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blessing the women one by one, but he’s looking at us when we drive away.
    â€œMaybe he’s right about the schools,” my mother says.
    â€œYou know there’s nothing there but lying and catechism. I’d rather have him go to school on the other side. No hocus-pocus in Russia. Maybe later, in Germany, there’ll be good schools.”
    There is talk on the base of the squadron’s being transferred back to Germany.
    â€œIt’s all so frightful,” my mother says.
    â€œNot to worry. We’ll take care of you, won’t we, Alex?”
    We are heading down Rue Principale towards the gravel highway, passing people walking home from church.
    â€œCan we stop at Pierre Cid’s? I need some more shells. I want fishing line and candy. It’s Sunday.”
    â€œWhat shells do you need?”
    â€œOne box, twenty gauge.”
    â€œGet any bunnies this week?”
    â€œTwo.”
    Cid’s magasin général is at the end of the village. A group of old farmers with pipes sit on the bench in front of the store. A tin thermometer nailed beside the door says BUVEZ 7 UP and ÇA RAVIGOTE . I go in with my father and take what I need from the shelves.
    â€œWell, Captain,” says Pierre, punching at the register, trying to get the cash drawer to slide open. “Do you think there will be the war?”
    â€œWithout a doubt,” my father says in French. “Always.”
    â€œYou’re right.” The old man struggles with the drawer. He is no good at operating the register and his wife shouts at him when he makes mistakes.
    â€œIf it doesn’t start over Cuba,” my father says, “it’ll start over Berlin. Or Turkey. Laos. Those Chinese islands. If it doesn’t start this month it could start next month, or next year.”
    â€œYou’re right!” The old machine makes a ting and the cash drawer slides open.
    â€œCan I get some toffee?” I ask my father.
    â€œOne box of Mackintosh, Pierre.”
    Mackintosh toffee comes in a cardboard box with the honey-coloured slab of candy wrapped in wax paper. On the drive back to Rockingham I break the slab into small, sweet shards. My mother accepts a single piece but my father hates candy. I put a piece in my mouth and suck the flavour of burnt sugar. If you put your lips over the end of the empty box and blow, it swells up and makes a hoarse, moaning sound. A moose makes that sound when he’s been shot — a good shot with a powerful rifle like my father’s .30-06 — when he’s going down and blood is in his lungs.
    The gravel road from Saint-Viateur to Rockingham goes out past woodlots and a sawmill that isn’t working. The road is oiled and graded three times a summer. The only traffic we pass is a stake truck hauling pulpwood and two Jeeps from the base. My father drives at sixty. My mother has rolled down her window and put out her arm, and her palm is swooping and diving in the breeze. Gravel spews from the tires and cuts into the bush, snapping and whistling through the leaves.
    The turn for our road is at Maguire’s. The Maguires are poor and dirty and they say my mother is crazy, they are the ones. Maguire has a boy, Pardieu, who speaks English and French at the same time. He and I sometimes go into the muskeg to kill beavers that dam the culverts beneath our road. Last year Pardieu came with us when we hunted moose. Old Maguire was a soldier in the old, old war; he was gassed and gets money. Last winter he killed a black bear and stretched out the skin on the door of his barn. He said he would take the skin to the base one day to sell it.
    Pardieu has only nine fingers. The mother is fat and smells of vinegar. Old Man Maguire smells better, of smoke in the woods. In the springtime they make syrup up in the stand where the maples are. In the winter they cut pulpwood.
    When Maguire was nailing up the bearskin, his wife pointed to me and said to her