“He doesn’t care,” says Madeleine.
Inspector Bradley’s face has tiny, faint red lines like on a map; it’s square with two vertical wrinkles that run, one from each cheekbone, down to his jaw. Thin ginger hair. Hazel eyes, bloodshot; they say, This is not a joke. Nothing is ever a joke. He seems not to have heard Madeleine’s answer. He asks, “Does he seek out younger children?”
Madeleine knows the inspector isn’t talking about hide ’n’ seek, but she is tempted to be a retard for him. “You mean like hide ’n’ seek?”
“No.” He just looks at her. She pulls her chin in so her face looks fat, raises her eyebrows and bugs out her eyes at the floor.
Mr. March says, “Madeleine,” and she unmakes the face.
The inspector asks, “Has Ricky ever behaved toward you as though he were your boyfriend?” Madeleine chortles, but he isn’t kidding. “Answer the question please, Madeleine.”
“No,” says Madeleine.
“I’m afraid you have to answer—”
“I mean no, he never….”
Inspector Bradley proceeds methodically. He knows she has the thing he is looking for, she has hidden it in one of her pockets or her shoe, he will just keep frisking her until he finds it. “Did he ever ask you on a picnic?”
Madeleine shakes her head.
“Did he offer you a ride on his bike?”
“You mean his motor scooter?”
“Any bike.”
“Once we were all down at the schoolyard and—”
“Did you ever go for a ride with him alone?”
“No.”
“Has he ever touched you?”
“Pardon?”
“Has he ever touched you?”
“Um. He put his hand on the top of my head once and said try and punch him, but I couldn’t reach.”
“Has he touched you where he shouldn’t, or has he made you touch him?”
Madeleine gets the glue feeling. Behind her is the glue man, Mr. March. What has he told the inspector?
Inspector Bradley resumes his search. “Has he done anything dirty?”
She sits very still. Shakes her head. Heat prickles up from her stomach to her face. She can smell the smell, can anyone else?
“Did he undo his pants?” The undertow tugs at her stomach—“Madeleine?”
Gravity is working at different rates on different parts of her, it will suck her insides out and her head will come off and float away.
“That day when you and Colleen Froelich saw Ricky and Claire on the county road—”
“And Elizabeth and Rex—” Her mouth feels very small, the words look very small in her mind.
“You say you saw him turn down the road to Rock Bass with Claire—”
“No,” says Madeleine, and swallows. “I didn’t see him go with Claire.”
“Are you telling me you saw him turn left toward the highway? I’ll know if you’re lying, Madeleine.”
“He didn’t do it,” she says.
“Did you see him or not?” He looks at her the way he has looked at her from the start: at a thing—at a broom in the corner.
“He turned left, toward the highway.” She doesn’t break her gaze or blink. “I saw him.”
It’s quiet except for the scratching of the policeman’s pen in the corner of the room.
“Run along then.”
She rises, and as she walks to the side door she resists the temptation to look behind her, to see if she has left a puddle of sweat or anything on the chair.
Bradley has asked all male staff to wait to be re-interviewed this afternoon, and he plans to follow through. He doesn’t want any loose ends. He doesn’t believe the McCarthy child’s story, but a jury might.
THE MORALITY OF ALTITUDE
Missile building is much like interior decorating. Once you decide to refurnish the living room you go shopping. But when you put it all together you may see in a flash it’s a mistake—the draperies don’t go with the slip covers. The same is true of missiles…. That’s why I go to the fabricating shop. I want to see what my baby will look like.
Wernher von Braun, Life, 1957
MIKE IS LETTING HER run for grounders and pop-flies out in the grassy circle behind the house. Warming up for his game tonight in Exeter. This is his first year playing bantam. Madeleine wears his old glove, but avoids catching the tempting fastballs for fear her cut will open up again.
She keeps an eye on the house, wanting to waylay Dad before supper. She needs to ask him a question. Two questions: Will they hang Ricky Froelich? And is it all right to lie in order to make someone know the truth? Also, she wants to tell him about the policemen who asked her the questions today after school. Maman didn’t notice she was late because she was babysitting at the Froelichs’. Madeleine spots her father between the houses, coming up the street, and calls out, “Dad!”
Jack turns and sees his kids, carefree, happy as clams, out in the field behind the house. He waves, then turns up the Froelichs’ driveway. The patchwork hotrod is near completion, missing only a set of tires, but the old station wagon is gone—one of them must have driven to Goderich to pick up their boy. He taps on the door on the chance of finding Henry at home.
Betty Boucher opens it. Jack smiles and says, “For a second I thought I had the wrong house.”
“I’m part of the bucket brigade. Mimi took the morning shift, they’ve neither of them been home all day.” The women have snapped into action. Betty’s own youngest clings to her skirt while one of the Froelich babies bounces on her hip. The other screams from inside. “It’s beyond me how they do it, Jack. I thought I was a veteran.”
“When are you due to be relieved?”
“I expected the lot of them home before this, what time is it?” She shifts the baby in an effort to glimpse her wristwatch.
“It’s ten past five.” Jack follows her into the front hall. “Hank told me reporters have been sniffing around.”
Her expression says what she thinks of that. “Three of them this afternoon”—indicating with her fingers—“Toronto, Windsor and Detroit, if you can believe it, all wanting to know, did I think our Rick was a”—she glances down at her toddler—“suspect. I told them they wouldn’t find a solitary soul on this station who thinks that boy is aught but a sterling young man.”
“You better believe it,” says Jack.
“Henry—” The baby spits up on her shoulder. Betty dabs her sweater with a tea towel and continues. “Henry called from the courthouse. They were about to go in for the bail hearing.”
Bail hearing. Courthouse. Suspect. None of these terms were on anyone’s lips this time last week—strange how seamlessly they have introduced themselves into neighbourly conversation. Life has stretched to accommodate the bizarre. Life has begun to run around it—the tragedy and now the mistake—like water around a rock, softening it till it’s worn to a bruise on the surface that seems to change nothing. But nothing will ever be the same. The river has altered its course.
“Poor little bugger….” Then, looking past him through the screen door, “Hang on, who’s this then?”
Jack follows her gaze to a taxi rounding the corner, crawling toward them.
“What can have happened?” says Betty. There is only one passenger. Henry Froelich.
He pays the driver and joins them on the porch. Karen Froelich is still at the jail in Goderich. Ricky Froelich has been denied bail.
“Henry,” says Betty, “I’m so sorry, love.”
Jack lingers after Betty leaves. In the Froelich kitchen, Henry has his hands full and Jack is doing his best to help, holding one of the babies—it feels suddenly suspiciously warm against his uniform jacket. Froelich is heating milk. He rolls up his sleeve to test the baby bottle on his forearm and Jack sees the numbers tattooed there. “Where was your lawyer when all this was going on?” he asks.
“He was there.”
“Well, is he any good?”
“He has letters after his na
me.”
“QC? Queen’s Counsel, that’s good. He’s appealing the bail ruling, right?”
“Oh yes, but he tells me this judge is known for this, so there is little to be done. All of them wait only for this judge to die.”
“What about—the police detained your boy improperly, can’t your lawyer—?”
“He tries but they say Ricky volunteered to talk to them. My lawyer says all he can do is get Ricky’s statement ruled off.”
“What’s the good of that? There’s nothing incriminating in his statement to begin with.”
Froelich shrugs. Rolls down his sleeve.
“Henry, you were in a concentration camp during the war, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” He reaches for the baby and Jack passes him over.
“I wish I’d figured that out sooner. I wouldn’t’ve made so damn many stupid remarks.”
“Which remarks?”
“Ah well, about your work, and you being a typical German, and how it’s such a beautiful country….”
Froelich puts the bottle into the flailing hands and guides it to the mouth. The child begins to suck, gazing up into the dark beard, curling star fingers absently against his own soft cheek. Jack waits quietly. Finally Froelich nods in the direction of the second baby, already asleep in his high chair, head relaxed at an impossible angle, face closed like a flower. Jack picks the child up carefully, knowing it to be a volatile substance, and follows Froelich up the stairs.
They lay the babies side by side in a crib in the master bedroom, which is as messy as the rest of the house. No headboard on the unmade double bed, an unframed painting tacked to the wall—unintelligible blocks of colour—clothes, books, towels. The characteristic smell of the Froelich house—baby powder, urine and tobacco. He tries not to look closely, not wanting to glimpse anything too personal. Karen’s underthings—a slip….
On their way back, Jack notices the two other bedrooms. They are the only tidy rooms in the house. One is obviously Rick’s—guitar in the corner, red bedspread, cowboy boots. And across the narrow hall, a room with twin beds—one with metal rails.
In the kitchen once more, Froelich is feeding Elizabeth, and Jack is trying to avoid the sight without appearing to do so. Froelich puts down the spoon. “You’re not so hungry, bubby?” He wipes her mouth with a tea towel, takes her face in his hand and kisses her on the cheek. “Not too full for dessert, I think.” Elizabeth’s head moves diagonally from side to side. He puts his ear close to her lips, listens, then replies, “Soon, ja, don’t worry, Lizzie, look at Poppy, do I look worried?”
“Yeahh,” she groans, and Froelich laughs. “Okay, dizzy Lizzie”—and the girl smiles—“frizzy Lizzie,” says Froelich, and scoops her up in his arms. Her hands find one another around his back as Froelich carries her from the room.
After a moment, Jack hears him put a record on the hi-fi. He recognizes the throaty alto voice, “Du, du, du, macht mein kleines Herz in Ruh….” A popular German love song. It reminds him of what a beautiful language it is when women speak it. Like a woman in a man’s shirt.
Returning to the kitchen, Froelich reaches into the cupboard under the sink and lifts out a bottle of red wine. He fills two odd glasses and passes one to Jack, who politely raises it to his lips, though he can feel the home-brewed tannins working on his gut already.
“What does your lawyer say?” he asks. “About the chances of this going to a—what are the chances of an actual trial?”
“I think I need a detective.” Froelich leans back in his chair, cradling his wine against the crook of his shoulder. “I think this is a better idea.”
“You mean a private detective? Why?”
“Because the police don’t find this man from the camp.”
Why does Froelich use the word “camp?” Jack wonders. Dora was the code name for an underground factory, wasn’t it?
“Is this the … the ‘war criminal’ you were mentioning last night?” Jack is startled by a hot breath on his hand under the table. The dog has come in.
Froelich begins to speak, staring at the kitchen wall as though describing a scene unfolding there, and he tells the story of seeing Oskar Fried at the marketplace. “If I had told the police immediately,” he says finally, “perhaps the little girl would be alive today.”
“Why?”
“Because he is a killer.”
“You told this to the police?”
“Yes, but they don’t believe me.”
“Why not, why would anyone lie about a thing like that?”
“They think I protect my son’s alibi.”
Jack takes a deep, even breath, willing his face to stay cool, his voice merely concerned.
“Which camp was this, Henry? If you don’t mind my asking?”
“Dora.”
“Dora?” Jack repeats, as though hearing the name for the first time. And in a way he is.
Froelich bites his moustache where it straggles at the corner of his mouth, wine-stained. “The police have not find him—found him”—he reaches for the bottle again, pours—“and they don’t find either the air force man—forgive me, Jack, my English suffers this evening.”
“I wish my German were half-decent, Hank, you must get sick of speaking English all the time.”
“Not so much. I miss my language, but it is dead in any case, nicht wahr?” And drinks.
“What do you mean, ‘dead’?”
“You cannot use a language and make it to mean many things except the truth, you cannot—” Froelich stares at Jack then says, as though uttering a password, “Deutsch.”
Jack nods carefully in response.
“They torture it. The Nazis. And now there are many words that cannot any more remember themselves. The other meaning, the false one, is there always behind it like a coat, like a—nein, wie ein Schatten….”
“A shadow.”
“Ja. But I forget nothing. This is how I will help my son.”
He tips the bottle over Jack’s glass. “This man from Dora is here, and someone on this station knows this.” He looks up. “But they do not say it. And I know why.”
Jack refrains from swallowing. He waits.
Froelich says, “The West has need of these people.”
“What people?”
“People who have worked on technologies such as the rockets.” Jack keeps his gaze level. He knows the answers to the next questions, but it’s advisable to ask them anyway. “This guy worked on rockets?”
“Ja.”
“What? The V-2?”
“Ja.”
“At Peenemünde.”
“At Dora.”
“Dora?”
“Peenemünde is bombed.”
“That’s right, we bombed it. Canadians did that,” he adds, feeling foolish, like a schoolboy boasting. He wasn’t there. He was in England behind a desk, managing supply at an RAF station.
“The factory moved underground after the bombs, inside a mountain. The Nazis called it Dora,” says Froelich. “I was there.”
“With the V-2s?”
Froelich nods and falls silent.
Jack’s interest could almost douse his anxiety. If only he were simply sipping wine with Henry Froelich, listening to tales of a subterranean rocket factory. He pictures it: pristine concrete floor twelve storeys deep. A fifty-foot V-2 cradled on a rail car, its guts and brain exposed, triple gyroscope to guide it through space and time in a slow minuet. He sees the rocket roll up the sloping tracks to meet the night sky, through hatches camouflaged with rocks and pine trees; war is the grandmother of invention. Carefully the rocket is winched until it is erect on the test stand, pointing at the stars, tanks replete with the secret, crucial mix that will produce enough thrust to take it across the Channel to London in five minutes. Vengeance-2. Hitler’s secret weapon. Yet this is what will take us to the moon. This is what will keep us free. And Henry Froelich worked there.
“Did you work on the rockets themselves?”
F
roelich nods.
“Holy liftin’,” says Jack quietly. Then, because he cannot resist, “Did you ever see one of them fired?”
Froelich shakes his head. Beneath the table, the dog groans and rests its chin on Jack’s foot.
“When I saw Dora, it was no longer a mystery how the pyramids were built. The rockets are built by slaves.”
“Slave labour,” says Jack. Somehow the addition of the word “labour” blunts the force of the first word, and he wonders if this is what Froelich meant a moment ago when he talked about words losing their memory.
“Hitler’s ‘secret weapon,’” says Froelich, draining his glass, getting up. “Slaves only are trusted to work, because we arrive but we do not leave.” He almost smiles. “We leave through the chimney.” He makes an upward spiralling motion with his finger.
“They had a crematorium? At Dora?” Jack swallows. “I didn’t know it was … a death camp.”
“Not extermination, no, but many workers die, and they burn bodies, otherwise more disease.” Froelich lifts the lid of a pot on the stove and stirs. “So you see they are not afraid that we will tell the secret, but they are terrified of sabotage. They are right, there is sabotage, but often they hang the wrong ones.” He picks up the bottle, finds it empty and bends to the cupboard once more. “Mornings, when I finish the shift, there are men hanging from ropes. Do you know how they hang them?”
Jack doesn’t answer.
Froelich twists the corkscrew into the bottle. “A piece of wood here between the teeth”—he indicates with his finger—“so no screaming. They tie with string at the back of the head. The rope goes about the neck, so, and the other end is tied to a plank that is attached to the crane….” He describes the mechanics with the precision of the engineer he is. “We are ordered to watch or they will hang us too, it is to remind us of the reward for sabotage. The crane lifts them slowly … the SS have calculated this method. With hands tied behind, but the legs are free to move because this is the show, entertainment, ja? I heard once two secretaries from the office, one to say to her friend, ‘Hurry up, you miss the legs.’” He proffers the bottle. Jack complies, pushing his glass forward.