He gets in, puts on his sunglasses and pulls into the brilliant December day. He makes good time back to London, and when he arrives at Fried’s apartment at dusk and drops the keys into the man’s open hand, Fried actually forms a small smile and says, “Danke.”
“Fröhliche Weihnachten, Oskar.”
“Fröhliche Weihnachten, Herr McCarthy.”
He has the taxi drop him in the village of Centralia, just beyond the station and out of range of inquiring eyes, and gives the driver a decent tip.
The street lights come on, dispelling the five o’clock gloom as Jack rounds the corner, the snow squeaky cold beneath his rubbers. He fills his lungs with clean crisp air. Tomorrow is his first day of leave. He sees Henry Froelich out hammering a nail into his front door. Elizabeth is bundled up in her wheelchair, a pyramid of snowballs in her lap. She is throwing them at unpredictable angles for the dog, who leaps to catch them between his jaws, where they explode.
The words escape Jack’s lips: “Fröhliche Weihnachten, Henry!” He feels himself redden instantly. Time to take the bull by the horns. He walks up the driveway.
“Hank, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Being such a … knucklehead.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean….” He reddens again. He can’t apologize for his stupid “You’re a typical German, Hank” remarks because that gets too close to a painful, private subject—Jack knows about Froelich’s tattoo only by accident.
“Jack, are you okay?”
“Yeah, Henry, I’m just—look, I only recently realized that—I realize you don’t celebrate Christmas, so I’m sorry for—”
“But we do celebrate.” Froelich hangs a wreath on his door. “My wife likes to celebrate the solstice.”
“The solstice?”
“Festival of light. Like Chanukah.”
“Oh. Happy Chanukah.”
Froelich smiles. “Jack, I am a Jew. But I am not religious. You worry too much.”
Jack relaxes. The scrape of a shovel catches his attention; he turns and notes with approval his son shovelling his driveway across the street. In Froelich’s front yard, the big dog rolls on his back in the snow. Jack is ambushed by a rush of pure happiness. “Henry, I don’t give a damn if you’re pagan, Moslem, Hindu or from Mars, you and Karen are coming to the New Year’s Eve formal with me and Mimi as our guests.”
“No, no, this we do not—”
“Aber ja!” exclaims Jack, counting on his fingers, slapping them into his palm. “You’ve fixed my car, my lawnmower, filled me up with good homemade wine, it’s time I had a chance to pay the Piper.”
Froelich is about to object again. The two men stand, eyes locked, and a twinkle of amusement enters Henry’s. He shrugs. “What the heck. I mean, thank you.”
When he tells Mimi the Froelichs are coming to the mess for New Year’s, she gives him a Mona Lisa smile and turns back toward the kitchen.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Rien du tout. I think it’s lovely you invited them.”
He follows her. “You do not, what are you thinking, woman?”
She pauses at the stove, bites her lower lip—a touch of malice just enough to be sexy—and says, “I’m curious to see what she wears, c’est tout.”
“You’re bad.”
She lifts her eyebrows briefly, then turns and bends, a little more than she needs to, to check the mincemeat pies.
On Saturday the twenty-third, chaos reigns in the rec centre as the children’s Christmas party gets underway, to the helium strains of The Chipmunks’ Christmas Album. Flushed faces bulge with candy canes, grown-up voices cry above the din, “Don’t run with that in your mouth!” A mountain range of wrapped gifts surrounds the towering Christmas tree, each package bearing a tag marked “girl” or “boy.” Madeleine knows better than to bother opening one marked “girl” but she also knows not to court public humiliation by taking one marked “boy.” She joins in the ecstatic mayhem of chasing and screaming. Every kid in the PMQs is there, and so are many from the surrounding community—including a busload of orphans who arrive with a detachment of nuns, all of whom seem to know Mrs. Froelich. For once, Madeleine plays with all her friends at once, including Colleen. She experiences a moment of trepidation when a genuinely rotund Santa Claus enters. But it isn’t Mr. March, it’s Mr. Boucher. “Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël!”
On Christmas morning, Mimi opens a big box from the St. Regis Room of Simpson’s and says, as she always does, “It better not be a you-know-what.” It isn’t a mink coat, but Jack has nonetheless courted her wrath with an extravagant silk negligée. Mike receives the supreme gift of walkie-talkies. Madeleine doesn’t receive a weapon of any kind, but neither is she burdened with more dolls. Her booty includes a Mr. Potato Head, an Etch-A-Sketch, a toboggan, yo-yo, puppet theatre, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and other treasures too numerous to mention—chief among them a psychology kit complete with white goatee, glasses and ink spots.
Only one gift requires acting. It comes in a little blue Birks box, and Maman looks so pleased as Madeleine unwraps it that it makes her feel plungingly sad. The kind of sadness that is possible only on Christmas morning; your dear mother, smiling and hoping you will like the special present she has picked out.
A sterling silver charm bracelet. With one charm on it already—“That’s just for openers,” says Dad, pleased to be giving his little girl a young-lady gift. “Merci maman.” Madeleine compresses her lips into a smile, swallowing the lump in her throat.
Her mother fastens the bracelet onto Madeleine’s wrist and her family admires it. She keeps it on for church, then takes it off to go tobogganing, returning it to its blue box on her dresser. Wondering how long she can go before having to wear it again, she closes the lid on the silver bracelet and its single charm—her name.
FOR AULD LANG SYNE
ON NEW YEAR’S EVE, Jack is shaved, showered and Brylcreemed by five. He wipes fog from the mirror, dries the walls of the tub, sets out a fresh towel and hollers, “It’s all yours, Missus.”
Mimi is in her slip, taking curlers out of her hair, when the phone rings. Jack calls, “I’ll get it!” and grabs it before either of the kids can answer. “Hello? … Oh … oh, that’s too bad, Vimy. Yup, yup, not to worry, I’ll tell her.”
He puts his head in the bedroom door and says to his wife at her vanity, “That was Vimy Woodley. Martha’s got the flu.”
Mimi’s hands fall to her sides, a freshly liberated curl droops and bounces. “Merde!” Without a babysitter, at the eleventh hour. She glares at him and says, “Marsha.”
“What?”
“Oh never mind, Jack,” and lets slip the ultimate Acadian curse word: “Goddamn!,” smacking her thighs. She starts yanking out curlers and pitching them among the silver combs and brushes on her table.
“Wait now, sweetie, just keep doing what you’re doing, I’ve got an idea.” He kisses her bare shoulder. “Wear the No. 5 tonight, it’s my favourite.”
Jack hands Mike the Kodak Instamatic and a flash cube, and the boy positions his parents in front of the fireplace and the oil painting of the Alps. Jack is in his formal mess kit—short blue coat with black bow tie, blinding-white shirt front and black cummerbund. Blue pants with gold stripes down the sides, tapered at the ankle, where concealed stirrups cause them to fit snugly over the high-polish ankle boots that lack only a Cuban heel to render them utterly hip. Mimi is in an off-the-shoulder gown of silk in shades of green and gold, with a shimmering satin stole. Her hair is done, her face is radiant, eyelashes long, décolletée within the bounds of good taste and off the scale of sex appeal. Flash.
Then Mike snaps a picture of his parents with the Froelichs: Henry in a freshly pressed brown tweed jacket with suede patches at the elbow, his usual white shirt and black tie. Mimi discreetly observes every detail of Karen’s attire: an open-weave shawl over a dress that appears to be essentially a floor-length turtle
neck. The shawl is lumpy black, but the dress is composed of several dull reds and purples that seem to have bled into one another. She has brushed her long hair and applied two horizontal lines of red lipstick. Beaded earrings dangle from her lobes. On her feet, a pair of embroidered Chinese slippers. The dress manages somehow to be both dowdy and clinging. The woman is obviously not wearing a girdle; her slimness is no excuse, slimness is not the point, shape is.
Mimi had handed Karen a sherry when they arrived. “That’s a very pretty dress, Karen.”
“You think so? Thanks, Mimi,” she replied, as though Mimi had just given her a present. “I got it at a thrift shop in Toronto.” She nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Nice hands, short unpainted nails.
Henry kissed Mimi on both cheeks. “Aber schön, Frau McCarthy, you look ravishing.”
“He’s right, Mimi, you do,” said Karen and, try as she might, Mimi could detect not a drop of malice in her tone.
“’Night-night kids,” Jack says now and, in his most jovially man-to-man voice, “Help yourself to anything and everything, Rick.”
“Except the liquor cabinet,” jokes Karen.
Mimi hopes her smile doesn’t look too pained.
The men help the women on with their coats, carry their shoe-bags for them, and the four of them bundle into the Rambler. Mike, Madeleine, Colleen, Ricky, Elizabeth and Rex look at one another in the living room. The twins are already sound asleep up on Jack and Mimi’s bed, behind a barricade of pillows. Ricky says, “What do you guys want to do?”
No one says anything at first—Colleen and Elizabeth may be used to having Ricky around, but for Mike and Madeleine it’s as though a god has descended from Mount Olympus.
They feast on hot dogs and Kraft dinner. Ricky and Mike play table hockey, violently jerking the handles while commentating from high above the Montreal Forum: “Hockey Night in Canada!” Ricky has brought a stack of forty-fives. Madeleine and Colleen make popcorn as Jay and the Americans blast. Ricky ransacks the upstairs closet for blankets and drags them down to the basement, where he empties the bookcase and tips it against the wall to form a lean-to. Madeleine looks at Mike, who stands by, hesitant, then says, “My dad doesn’t let us do that.”
“Do what?” asks Ricky, opening the duffel bag where the camping equipment is stored.
“Make shelters.”
“It ain’t a shelter, it’s a fort.” He drapes blankets and sleeping bags over the bookcase and the basement furniture. “’Sides, you’re going to clean it all up before they get back.” He tosses Mike a flashlight, says, “You’re it,” and turns off the lights. Madeleine yelps in spite of herself. They play hide-and-seek in the dark all over the house—except in Jack and Mimi’s room. Madeleine has to change her pajama bottoms due to a slight accident brought on by terror and mirth. They jump on the beds and take turns shooting each other with Mike’s cap gun, dying spectacularly; they try one by one to tackle Ricky but he is invincible, hurling each assailant onto a mattress. They have a pillow fight in the dining room; the oil painting of the Alps is knocked askew, the couch cushions are on the living-room floor. Rex, exhausted from rescue attempts and the vain effort to herd everyone into one room, yields finally to temptation and, as intoxicated as the others, chews one of Mimi’s rubber spatulas. Through it all, Elizabeth sings, drops off, wakes up, listens while Madeleine reads aloud her Cherry Ames book, and falls out of her wheelchair reaching for an Orange Crush. “Lizzie, you’re drunk!” says Ricky, mopping up the mess, opening another bottle of the best—Mountain Dew. “It’ll tickle yore innards!” he howls.
The party is just getting started.
In the officers’ mess, logs blaze in the great stone fireplace. The crystal chandelier glitters, reflecting light from candles on the dining tables, where sterling gleams on white linen amid opulent flower arrangements. Next to each place setting is a complement of noisemakers and a sparkly cardboard fez with a tassel. The buffet is resplendent. Lobsters in top hats perch on their tails, ice sculptures depict the Old Year and the New, platters of elaborately carved tropical fruit alternate with steaming chafing dishes; cooks in white chefs’ uniforms and hats stand ready behind hips of beef and racks of lamb. Cocktails flow from the mirrored bar, waiters circulate with wine, there is punch from crystal bowls and, on the polished dance floor, a slow spin of silk butterflies and air force blue as couples swirl to the big band sounds of Gerry Tait and His Orchestra, all the way from Toronto. “‘Pennsylvania Six-Five Thousand’!” Above the bandstand arches a silver banner: Nineteen Sixty-Three.
“You smell nice,” says Jack. He can feel her smile, his chin touching the top of her hair.
It’s all worth it. The constriction of his starched collar, the slight cinch of his waistband, for which he has no one to blame but himself—this monkey suit was nice and roomy only last year. He is already formulating a New Year’s resolution to do with medicine balls and running shoes when Henry Froelich cuts in.
Mimi smiles and sweeps away with him. All the other civilians are dressed formally. But so is Hank, thinks Jack, admiring his neighbour’s old-world deportment on the dance floor. True formality comes from within, and Henry Froelich outclasses everyone with his patched elbows. Jack watches them disappear into the crowd, then moves to the bar, buys a drink for Blair McCarroll and asks Sharon to dance.
He guides her onto the floor and it’s like dancing with a pretty girl in high school to whom you are mercifully not attracted. She smiles shyly as Jack leads her in a samba, answering his questions with diffident charm and brevity; a light creature, pliable but not fragile, her laughter blithe when he spins her back to her husband. A sweet woman.
Jack raises his glass to Blair.
“Merry Christmas, sir.”
“Call me ‘Jack’ tonight, son.”
Jack tries to picture the look on McCarroll’s face when he finally tells him why he is here. Will he be offended not to have been briefed sooner? Jack places his empty glass on the bar and scans the dance floor. McCarroll will probably just nod and do his job.
The band heats up: “In the Mood.” Vic and Betty Boucher show what they can do and a space clears around them. Jack makes his way toward his wife as the number ends but Vic beats him to it. “She’s my prisoner for the next five minutes, Jack.”
He spots Steve Ridelle, looking just as relaxed in his mess kit as he would in a golf shirt and slacks. Elaine is glowing; her blonde hair is curled in a flip, and the pale blue folds of her satin gown do nothing to minimize her eight-month pregnancy. She looks like too much of a kid, even in that gown, to be pregnant. She is sipping a Bloody Mary, “Loaded with vitamins,” she says to Jack, patting her stomach, as he comes up to greet them. He swings her onto the dance floor, over Steve’s laughter and her protestations. “No! Jack! What’m I supposed to do? The Dance of the Baby Elephants?” He spins her and she is just as nimble as if she were in a pair of dungarees, minus the weight of the new world she’s carrying.
Steve intercepts Mimi for the next dance and Jack concedes defeat. “I’m never going to get near my wife with you fellas circling all night.”
“Take a number, Jack,” says Hal Woodley.
Jack extends his hand to Hal’s wife. To dance with Vimy Woodley is to dance with a real lady. She converses graciously but easily, and makes him feel special—an up-and-coming young man. He knows that her attitude is an extension of her husband’s, and he can’t help feeling gratified.
When Jack returns to his table, Karen Froelich is there nursing a Coke. Her lipstick has worn off. He has formulated a chivalrous invitation to the effect that he can’t sit this one out when there’s a beautiful woman right here in front of him, but says simply, “Would you like to dance, Karen?”
“Sure, Jack.”
He holds out his left hand for her and slips his right hand around her waist. She is thin. But strong. No Playtex armour—he almost wonders whether he ought to be touching her. Gerry Tait sets aside his trumpet and sings, “Fly Me
to the Moon.”
They dance. She smells like soap. And something else … sandalwood? From this angle her mouth looks sad, the faint bracket at its corner, the trace of a smile. The beaded earrings are her only adornment. Along with the faint lines at the corners of her eyes. Nordic.
“Are you Icelandic?” he asks.
“Finnish. Somewhere back there.”
“I can see you on a sled. With reindeer.” Must be the Scotch talking.
She says, “You’ve got me confused with Santa Claus.”
He laughs.
She says, “Nice work if you can get it. Hip to kids, live forever, have lots of helpers.”
He laughs again.
He leads Karen back to the table just as Henry arrives with plates of food for the two of them. He watches Froelich bend and kiss his wife. Henry sits and raises his glass. “Jack, this is a wonderful party. Thank you.” Jack smiles and leaves them to eat, side by side, looking years younger in the candlelight.
Mimi looks at him over the rim of her martini glass and asks, “What were you and Karen Froelich talking about?”
He pulls her close, feels the crinkle of her dress against his stiff shirt front and whispers in her ear, “Santa Claus.” She pinches his earlobe between thumb and fingernail. He takes her glass, sets it aside and steers her onto the floor, his palm against the warm small of her back. The band plays the song Jack requested. She relaxes into him and they dance. “Unforgettable, that’s what you are….”
He whispers, “I love you.” Her scent, the softness of her hair, her dress, her breasts, even the chafing of his starched collar against his neck—“I want another baby,” he says in her ear.
She lifts her hand to stroke the back of his neck.
Just before midnight, Mimi bows to popular demand. It seems her reputation has followed her from 4 Wing. After a suitable display of resistance, she mounts the stage, confers with Gerry Tait, then takes the microphone and sings. “‘Bei mir bist du schön, please let me explain….’”