Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

He left the ME section, sweating by now in his woollen uniform — too hot a day for April — and had just decided to scrub the journey into town altogether when a black staff car rolled up alongside him and a military policeman inquired if he needed a lift. The MP would not be returning until late that evening, and with a full car at that, “so I can only offer you a one-way ticket, sir.”

“I’ll take it,” said Jack, and hopped in the back. A stroke of luck. He had just remembered Fried’s Ford Galaxy. He could drive it back to Centralia. “What’s your name, corporal?”

“Novotny, sir.”

A bruiser of a fellow. Jack sat back and asked him who he liked for the Stanley Cup this year.

Now, Jack knocks at Fried’s door. And waits. Finally, the shuffling, the pause during which he feels Fried’s eye on him through the peephole. Slide of the safety chain, thunk of the deadbolt and the door opens. Fried turns without a word back toward his darkened living room and the blare of the television. The odour of stale tobacco greets Jack. He would love to go straight to the window and open it but light is verboten on account of Fried’s orchids — vampire orchids, as Jack thinks of them. There are five now, growing up their coat hangers, dark delicate flesh, thriving.

Jack dumps the bags on the kitchen counter. In order to shop today, he had to get another advance on his pay. He has to hope that Mimi doesn’t question the old “accounts-payroll mistake” excuse when she sees the double deposit on payday. At least he needn’t worry about lipstick on his collar.

Jack has never considered adultery. Now it crosses his mind unbidden, because of the absurd situation in which he finds himself — sneaking away from work in the middle of the day, purchasing luxury items in secret, keeping a furtive rendezvous in dim rented rooms. As he puts away groceries in the refrigerator glow of Fried’s tiny kitchen, he finds himself picturing sex with a woman not his wife — right here in this cramped kitchen. Up against the counter. He takes the cognac from the bag, sticks it in the cupboard next to an identical half-full bottle, annoyed and now inconveniently aroused. He is conducting a clandestine affair. With NATO.

Jack walks back into the living room. Fried is watching Secret Storm . Jack shakes his head; after all, you have to laugh. He would love to tell Mimi about Fried, she’d get a kick out of it, and one day soon maybe he will be able to. A commercial comes on for Ban deodorant but Fried doesn’t take his eyes from the screen. Jack feels suddenly, oddly affectionate toward him. This is the last time he will see the man before he leaves to start working for USAF — and eventually, if Fried gets his way, NASA. He is a true eccentric, and what he lacks in charm, he clearly makes up for in courage and commitment. It’s been a slice , Jack wants to say. “How about a game of chess, sir?”

Fried appears at first not to have heard him. Then, as noxious strains of organ music signal the resumption of the soap opera, he says, “Shhh.”

Jack is stung. He feels himself flush and he takes a quiet breath. He would like to come away from this mission with more than a sour taste and a lot of unanswered questions. Fried’s profile looks imperturbable in the light and shadow of the television. A woman’s voice stutters, “Because I–I’m … the other woman,” and she breaks down weeping.

This is Jack’s last chance. The next time he sees Fried, it will be with Blair McCarroll, and after that he will likely never see the man again. So he says, “Too bad von Braun didn’t pick you to come to America with him in ’45, you’d be at NASA by now.”

Fried turns his head and glares. Bingo. He forms his words with unexpected precision and fluency. “You know where is Kazakhstan? You know what is Baikonur? You know who is Helmut Gröttrup?” He raises his voice above the tears and recriminations on the screen. “We are years ahead, we launch, we orbit, we beat you and do you know why?” He gestures with disgust toward the television. “Because you care more for this than you care for that,” and he points at the ceiling. Jack assumes he is referring to the moon, and the cosmos in general. “The Soviets come when the war ends. With guns we are ordered to them and we work—” Thin cords stand out in Fried’s neck.

Jack sits down, carefully, as though trying to avoid waking someone—

“They take me and many others.”

Jack has guessed right: Fried didn’t make the first cut. At the end of the war, Wernher von Braun had the good sense to flee the Russian advance and surrender to the Americans, who had the good sense to recruit him. Von Braun had hand-picked his team from among those he had worked with on the German rocket program — including his brother, along with his managerial right hand, Arthur Rudolph — the brightest and the best, who now form the core of NASA. But he didn’t pick Fried, and Fried fell into the hands of the Russians. Fried must have had a lot to prove in the Soviet Union.

Fried continues. “Gröttrup also is a scientist from Dora. He is of high rank. Not only von Braun knows how to make V-2, Gröttrup knows, I know. We work in the Soviet Union, many of us, and no luxury. Not like America.” He mutters at the man and woman on the screen, entangled in an illicit embrace. “I have been the only German left now in the Soviet Union program. They dispose — how do you say …?”

“Kill?”

“Nein,” says Fried impatiently, displaying more animation in one moment than Jack has witnessed in months, “throw away. Like garbage. They say, ‘We have Russians now to do your job.’”

“Ah,” says Jack, “Struck Off Strength.”

“Wie?”

“Like obsolete — worn out — aircraft. Tossed aside.”

“Just so. Tossed aside.”

“Except for you.”

“Ja.” Fried nods, his lower lip rising to displace the upper in a show of determination or self-satisfaction.

“Why, Oskar?”

Fried jabs his own narrow chest, where grey hairs stray from the open neck of his shirt. “I work. I watch the others. I see when there is sabotage, I know who is a traitor.” His face is taut.

“But you’re a traitor now.”

Fried takes a deep breath but makes no move. Finally he says, “I don’t care for money. If you have made something for your whole life, you wish only to continue. To work with the best. I do not care who wins this race to the moon. I care to participate. Russians will not allow me to go farther. By them I am always a foreigner.”

Jack nods, somewhat touched by Fried’s honesty. He says gently, “You must have made a major contribution to the Soviet space program.” Fried betrays no emotion, but Jack can tell that, like a child, he has heard and is savouring. “No wonder the Soviets leapt ahead,” Jack adds deliberately, “what with scientists of your calibre working for them.” Fried leans forward and switches off the TV. Reaches for his pipe. Jack hands him the fresh pouch of tobacco. “You fellas were launching Sputnik while we were still blowing up on the test stand.”

Fried shrugs — expressionless, delighted — and lights his pipe, passing the flame back and forth across the bowl, puffing.

“I guess you’re looking forward to seeing some of your old friends down there, eh? There’s bound to be some familiar faces at Wright-Patterson Air Base … over in the R and D facility?”

Fried says nothing. Maybe he doesn’t know where he’s going any more than Jack does.

Jack says, “Not to mention Houston.”

Fried smokes, calm once more.

“Did you know von Braun?”

“Natürlich.”

“At Peenemünde?”

“And after, at Dora. He would come to inspect.”