Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

“Does our friend have a name?”

“I’m sorry, of course. His name is Fried. Oskar Fried.”

Jack pictures a thin man — spectacles and bow tie. “East German?”

“That’s right. Though he’s been stuck in the boonies for a few years.”

“Where? Kazakhstan?”

“One of the ‘stans,’ no doubt. Come to think, you may as well take his London address….”

Jack fishes in his pocket, finds a scrap of paper and writes down the address on the back of Mimi’s grocery list. “So there’s not a whole lot for me to do but sit tight.”

“Welcome to ‘the great game.’” It’s the first reference Simon has made to the fact that he is an intelligence officer.

“First Secretary, eh? Isn’t that Donald Maclean’s old job?”

Simon laughs. “Technically yes, although I don’t plan on a midnight flit to Russia any time soon.”

They hang up with a promise to get together when Simon passes through with the defector.

Oskar Fried . Jack assumed the “Soviet scientist” would be Russian. The fact that he’s German adds a congenial dimension to the already fascinating prospect of meeting the man — it’ll be that much easier for Jack and Mimi to make him feel at home. Not to mention Henry Froelich right across the street — Jack meant to ask Simon whether he could invite Fried home for a meal. He looks at the address on the scrap of paper. A street near the university. If asked, Oskar Fried is here doing research at the University of Western Ontario. No one will ask. An academic with a German accent — hardly a rarity. And this part of the world is rich with German immigrant culture, pre-war and post. Simon has chosen a good place for Oskar Fried to recover quietly from whatever the ordeal of defection entails. It’s simple, Jack reflects as he pockets the list: select a context in which people will answer their own questions. He opens the folding glass door of the booth and sets out for home across the parade square.

Oskar Fried is presumably a scientist of some importance. Why is Canada getting him? There’s the National Research Council in Ottawa. There’s the heavy water plant at Chalk River, which was cleansed of espionage back in ’45—after the infestation by the Atomic Spy Ring that helped the Russians get the bomb. Fun ’n’ games, thinks Jack, shaking his head at the memory of Igor Gouzenko talking to the press with a hood over his head after his defection. A real black eye for Canada. Chief among the names the Russian cipher clerk gave up was that of a Brit, Dr. Alan Nunn May — like Maclean, another Cambridge type — who had passed weapons-grade uranium to the Russians in the name of “world peace.” Jack touches two fingers to his forehead in response to the smart salute of a cadet and steps from the black parade square to the cooler sidewalk, enjoying the stroll home. He sticks his hands in his pockets, absently rolling a bit of paper. He can almost hear Simon: “Take off those American gloves!”

Perhaps they were just overly privileged. Nunn May, and Guy Burgess and Maclean and their lot, wouldn’t last a day on a Soviet collective farm. But that’s history; Russia has the bomb and, God knows, so will China soon enough. What count now are nuclear missiles, ICBMs, and developing some sort of defence against them. Is that what Fried will be working on? Canada has a small number of nuclear weapons, but no warheads — at least, not that Prime Minister Diefenbaker will admit to. Jack stops in his tracks. The groceries! He makes an about-face and retraces his steps to the PX, digging in his pocket for the grocery list — it’ll be great seeing Simon again, and finally introducing him to Mimi. She’ll fix them a real Acadian feast. Then over to the mess, where the two of them will close the bar the way they used to—“Here’s to being above it all.” He regards the scrap of paper: shredded wheat, milk, can peas… . He peers at his wife’s pencil scrawl. Real jello —no, that must be red Jell-O— bag potatoes, hot dogs, doz. buns —and here he’s defeated— mushmelbas? What’s a mushmelba? A type of mushroom? A cracker? Mimi ought to have been a doctor instead of a nurse, with her writing. He would phone home to ask, but he finds he’s out of nickels and dimes. Oskar Fried. Friede means “peace.”

He walks into the PX, takes a cart and, still staring at the encrypted list, wheels slowly up the aisle and straight into someone else’s cart. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” the woman says. “You’re new.”

“That’s right. I’m Jack McCarthy.”

“I think we’re neighbours.” She is perhaps three or four years older than he, pretty in a way. “I’m Karen Froelich.” They shake hands.

“I just met your husband.”

She smiles. Yes, she’s pretty in spite of the lines around her eyes, her mouth — no lipstick. “I hope he offered you a cup of coffee.”

“He offered me a beer,” says Jack, “but we made do with coffee.”

“Good.” She brushes a strand of hair from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. Her hair is not done but you wouldn’t call her unkempt. She is simply not, as Mimi would say, “bien tournée.” Her gaze falls briefly as she says, “Drop by any time.”

Shy, or perhaps vague. In any case, it isn’t the usual air force wife invitation: You and your wife must come over for dinner once you’ve settled in . But he recalls that she isn’t an air force wife.

“I’m afraid you’ll be seeing us sooner than you think, Mrs. Froelich.” And he repeats the invitation he extended to her husband earlier this morning. He is ready for a feminine objection echoing Mimi’s and Betty Boucher’s, but Karen Froelich just says, “Thanks,” and begins a polite getaway down the aisle.

There is something girlish about her, although she must be forty. Worn white sneakers, stretch pants. And, it looks like, one of her husband’s old dress shirts.

“What’s, uh—” He feels suddenly awkward as she stops and turns; he is making too much conversation. “I saw you’re reading Silent Spring.”

She nods.

“What’s it like?”

“It’s um. Disturbing.” She nods again, as though to herself.

He nods too, waiting for more, but she just says, “Nice meeting you,” and moves off.

Jack turns to stare at the shelves of cans in front of him, the way men do in grocery stores— I could find Dresden at night from twelve thousand feet, but where are the canned peas? He heads back up the aisle. “Mrs. Froelich,” he calls, a little embarrassed. “Can you help me out here?”

“Call me Karen.”

“Karen,” he says, reddening for no reason, and handing her the grocery list, “I can’t read my wife’s writing.”

She looks at it and reads aloud, “Four-seventy-two Morrow Street—”

Jack takes the list back and turns it over— Simon, are you watching this? Christ .

Karen looks at the scrap of paper, where he’s pointing. “Marshmallows.”

“Thank you!” says Jack. I sound too relieved . As they move off in separate directions, his heart is beating a little too quickly, out of proportion to the gaffe — the address was meaningless to her. No harm done. It’s a healthy reminder to be careful, that’s all. Not that it matters. Even the name Oskar Fried would be meaningless to her. It’s largely meaningless to Jack. Some Soviet egghead in a bow tie.

He finds the fruits and vegetables mounded amid plastic grass, turns his gaze to the bananas, apples and pears, and shreds the address inside his trouser pocket. Potatoes … ah, there they are. Mimi didn’t say how many. He puts two bags of them into his cart. Now, what else did she want? He reaches into his pocket for the grocery list and finds the shreds — that’s it, shredded wheat. And what else? Hot dogs. And buns. For the kids. And marshmallows, of course….