Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

“Goodbye, Jack.”

“Hang on.”

“Christ, what now?”

“Who the heck is Major Newbolt?”

Simon laughs. “You’re going to have to do your homework, lad.”

“Let me know when I can buy you that drink.”

As he turns to leave the booth, Jack sees that a small lineup has formed. Cadets standing at a respectful distance, waiting for the phone. They salute; Jack touches the brim of his hat and heads across the parade square for home. Something the Soviets and the Americans both want… . He doesn’t have to look up in the sky, he knows it’s there — even when you can’t see it.

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon, and returning him safely to earth.” Kennedy said that last year, but the Soviets have kept right on eclipsing American efforts, making heroes of Russian cosmonauts smiling out from the pages of Life . Luniks, Vostoks, manned rockets bearing the red star, hurtling skyward, gaping fire, two launch pads for manned flight at Baikonur in Kazakhstan compared with the lone Pad 14 at Cape Canaveral. The first U.S. attempt to match Sputnik blew up on the launch pad — the British press dubbed it a “Flopnik!” Oskar Fried is a scientist from the winning side, and the United States Air Force has gone to great lengths to import him. When Jack recalls recent articles and editorials about American military determination to compete with NASA, the connections seem suddenly crystal clear. He quickens his pace, his leg muscles feel taut and tireless, he could easily run home.

The Soviets are not like us; while we’re “mooning” about space exploration, they are turning their best military brains to the problem of space flight, pouring unlimited state funds into it, unconstrained by a congress or parliament. That’s why President Kennedy has approved billions for NASA. That’s why the U.S. Air Force is clamouring for a piece of the pie, convinced it ought not to be left entirely to the civilian agency. Jack glances up; there it is, mild disc. To fly there. To stand in the darkness of space and view our earth, milky blue, fragile jewel. There is not a human being on the planet who could remain unmoved by the enormity of such a feat. That’s why, apart from immense strategic advantage, there is such prestige attached to it. Hearts and minds and muscle. Jack feels certain now it’s why USAF is determined to acquire its own Wernher von Braun, in the person of Oskar Fried. He watches a fuel truck lumber past him up Canada Avenue toward the hangars, and behind it, Vimy Woodley at the wheel of a big Oldsmobile with a carload of Girl Guides. He returns her wave. One of those young gals is bound to be her daughter. When he gets home he’ll tell Mimi to line her up to babysit Friday night. It’s high time he took his wife into London for a fancy dinner, just the two of them. He glances at his watch. Five-twenty; Mimi will expect him by now. He quickens his pace, feeling springs in his heels, wings on his feet. When Jack was a boy he idolized Flash Gordon. It was science fiction then. Now it’s just a matter of time.

He recalls Henry Froelich the other night, questioning von Braun’s civilian status. Yes, von Braun worked for the Germans during the war, but he was a scientist, and why shouldn’t the Americans turn his skills to their advantage now? Not all men of science are paragons of virtue — Josef Mengele wasn’t the first to prove that. But von Braun worked on weapons, not human beings. In this he was no different — certainly no worse — than the scientists on our side who developed the first atomic bomb. Froelich was right, they did hold it together with masking tape for that first test blast down in Los Alamos; men and women in khaki shorts, eggheads, civilians — Jack has seen the photos. Von Braun is of that ilk. The Einstein of rocketry. He masterminded Hitler’s “secret weapon,” the V-2 rocket, granddaddy of the Saturn and every ICBM on the planet. And he did it at Peenemünde. The research and development facility that Simon helped to bomb in ’43 . Jack shakes his head — talk about a small world.

He strides past the Spitfire, eager now to see his wife. She will hand him a martini avec un twiste . They have been separated for the space of an afternoon, yet he feels as though he’s on his way home from the airport— can’t wait to see you baby, look what I bought you when I was in… . And as he crosses the Huron County road that separates the station from the PMQs, a perfectly reasonable explanation occurs to him for a person arranging to receive a call at a pay phone — apart from adultery, that is. He might have had a sudden impulse while passing the phone booth. Might have stepped inside and phoned a store — Simpson’s, say, in London — to inquire about a brand of perfume as a gift for his wife. The salesperson might have had to go to another floor, then call him right back from a different phone….

He enters the PMQs, alive with children and tricycles. The smells of many suppers perk his appetite and add to the edge in his stomach. He looks up at the sound of his name and returns Betty Boucher’s greeting.

“How are you, Betty?”

“I hope they’re treating you all right, Jack.”

“Can’t complain.”

“Dad! Catch!” His son tosses the football on the run as another boy tackles him, bringing them both down. Jack catches the ball, trots twenty-five feet, turns and bombs it back across three lawns. The boys dive.

“Mimi, I’m home.”

She smiles at him as he appears in the kitchen doorway and tosses his hat onto the halltree. She doesn’t ask him why he’s late, that’s not her style. She’s in stockings and pumps, never slippers after five, the strings of her white apron go round her waist twice, she hands him a martini, butts out her cigarette and kisses him.

“Something sure smells good,” he says.

“Fricot au poulet.”

Mimi has supper on the stove, every hair in place, and she’s put away under the sink the old maternity dress and rubber gloves that she wore to scrub the floor. Clark Kent changes in a phone booth. Superwomen are more discreet.

He slips his arms around her waist. “Where’s Madeleine?”

“Out playing.”

“What are you doing between now and supper?”

She whispers her answer in his ear.

“What would your maman say?” He lets his hands slide down over her bottom, and pulls her to him.

She rests her elbows on his shoulders and looks up at him. “Why do you think my maman had thirteen kids?”

He laughs. “You got eleven to go, Missus, what kind of Catholic girl are you?”

She bites his neck. “A smart one.”

He follows her up the stairs. He picks up her apron on the way, then her blouse, then a shoe. He waits to catch the other one and it crosses his mind — something Simon said that Jack didn’t dwell on at the time: No one knows it’s you . Can that be literally true? Is it possible no one in Ottawa — at External Affairs or in the Prime Minister’s Office — knows of Jack’s involvement? They would have to know about the American captain, even if Woodley doesn’t. Still, integration of the two militaries is nothing new, USAF could send whomever they want to up here without saying why. But Ottawa would have to know about the plan to shelter a high-level defector. How else would Simon acquire the authority to operate here? Not to mention a Canadian passport for Oskar Fried.

“Catch,” she says, her other shoe poised in her hand.

And he does.

WHY IS THERE ALWAYS one kid in the class who smells? Whom everyone shuns? Kids who have failed a grade inhabit a different world. As though exiled in a desert, even if they are right beside you, they are far away, breathing the bewildered air of a waterless planet. By Friday of the first week it’s established. At recess, Marjorie runs up to Madeleine, touches her and says, “Grace germs, needle!” then gleefully inoculates herself.