Way the Crow Flies Read Free Page B

Michigan, because she was only three going on four. Yet he claims to remember his first move, from Washington, DC, to Alberta, despite the fact that he was barely three. Such are the injustices of living with an older brother.
    “Dad,” says Madeleine from the back seat, “I do so remember leaving the base in Alberta, don’t I?”
    “Sure you do. Remember the skating rink we made in the backyard?”
    She looks pointedly at her brother. “Yup.”
    “There you go. But ‘base’ is actually an American term, old buddy. The correct term is ‘station.’”
    “Yeah,” says Mike.
    They left Europe in June and, for the better part of two months, Mike and Madeleine were indulged by their Acadian aunts and uncles in New Brunswick, and ran wild with their cousins. Dozens of them: wild black-haired boys you are not supposed to have a crush on because you are related to them, sexy girls who shave their legsbefore they are twelve. They speak rapid French, just try to keep up, and if you’ve gone somewhere in a car with them, make sure you get in before it leaves again. Mike and Madeleine watched television for the first time in four years.
    No one had a television set on the base in Germany. There were movies at the rec centre, reliably preceded by Looney Toons and Mickey Mouse. There were Friday night suppers with Maman, listening to Jack Benny on the radio before Dad got home from TGIF at the officers’ mess. But TV opened up a brave new world of pageboys, chiffon scarves and madras shorts, of carefree teenagers and surfboards. The cousins were more Connie Francis than Sandra Dee, more Sal Mineo than Troy Donahue, but they had roller skates, cars and Dentyne. And big fridges. Welcome to North America.
    Madeleine accepts the idea that she loves them all,
“parce que c’est la famille,”
says her mother. “Family” has almost as mythic a ring to it as “home.” When they pulled away from Grandmaman’s old pink bungalow, Dad said, “Let’s head for home, what do you think, kids?”
    Madeleine waved to Grandmaman, on the porch of the house that looked like a powdery peppermint. Big fat Grandmaman in her bungalow, brightly painted so Grandpapa could see it from his fishing boat out on the water. It was only the second time in Madeleine’s life that she remembered visiting her grandmother, but her eyes filled with tears because “Grandmaman” is another word for “home.”
    “What do you say, Missus?” said Dad as they left behind the sea and dunes.
    “Take me home, Jack,” said Maman, and wiped her eyes behind her sunglasses.
    For a split second Madeleine imagined they were driving back to Germany. To the green lawns and white buildings of the air force base and, in the nearby town, cobblestones, and sidewalk cafés; the tightly stitched countryside, no patch of land unspoken for, no inch uncherished, a different country every couple of hours on a Sunday drive. The German language she had taken to, the language of fairy tales—
Märchen
—in which she felt wrapped up and safe, like dressing up in her mother’s mouton coat. The language that made people smile in surprise—women behind shop counters, who were delighted by her proficiency and teased her parents about their bad
Kanadische Deutsch
as they offered tastes of cheese and, always,
Schokolade für die Kinder
. The first German words she and Mike learned:
danke schön
.
    If your father is in the air force, people ask you where you are from and it’s difficult to answer. The answer becomes longer the older you get, because you move every few years. “Where are you from?” “I’m from the Royal Canadian Air Force.” The RCAF. Like a country whose bits are scattered around the globe.
    Each bit, each base, looks like every other, so there is a consistency to this nation. Like walking into any Catholic church and hearing the Latin Mass, you can go to a base—station, that is—anywhere in the world and understand it: the recreation centre, the