worry. You were spotted—you were recognized on Saturday. That’s two days ago. If anything were going to happen it would’ve happened by now—”
Jack speaks with more certainty than he feels, but it is not an unreasonable deduction. He feels a stab of guilt—he should not have allowed himself to be lulled by the silence of the past few months. He ought to have stayed sharp. On alert. He ought to have given Fried the phone number of the honeymoon suite at the Holiday Inn in Niagara Falls.
Jack is about to hang up, he has to call Simon—
“I need food,” says Fried.
Jack drops his head to his hand. “Weren’t you just at the market on Saturday, sir?”
“Yes, I am recognized before I buy.”
Jack sighs, reaches for his pencil and a pad of government foolscap, reflecting as he does that Simon will probably instruct him to move Fried immediately, straight over the bridge to Buffalo—there may be no time for groceries. He is already thinking of excuses for Mimi as to why he has to drive to London tonight as he says, “Fire away.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What groceries would you like me to bring?”
On the other hand, Jack may not have to do another thing but brief McCarroll. It’s typical, he thinks ruefully; the American gets to ride in at the last second and take the credit. McCarroll will spirit Fried away to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and receive a hero’s welcome. No matter. The main thing now is to keep Fried safe. And calm. He listens and writes. “Butter, yup … mustard, yup I know, hot….”
The list is lengthy and detailed—Fried’s encounter with “Dora” seems to have done nothing to blunt his appetite. Jack scribbles. “Slow down, now…. Camembert and … what? Where am I going to find cherries? They’ll cost a fortune this time of—okay, what else?”
He glances up to see Vic Boucher standing in the doorway with a grin on his face, how long has he been there?
Jack winks at Vic and says into the phone, “Yeah I’ll make sure they’re fresh….” Vic wanders in, a sheaf of papers under his arm, and idly glances at Jack’s grocery list upside down. Jack writes “celery” instead of the brand of pipe tobacco Fried has asked for, and wishes he had closed his door.
On the other end of the line, Fried says, “Caviar.”
Jack reacts in spite of himself. “Caviar?”
Vic looks to the ceiling and mimes a whistle. Jack grins and shakes his head in response.
“That is all,” says Fried, and hangs up.
Jack maintains his smile, and says into the phone, “Me too. Bye-bye sweetheart,” and hangs up.
“Gotta hand it to Mimi,” says Vic. “That girl’s got champagne taste.”
“Goes with my beer-bottle budget.”
Vic asks Jack’s opinion on the best case study to wrap up the semester, and Jack regrets his annoyance—this, after all, is his real job. Fried is the intrusion, not Vic. When Vic leaves, he takes the list from his pocket. Celery? He doesn’t recall Fried asking for—oh yes, celery was code for pipe tobacco, but what was the brand again?
He pockets the list, grabs his uniform jacket and leaves his office, going over the situation methodically in his mind so that he will be able to communicate it clearly and simply to Simon. He can think of a number of reasons not to be unduly alarmed. If the unknown man at the marketplace was KGB and the Soviets have had Fried under surveillance, why call out to him in public? And, having done so, how likely is it that a KGB agent would lose Fried so easily in the market crowd? As he trots down the steps, he takes a deep breath of April air and looks up past the treetops into the blue puffed with white that might still turn to snow. Likely it wasn’t KGB. Unless the grocery delivery is a trap. The poplars rustle the way they do, making the most of the slightest breeze. Jack’s face has become hot but he assesses the situation coolly. “Dora” could be anybody. Or anything. What does Jack know about this operation? Very little that’s concrete. Simon has told him that Fried is a Soviet scientist, and Jack has surmised that his specialty is rockets. He realizes that he has likewise assumed that Simon is MI6, but it dawns on him now that Simon has never been specific: subtly fostering those assumptions while neither confirming nor denying them. The only thing he has spelled out is the necessity of keeping Blair McCarroll in the dark.
Jack reaches the open asphalt of the parade square and sighs inwardly, digging in his pocket for dimes. This adventure comes too late. All he can think is, what will Mimi and the kids do if anything should happen to him?
“British Embassy, good morning,” the polite female voice with the Queen’s English.
“Good morning, may I have First Secretary Crawford please.”
“May I ask who is calling please, sir?”
“Major Newbolt.” Jack feels foolish using the code name, but it’s according to the procedure Simon laid down. “Newbolt” means urgent. This qualifies.
“How’s she going, Jack?”
“Si, we got a bit of a gremlin.”
“You at work?”
“I’m at the booth.”
They hang up and Jack waits for the phone to ring. It is mid-morning, the parade square is deserted—everyone is in classrooms, of either the concrete or the cockpit variety. He glances up through the glass of the booth and watches three Chipmunks bank in formation. McCarroll is probably up there right now, in the instructor’s seat of one of those little yellow kites. The phone rings, giving him a start. He picks it up. “Hi.”
“Fire away, mate.”
“Our friend has been recognized.”
“By whom?”
“A man at the marketplace, he doesn’t know who—”
“Did he call Fried by name?”
“According to Fried, whoever it was called out the name ‘Dora.’” Jack waits for a response, but continues when none is forthcoming. “That’s all I could get out of him. He wouldn’t tell me who ‘Dora’ is, he said you would know.”
“When was this?”
“Saturday.”
“Well,” says Simon, “whoever it was, it wasn’t a Soviet or we’d know by now so that’s one for us, although it is rather important our friend sit tight for the moment.”
“I told him that.”
“Good. Now we may have to accelerate the process somewhat.” Jack is reassured by Simon’s light, even tone, rapid but not rushed.
“You want me to brief my opposite number?”
“Mm.”
“When?”
“Oh, now’s as good a time as any.”
Jack can feel Simon about to end the conversation so he says, “I guess you’re not worried about this woman?”
“A factory? Where, in Germany?”
“Yes.”
“During the war?”
“That’s right.”
“Never heard of it.” Jack wishes he could take that back, aware it sounded defensive, even suspicious.
“Well you wouldn’t have, it was a code name, as it happens. For their rocket factory.”
“The V-2? That was Peenemünde.”
“We bombed Peenemünde, so they took it underground and called it Dora.”
Jack is pleased. Assumption confirmed. Fried is a rocket scientist.
“By the way, who’s winning?” asks Simon.
“Who’s—?”
“Will Diefenbaker hang on?”
“Oh,” says Jack. “Naw, I think he’s had it. Least I hope so. Look, Fried wants me to bring him groceries, should I tell him to pack his bags instead?”
“Don’t tell him anything, I’ll have a word. I think I know what’s happened. Just bring what he wants as usual, no panic.”
“Simon.”
“Yeah?”
“How can you be so sure this fellow from Dora isn’t Soviet? The fact they haven’t moved on Fried might mean they’re biding their time. Watching him.”
There is the merest hesitation, then Simon says, “Because the Soviets don’t realize Fried has defected. They think he’s dead.”
“… Oh.”
“That’s how we got him out and closed the loop behind him. If the KGB were looking for him despite that, I’d’ve heard from our people in the East by now. There’d have been a bit of fallout. Canaries in the coal mine.”
“… So everything’s still basically in working order,” says Jack.
“Everything’s tickety-boo.”
And they hang up. Simon didn’t sound perturbed. But he never does.
Jack leaves the booth but doesn’t head back to his building; he walks in the opposite direction, toward the Primary Flying School—where he will find McCarroll.
So he was right, Fried worked on the V-2 rocket—the first ballistic missile, precursor to the Saturn rocket that is the West’s best hope of propelling the Apollo astronauts to the moon “before this decade is out.” He shivers—a surge of energy intensified by the raw spring air. Oskar Fried must have worked side by side with Wernher von Braun. This more than makes up for any minor annoyance Jack may have endured at Fried’s hands. He nears the massive hangars that border the airfield and heads for Number 4, which houses the PFS.