“Thank you Miss McCarthy, you may sit down now.”
He doesn’t sound angry. He sounds the way he always does. As though compelled to mock something that makes him very weary indeed.
Grace returns to school after lunch with a different skirt on. At recess she stays in and feeds the gerbil a piece of lettuce — Sputnik almost died because Philip Pinder drove him across the floor like a Dinky Toy. Grace has been looking after him ever since. At two minutes to three, Mr. March picks up his clipboard. “The following little girls….” They have all started to fish out their homework from their desks — everyone except Joyce Nutt, Diane Vogel, Marjorie and Grace. He has started calling them “monitors.” No one wonders any more what they do, it is just a fact of Mr. March’s class.
Madeleine puts away her speller and hauls out her arithmetic book, dreading tonight’s homework — they have progressed from the purgatory of word problems to the hell of integers. “Joyce Nutt”—gone the friendly disguise of narrative. How could a word story describe what these numbers do? They go through the looking glass. The ghosts of real numbers, they live underground—“and Diane Vogel.” Madeleine looks up. Something is different. Mr. March sits down. The bell goes. Ecstatic scraping of chairs—
“In an orderly fashion, boys and girls.”
Madeleine zips up her jacket and sees that Marjorie and Grace have remained at their desks. Mr. March didn’t read out their names, that’s what is different. Still, Marjorie waits with her hands folded in front of her. Grace’s mouth hangs open slightly, she is twirling her hair and looking at Marjorie.
Madeleine is pulling on her rubber boots when Mr. March says, “Little girls, did you hear your names?” Grace giggles. Marjorie’s profile turns pink.
“Well?” says Mr. March, his voice droll. “Run along then. Your presence is not required.”
Madeleine watches Marjorie rise slowly from her desk. Grace follows. As Marjorie turns, her gaze meets that of Madeleine, who is surprised to see that Marjorie’s customary smug expression has deserted her. In its place is a look of pure bewilderment. Madeleine experiences a pang of sympathy, but the next instant Marjorie’s eyes narrow maliciously and she sticks out her tongue. Madeleine leaves quickly by the side door.
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.
“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.