“The fact is, old friend, there is no one.”
“… What do you mean?”
“Just that,” says Simon, almost breezy. “I’ve closed the loop on this one. The Soviets think Fried is dead. I’ve had to keep the points of entry to a minimum. You’re the only Canadian directly involved. I told you that.”
You’re the only one who knows. He had meant it literally. “What about — well, how did you—?” Jack shakes his head. “How in God’s name did you manage to get Fried a Canadian passport? How can you be operating here without Canadian authority?”
“Did you get rid of the car?”
“It’s scrap by now. Simon, I asked you a question.”
“We’re not doing anything that contradicts our obligations under NATO.”
“Bullshit. What’s going on?” He has sworn like a cadet, right in his own kitchen. He glances over his shoulder but his kids are fixated, blue shadows dancing on their faces, bathed in undifferentiated racket.
“It’s the truth,” Simon is saying. “Politicians may prefer either not to know, or not to be seen to know, the details, but their policies implicitly authorize this sort of work, and they expect it to be done, otherwise we’d be part of the U.S.S.R. by now.”
Is it legal? The job he’s doing for Simon? What does Jack really know about Oskar Fried?
“Who are you working for, Simon?”
“It’s time I bought you that drink.”
Oskar Fried is a Soviet citizen, for pity’s sake. And Jack has embraced him on the word of an old friend. A man he has seen once in twenty years. “You told me it was an American — Canadian — British operation.”
“I never specified. I can tell you it ain’t Soviet.”
“You know there’s a killer on the loose here, buddy?”
Jack’s knuckles are white around the receiver. But Simon’s voice, when he answers, is quiet. “Not a very happy place right now, eh? Centralia? I’m not keen on seeing an innocent boy punished, Jack. I’m not keen on child-killers going free.”
A burst of gunfire from the living room.
Simon says, “That’s not why I do my job.”
Jack waits.
“That’s not what we fought for, Jack.” We.
Jack hears a sigh on the other end of the line, and feels ashamed. He takes a breath finally. Simon is not the enemy. The enemy is out there. He looks at the black shine of the kitchen window and sees a man, head bowed, on the phone. He steps forward and draws the curtains — the ones Mimi sewed in Germany.
“Your police are putting on a pretty poor show,” says Simon. “They clearly haven’t a fucking clue who’s responsible.”
“I’m sick about it, Simon. I’ve sent the police on a goddamn wild goose chase.”
“Do you really think you’ve done that single-handedly?” Simon in the seat beside him. Asking the right questions. “We’re taking some flak that’s all. We’ll ride it out. Don’t shake hands with the Devil before you meet him.”
Jack takes another deep breath, as quietly as possible, so as not to rouse his headache. Simon is right. They picked up Ricky Froelich because there are no other suspects. He wonders if there is any Aspirin in the house.
“What’s the situation on the ground there, Jack? Has your neighbour….”
“Froelich.”
“Has he spoken to anyone else, any mention of Dora in the press?”
“No. The arrest will be all over the papers, but…. If I were his lawyer, I’d tell him to keep his war criminal story to himself. Just makes the boy look guilty.”
“Good point.”
“Simon, if this goes any farther, I’ll have to come forward.”
“I don’t imagine it’ll come to that.”
An air-raid siren wails from the living room. Simon adds, almost as an afterthought, “Have you mentioned this to anyone at all? Fried? The fact you were in the car?”
“No—”
“To your wife—?”
“I’ve told no one.”
“Good. You did the right thing, mate.”
Jack’s headache blooms. His left eye pulses, he sees a diagonal silver flash and loses a patch of vision. “I’ll keep you posted.” He hangs up and pauses, his hand still on the receiver. In the next room his daughter sings along with a commercial, “‘You’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!’” Where does Mimi keep the Aspirin? He begins opening drawers. In the cupboard under the sink he finds a ragged old housedress, not anything Mimi wears, surely, what’s it doing here? Is it really possible that no one in the Canadian government is aware of Fried’s presence? Or is Canada in the habit of granting carte blanche to the Americans and Brits? A grenade explodes behind him; he turns and is in the living room in two steps. “Turn that godforsaken box down!”
Madeleine looks up. Her father is standing in the doorway, staring at her brother.
“But Dad, I can hardly hear it,” says Mike.
Her father looks strange. “What did you say, mister?”
“Nothing.”
Madeleine sits hugging a couch cushion, while Mike drags himself to the TV and lowers the volume. Dad doesn’t take his eyes from him. “What in the name of God are you watching, anyway?” Madeleine knew it was too good to be true — the half-naked Nazi, the chesty mademoiselle—
“Combat,” says Mike.
“Why are you letting your sister watch that garbage?”
“It’s not garbage, it’s good.”
“American garbage.”
“Well, we don’t have our own garbage.”
Dad clips him on the side of the head.
“Ow,” cries Mike, and turns red.
Jack plants himself in front of the television. “I’ll tell you something: the Americans entered both wars late and they like to take the credit, but you know who was in the front lines both times from the very beginning?” It’s a question that requires no reply. “Canadians.” His lips are thin and shiny. Bluish. “Do you know how many Canadian aircrew died in the last war?”
Machine-gun fire from the television—“I’m hit!” cries Sarge. Mike reflexively tilts his head to see past his father, who turns and switches off the TV. Mike punches his couch cushion.
Madeleine says, “Two out of three aircrew never came back.”
Jack says, “That’s right.” He grabs Mike by the ear and yanks him from the couch.
Mike yelps.
“To bed!” he says through gritted teeth.
“Ow, Papa!”
Mike, following Dad’s grip on his ear, looks suddenly very small and pink in his hockey pajamas and bare feet. Dad’s neck has turned red. Mike is trying not to cry. Madeleine looks down.
“It’s not my bedtime, Daddy!”—the last syllables get away from him in a sob that he fights to snatch back.
Dad pushes him to the stairs, releasing his ear, and Mike stumbles up the first step. Dad follows and grabs a close handful of Mike’s brush cut, hauling him up. Mike is crying, “Daddy, please stop.”
Maman says from the kitchen doorway, “Qu’est-ce qui se passe ici?” and drops her purse to the floor. Dad lets go and Mike runs upstairs — Madeleine hears his door slam shut.
Dad lifts his hand to his forehead and says, “Mimi, I couldn’t find the uh”—he takes a deep breath and Madeleine hears a tremble in it. “Where’s the Aspirin?” She sits perfectly still, clutching her pillow. Have they forgotten that she is here?
Mimi looks up at him and says, “Jack, what’s wrong?”
“Headache,” he says mildly, trying to smile. It’s blinding him.
“Sit down a minute.”
Jack returns to the kitchen, finds a chair and sits while Mimi goes upstairs to the medicine cabinet. Madeleine can see that her father is not moving. His forehead rests lightly on his fingers.