“You should of told me, I would of come for you,” he said. “Why waste money on a cab? Listen, you want a beer?”

“Sure.”

“How about the kid?”

Minna said beer was fine, and I said it wasn’t and asked if he had any milk, and he didn’t. We settled on a Coke. Jerzy Pryzeshweski – or Jerry Press, if you prefer – drank four cans of beer while I worked on one. I told him that he would be doing tremendous service to the cause of Polish independence by taking Minna and me across the border.

He said, “I don’t get it. Canada?”

“That’s right.”

“Where you going? Toronto?”

“Yes.” Why complicate conversations with the truth?

“So why not just go?” His brow furrowed. “I mean, somebody wants to go to Canada, what he does is he just goes. Get in your car, or if you don’t got a car, well, just get on a bus, or a train, or if you want to take a plane-”

“We tried that,” I cut in.

“So?”

“We were recognized. They deported us.”

“Deported?”

“That’s right.”

“No kidding, deported? From Canada ?”

“Yes, and-”

“You some kind of a Communist or something?”

“Certainly not. We-”

“I mean, the hell, deported from Canada for chris-sake. What did they try and do, send you to Italy?”

It was a tedious conversation. Jerzy’s commitment to the cause of Polish independence seemed highly theoretical. Just as single men in barracks don’t grow into plaster saints, neither do beery clods in bowling shirts contribute much to the ranks of conspirators.