“True. But I trust the Americans not to use them.”
“The Americans have used them already.”
“Right.” Jack pulls on his cigar. “But that was to end a war, not to start one. I don’t trust the Soviets as far as I can spit.”
“I do not trust either,” says Froelich, and Jack finds it difficult to tell, knowing the syntactical idiosyncrasies of Froelich’s English, whether he means I don’t trust the Soviets either, or I don’t trust either of them. Such are the hazards of translation. Imagine trying to analyze the latest missive from Khrushchev. We’ll all go up in a mushroom cloud because of a preposition. But Froelich is saying, “I think they play a dangerous game, the Americans and the Russians, and they play this together.”
“Can I use the torch, Pop?” asks Rick.
“What do you mean, Hank?”
Froelich turns to his son. “Yes, no, find your safety glasses, then yes”—then turns back to Jack. “I agree with Eisenhower.”
“You liked Ike?”
“He warned of too much military industries. We force the Russians to keep up. People grow rich from these industries and they become to have political influence.”
“It’s called the arms race,” says Jack.
“I think it is what the British call, ‘silly bugger.’” He wipes carbon buildup from the old distributor cap.
Jack laughs. “So you don’t think the world is going to end tomorrow?”
“The world has ended many times, my friend.”
Jack thinks of the numbers on Froelich’s arm, concealed by the white shirt. He would like to find a way to apologize for … having been a jackass. But referring to a subject that Froelich has not seen fit to broach might only distress the man … and compound Jack’s faux pas.
Henry says, “Pass me the Robertson’s red.” Jack hands him the screwdriver. Overhead the stars are crisp and bright. Jack looks up at the moon, cold and calm. Look long enough and you may see a satellite. The Froelich boy’s transistor radio catches invisible signals from the air, as though netting schools of fish, and translates them into a male voice singing in a falsetto about the girl he loves — in Mecca.
“The United States also acts in secret, for example U-2,” says Froelich.
“How else are we supposed to know the Russians are arming Cuba to the teeth?”
“What about Gary Powers when he has invaded Soviet air last May?”
“We used to do that all the time in Germany,” says Jack and grins. Froelich glances up. Jack explains, “Our fellas’d climb into their Sabres and scream across into the Eastern Sector to test the Soviet response time. The Russkies’d send up their MiGs and chase us back home. They did the same thing to us.”
“If this was so harmless,” says Froelich, “why did Eisenhower say it was a weather plane for NASA?” He relights his pipe.
The aroma reminds Jack of home. Germany. He and Mimi and their little family — something complete about their lives over there. The sense that every day the world got a bit better. Cities healed, one brick, one spire at a time, flowers bloomed in window boxes. Perhaps it’s just nostalgia … for the smiles that greeted them when people found out they were Canadian. A new alliance forged from the intimacy of enmity. The past and the present had made a pact and the result was the future. Perhaps they were simply happy there. He is taken aback at that thought, because it would imply that he is something other than happy now. But, the current crisis notwithstanding, he is happy, surely. He is not aware of being unhappy. He taps the ash from his cigar and watches it float to the ground.
“Bottom line is, Henry, Castro is a puppet and Kennedy is an elected leader.”
“It’s a pity Americans are not so fond of democracy outside their own borders.” Sparks fly from the back of the car, where Rick is welding.
“That’s not true, Henry, what about the Marshall Plan, look at”—Jack almost says Germany, but catches himself—“Western Europe, look at Japan.”
“Look at Latin America, look at Indochina—”
“Uncle Sam can’t solve the problems of the whole world—”
“Part of the world just asks him to stay away—”
“Would you rather live in the Soviet Union, Henry?”
“To question U.S. is not to love U.S.S.R., a socialist is not a Communist.”
“Are you a socialist?”
“We are both.”
“Both socialist and Commu—?”
“Nein! You and I both are socialist.”
“How do you figure that, Hank?”
“You get sick, you go to hospital, doctors fix you, you don’t go broke.”
“Medicare—”
“Is socialist.”
Jack laughs. “You’re right, some of our best policies are—”
“Soviet Union is not even Communist, is totalitarian.” Froelich looks at his wrench as though he were angry at it—“Ricky, where have you put the pliers?!”
The sparks die, Rick’s face pops up and he pushes the welding goggles back on his forehead. “They’re right there, Pops, hangin’ off your belt.”
“Oh. Danke.”
Jack sees Rick duck down again and the shower of sparks resumes. With luck, that boy will never have to fight a war. “Stalin killed more people than Hitler,” he says, and regrets it immediately — but why should he pussyfoot around Henry Froelich? The man is not asking to be patronized — he keeps that tattoo covered for a reason.
“So?” says Henry. “One, one hundred, six million, this is supposed to make someone feel better? They are all butchers.”
“I’m just agreeing with you, Henry, that’s why you don’t see Americans jumping over the Wall to get into East Berlin, that’s why the brain drain is all one way.”
“Brain drain?”
Jack pauses. This is a conversation he would be having whether or not he had ever heard of Oskar Fried. It’s fine. “It’s just a way of saying that, given a choice, many Soviet scientists would jump at the chance to come here and work.”
“Ah”—Froelich nods—“you speak of defectors.”
“I guess so.” Jack inhales the smoke along with the sharp air as Froelich straightens, intent upon the engine, scratches his neck, leaving a streak of grease above his white collar, and says, “Can you ever trust a traitor?”
Jack is taken aback. He answers, almost peevishly, “They’re not necessarily traitors. Some are idealists.”
“That’s what those Englishmen called themselves. The ones who defected….”
Just then the screen door opens and, beyond the pool of light around the car, Jack sees a girl walking toward them in the dark.
“Ricky….”
It’s Karen Froelich.
“Yeah Mum?”
“Lizzie’s asking for you, hon.”
The kid wipes his hands on a rag and heads into the house.
“How are you doing, Karen?”
“Oh I’m fine, Jack, how are you, are you worried?”
“What, me? Naw. What do you make of all this nonsense?”
She does not demur or “leave that to you men,” she says, “I think it’s bullshit.”
He hesitates, then asks, “How do you mean?”
She folds her arms across her chest — her sloppy man’s vest is the last article of clothing that would suggest female characteristics, and perhaps that’s why it’s impossible not to notice her breasts suddenly take shape with her gesture.
“’Cause between the two of them they can already destroy the planet a couple of times over.” Her tone is offhand, in contrast with her words. “They don’t need Cuba as an excuse.” She pronounces it “Cooba.”
Jack says, “Is that what you think they want to do?”
“No, I think they want to, you know, scare us. Distract us so we won’t notice … all the other stuff, you know?”