Way the Crow Flies (101 page)

“Are you still there, dear?”

“I’m sorry.”

The elderly voice aspirates, “Yuh, yuh,” and there is a cherishing quality to her next words. “Eighteen months ago now.”

Madeleine does not reply.

“What did you say your name was, dear?”

“That’s okay.”

“Oh, I wish he could have talked to you, he loved his pupils.”

Mrs. March is saying something, her voice still fluttering from the earpiece, as Madeleine guides the receiver gently to its cradle and hangs up.

It’s over.

She carefully lies down, curled with her head by the phone. She hears her own voice softly moaning, “Oh no-o-o, oh no-o-o-o,” like poor Grace, poor Grace, poor Grace. She observes herself stroking her own forehead as though her curled fingers belonged to someone else—a grown-up, preoccupied but able to spare some absent comfort. She is grateful to be alone on the rug. She wishes it were the cool Centralia grass. The smell of earth, the tickle of an ant crawling up a curving blade, crackle of countless lives beneath her ear. She wishes she could feel a pink tongue, like a slice of ham, warm against her cheek, Rex panting, dog-laughing. Wishes she could smell the sun on her arm, hear kids’ voices from many backyards away, watch the wheels of her brother’s bike ride up. She would give anything to see his high-tops, one poised on his pedal,
the other planted on the ground, to hear him say, “What do you think you’re doing, stunned one?” turning to call, “Maman, she fell asleep in the grass.”

Where are you, Mike? My brother.
Gone, gone to grass
.

The kind disinterested fingers press against her eyes, because Mike is dying now too, finally, and again. He is part of the earth, part of the lush forest that is slowly healing itself over there. His bones, fragments of his uniform, tattered green, the chain he wore, metal dog tags, one of them his name. I love you, Mike.
Rest
.

Where have all the children gone?

She lies weightless on the carpet, arms and legs, hands and head like a loose collection. If she got up, half might remain, scattered on the rug.

Once upon a time there was a mountain cave. The Piper led the children into it, all except one who was lame and could not keep up. By the time that child arrived, the door had vanished and she was forlorn, never knowing whether she was lucky or just lonely. Who was that child? The lame one. The one who became a grown-up.

Through closed eyes, Madeleine can hear the voices of children from inside the mountain. Hers is among them. The wool of the carpet bristles her cheek, she keeps her eyes closed, listening.

How can a grown-up ever gain entry?
Unless you become as one of these…
. Not “innocent,” just new. Raw and so very available to life. Why do grown-ups insist on childhood “innocence”? It’s a static quality, but children are in flux, they grow, they change. The grown-ups want them to carry that precious thing they believe they too once had. And the children do carry it, because they are very strong. The problem is, they know. And they will do anything to protect the grown-ups from knowledge. The child knows that the grown-up values innocence, and the child assumes that this is because the grown-up is innocent and therefore must be protected from the truth. And if the ignorant grown-up is innocent, then the knowing child must be guilty. Like Madeleine.

She left something back there, dropped it in the grass.

Where?

In the meadow
.

If she could go back and find herself at nine, she could ask and she would listen. The pieces would become a story and lead back here to where she lies on the rug at thirty-two. And she would be able to get up again.

A
FTER JACK GOT HOME
from the hospital, he gave his wife a gift. Unlike the mink coat, it was something she still wanted very badly. He passed it to her carefully. She received it as the precious and fragile object it was. Like a Fabergé egg, sapphire-blue in her hands:

I never touched Karen Froelich
.

Here is how you will know I am telling the truth
.

It was I who waved
.

This is what a good wife could do for you if you were of that generation. She could take something terribly dark. Terribly heavy. Corrosive. And in her hands it could shine like a jewel, simply because you had shared it with her. Your Secret becomes Our Secret.

But few people are ever lucky enough to have such a marriage. And while his gift was not, and now never could be, the third child that Mimi had prayed for, it was precious nonetheless. And it made her weep because he was and always had been hers. Always would be. She longed to give him something in return.
It wasn’t your fault our son went away. I forgive you
. But the two statements didn’t add up, so she kissed him instead, stroked his face and put the kettle on.

H
ERE IS SOMETHING
that will always make sense: it’s my fault.

Take Highway 2 east out of Toronto. Through suburban sprawl interrupted by farmhouses stranded on shrinking arable islands, through towns where split-levels and monster homes crowd out or ye-oldify the gingerbreaded main street, which never ends but morphs into fast-food, new-and-used, superstore, multiplex and featureless buildings that have created a housing crisis for ghosts.
I saved myself from after-three, but that only caused him to claim Claire as my replacement
.

Back within sight of Lake Ontario on your right—so close yet inaccessible, because where there are roads leading down to it there are also housing developments and factories and fences. You could abandon your car and travel like a dog through the long grass over lumpy ground to the shore, where signs tell you what, precisely, is unsafe about this particular spot. This is North America, there are signs warning you of danger everywhere. Caution: Cliff. We are at the point where we risk walking off the edge of any precipice, however stark, that is not furnished with a sign. Caution: Children.
I saved Claire with the letter from the Human Sword, but that only drove him from the classroom to the meadow, where there was no door to close, no other little girls to see, no principal just down the hall…
.

Turn north on Highway 33. The landscape changes, highway slicing through limestone, exposed rock face on both sides, teeming with still-life, layer upon fossilized layer spray-painted now with graffiti.
If only I had told my dad
. Careful not to get into a mental groove or make a nursery rhyme out of your guilt, you will be lulled smack into KILROY WAS HERE.
Claire wouldn’t have died, I wouldn’t have lied, Ricky wouldn’t’ve needed an alibi, he’d never’ve gone to jail
. This is the land of Hidden Intersections and painted yellow signs with leaping deer.
Mike would not have gone away, Mr. Froelich would be alive today
. Take number 16, soon to be the Veterans Memorial Highway, Lest We Forget,
my dad would not be ill
. Welcome to the National Capital Region,
Bienvenue à la Région de la Capitale nationale…. and all for the want of a horseshoe nail
.

These two-lane, two-way highways are statistically more dangerous than the straight multi-lane 401, the difference being that these winding roads, with their scenery and their signs, are narrative. The 401 is just a series of facts. Armed with a Tim Hortons’ coffee, Madeleine feels no sense of dissolving from within, no dread that her hand will wrench the wheel into the Canadian Shield. The rain starts and she turns on the radio and windshield wipers. Leslie Gore sings “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows.” Everything is going to be okay. I’m going home. To my mum and dad.

What will you do when you get there, Madeleine?

I will tell my dad what happened to me. And my mother will make me a plate of food.

Why must you tell now?

Because there is a person who can save me, a perfect donor match, she is nine, I have to find her before it’s too late.

I will say, Dad, someone hurt me.

I will say, Dad, please walk me to school today.

Watch me, Dad.

And I will never again have to wait my turn in the lonely lonely classroom where the clock is always set at five past three.

She is hungry and almost happy. She drives out of the rain and into one of Ottawa’s unlikely tropical sunsets.

Sailing along the Queensway, glimpse of the flag atop the Parliament Buildings. Maple leaf. No emblem of war or victory or workers’ solidarity. A leaf red as a crayon, the kind children collect in autumn.

There is a way back, after all. Through the front door of a new ground-floor condo in the suburbs of Ottawa. It opens onto all the modern conveniences and the one person in the world capable of taking her back there. Once upon a time there was a young air force pilot named Jack and a pretty Acadian nurse called Mimi.

Open Sesame.

O
NCE UPON A TIME,
there were magic words that soothed us.
In defence of democracy. Just say no. Resolve. Freedom. Justice
. We no longer liked the word “war” because it conjured up pictures of soldiers burning villages in order to save them. But
war
was potent if it was summoned against a concept or social condition. When we went to war against people, we preferred to call it by names that resembled movie titles, with their comforting implication of beginning, middle and end, as well as their expedient hint at a sequel.

Some of us conscientiously gathered proof to justify attacking tyrants, while others waited to examine the evidence duly laid out. But we all ignored the story of how we had helped to create them: the drug lords, the war lords, the nuts who, with our help or the help of our friends, had cut down the ranks of the moderate among them. This was an old story and we wanted to believe in a new world order, so we ignored it. But empires have always divided and conquered, tilted and tolerated. And prospered for a time. It’s a question of balance, and the problem, in the end, is always greed. Like the story of the king who grew hungrier the more he ate. Like the aldermen of Hamelin, who, seeing their fair city cleansed of rats, refused to pay the Piper.

Once there was a golden age. Post-war, green dream, people raised families and there was more than enough of everything to go around. People from all over the world came to find freedom, peace and prosperity. The Great Experiment worked. Never have so many lived so peacefully, never has so much diversity thrived, never has dissent bred so much opportunity. This beautiful idea made gloriously concrete, this raucous argument, ungainly process, cacophony of competition and compromise; this excellence that emerges from disarray like a smartly dressed woman from a messy
apartment in time for work. This precious mess. Democracy. How much can be done in its name before, like an egg consumed by a snake, it becomes merely a shell?

Once upon a time in the West.

W
HEN SHE ARRIVES,
her mother says, “What’s wrong?”

“Nice to see you too.”

“Je suis ta mère
, you can’t fool me.”

She steps inside. “Maman, it’s just spur of the moment, that’s all, I had the day off.”

Mimi raises an eyebrow, then hugs her. The condo is high-ceilinged, its foyer leading past the kitchen and opening onto a spacious dining and living room. The halo of newspaper around the gold La-Z-Boy lowers and her father’s head appears around the side. “Whozat?” he says playfully, staring down his reading glasses.

“Hi Dad!”

Mimi closes the front door behind her—“We’re not paying to air condition the outside”—and ushers her into the kitchen, which overlooks the foyer as well as the dining and living area from behind a waist-high wall and several decorative pillars. “Come and eat, you’re too thin, what’s that you’re wearing? I’m taking you shopping.”

Madeleine follows her mother, thoroughly annoyed, deeply reassured. She hugs her father, who joins them in the kitchen and laughs to see her so unexpectedly.

She eats a “heart smart” version of Maman’s
fricot au poulet
. How’s After-Three? How’s
Stark Raving Madeleine?
Are you still planning on going to the States? “Jack, let her eat.” He moves slowly to the fridge, fumbles in a compartment and, with a wink, brings out a foil-wrapped brick.

“Mon D’jeu, qu’est-ce que c’est que ça?”
cries Mimi.

Crack cocaine, a human skull—a pound of butter. This house has become a cholesterol-free zone, but Jack has obviously been hiding a stash. He plunks the butter on the table in front of Madeleine with a wheezy chuckle—“For you. Some skin on your bones”—grins himself mauve and returns to the living room.