“For what?”
“Making you — stirring up all these memories.”
“Ibergekumene tsores iz gut tsu dertseylin. Troubles overcome are good to tell.” Froelich smiles and the twinkle returns to his eye. “My grandmother used to say this. She was ‘typical’ Yiddish.”
Jack steps out into the night, the key closed in his hand, digging into his palm. Across the street, he sees the light in his kitchen window. He feels suddenly sorry for his wife — pictures her at the table with a cup of tea, poised to turn the page of a magazine, waiting for him. As though he were away at war — although, if he were, the picture would not seem so sad. Add a child drinking cocoa at her side, and the caption, “What did you do in the war, Daddy?”
The lights of a car catch his eye as it turns onto St. Lawrence. Karen Froelich is coming home, alone. He turns and heads back between the Froelich house and the one next door — he will take a shortcut through the park to the station. It would be quicker with his car, but he doesn’t want to alert Mimi, cloud the situation with explanations. She will assume he is still at the Froelichs’.
He jogs past the swings and teeter-totters. Is it possible Simon knew all about Fried? Jack quickens his pace, running as much to dissipate the adrenalin spurting in his gut as to reach the phone booth in short order. Fried is a killer, a man who concealed his past and switched loyalties when it suited him — why would he not do so again? How likely is it that Simon would knowingly recruit such a man on behalf of the West? Jack is about to emerge from the park when he notices something hanging from a backyard tree — rope and pulley. What’s it for? He slows to a walk now that he is back under street lights.
A man like Fried would besmirch the jewel of Western science: the space program. He’d put into disrepute our fight for missile supremacy, and play into the hands of Soviet propaganda. The Soviets are ahead because they coerce their people — their entire country is a concentration camp. Jack loosens his tie, cooling his neck, and crosses the county road, passing under the wing of the old Spitfire.
Up Canada Avenue and past the hangars, he slows to a walk. The darkness thickens ahead of him, where the mown grass on the far side of the runway turns to weeds obscuring the lip of a dry ditch. He would rather not be out of earshot of his family at night — although whoever did this thing is probably miles away. Like the McCarrolls themselves, in Virginia now. Loved ones filling a suburban living room. Framed photographs. Sandwiches and tears. So sorry. He crosses the runway and takes the key from his pocket. He raises his arm, poised to throw, and is shocked by his next thought, which arrives without remorse: better his child than mine—because in this instant Jack is certain that it would have been his child, had it not been for McCarroll. As though one child was demanded by something. A sacrifice. To what? He hurls the key into the darkness.
The phone booth shines across the parade square. He runs, pushes through the glass door and dials zero. He hears the phone ring in the darkness at the other end of the line.
“Operator.”
Jack takes the scrap of paper from his wallet, reads out Simon’s night number and listens as the digits are dialled, clicking like the tumblers in a safe. He looks up at the frank sliver of moon through the glass of the booth and realizes something: Simon is still on active duty. He hasn’t lived in peacetime since 1939. He has gone from one war to the next. Jack is grateful not to have his job — even if Simon is still “flying ops.” And while this mission cannot now be called a success, it has not been entirely futile if Simon’s task included depriving the Soviet space program of Fried’s expertise. Even if Fried is shipped back when the truth is out, the Soviets are unlikely to return him to work. It’s more likely he’ll be executed. Jack feels no twinge of pity for the man, but his next thought chills him: perhaps Fried is actually a Soviet spy. He takes a deep breath — no point getting ahead of himself. He listens to the phone ring somewhere in Washington.
Madeleine tried to stay awake but sleep overcame her, invisible magic wand — why is it we can never remember the moment of sleep? Now she has awakened with no sense of what time it is, merely the knowledge that it’s late. Her father must be home by now, and she needs to ask him the questions before school tomorrow.
She creeps into the hall. A stealthy push at her parents’ door reveals the room. Bed made. Her heart leaps — her parents have gone away! Of course they haven’t. They are staying up late, they are grown-ups, they are allowed.
She pads to the top of the stairs. There is a light downstairs, coming from the kitchen. She descends, one cautious step at a time, until she sees her mother alone at the kitchen table. She is still dressed, a cup of tea in front of her and the cards laid out. She is playing solitaire. Madeleine watches as her mother places one card on top of another. The kitchen is neat and clean. Her red nails stand out against the silver flecks of the tabletop. Smoke drifts up from a crystal ashtray.
“Maman?”
Her mother looks up and smiles. “Eh, ma p’tite fille, qu’est-ce que tu as, viens à maman.” And opens her arms.
Madeleine walks to her, aware that her back is arched a bit, stomach sticking out the way it used to when she was little, twining her hair around her finger. She climbs onto her mother’s lap. Her mother has also forgotten that Madeleine is nine. She puts her arms around her and rocks her. Madeleine rests her head against her mother’s shoulder and resists the desire to suck her thumb. “Maman, are you going to have another baby?”
Mimi smiles. “Maybe, if God sends one.”
“What are you going to call it? If it’s a girl.”
“Oh, I don’t know, what do you think? We could call her Domithilde.”
“No!”
Her mother laughs. “Why not? After your Tante Domithilde, what’s wrong with that?”
“Can we call her Holly?”
“Why?”
“’Cause it’s kind of like Hayley, for Hayley Mills.”
“Holly is nice, but there’s no Saint Holly.”
“Was there a Saint Claire?”
Mimi strokes her forehead. “Hush, ma p’tite. There is a Saint Claire and she is looking after our little friend. Claire is with God now.”
Then why is everyone so upset? Madeleine pictures a trio walking away from her. Claire in between Saint Claire and God, holding their hands and looking up at them. Grown-ups in robes and a kerchief, solemnly taking her away, talking to one another over her head. Where were they when someone killed her? Watching?
“Say a little prayer now,” says Maman, folding her hands. And they pray, “‘Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here….’”
As soon as the prayer is done, Madeleine says, “I have to ask Dad something.”
“Ask him in the morning, okay?”
Madeleine closes her eyes as her mother rocks her to sleep. She puts her thumb in her mouth and ponders God and Saint Claire. Holy grown-ups who wait to meet murdered children at the airport in Heaven.
“Simon, I’ve just been talking to Froelich — my neighbour — he’s told me about Fried, about what he did at Dora. He had people hanged, Simon, he ordered executions … Simon?”
“Go on.”
“Well, if it’s true — and I think it is — we are harbouring a war criminal. He’ll have to be deported.”
A click at the other end of the line — not electronic, the sound of a lighter. Then an intake of breath. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question, Jack. Fried’s war record is neither here nor there.”
Jack thought he was prepared for this. He isn’t. “Are you telling me that you knew?”