“Where did you sleep last night?” she asked.
“I found a room. You’ll excuse me, ma’am, but I had to use some of your money. I’ll let you have it back.”
Another girl? She felt a stab of jealousy.
“Don’t worry about that. I have plenty of money.” She hesitated, then went on, “Money is useful, but it doesn’t always bring happiness.”
He shifted, pushing up the peak of his cap, then pulling it down.
“My old man was always saying things like that.” She realized at once that she had said the wrong thing. “People with plenty of money are always griping about happiness.” His voice had become surly.
“Yes… that’s right.” She was anxious to go along with his views. “When you have it, you don’t always appreciate it.”
Again he shifted.
“People say that. Ron says too few people have too much money and too many have too little.”
Was that supposed to be wisdom? she thought, but she said, “You keep mentioning Ron… tell me about him.”
“He’s my buddy.” He turned to look at her and she was dismayed to see the elated expression on his face. Once, out of sheer boredom, she had gone to a Billy Graham meeting and she had been surrounded by simple people looking just the way this boy was looking now.
Again she felt a stab of jealousy, knowing he would never look like this if ever he talked about her to his friends.
“Tell me about him.”
He stared through the windshield for a long moment, then he said, “I guess he’s special. He’s the smartest cookie I’ve ever known.” He shook his head in wonderment. “You ask him anything… anything… and he comes up with the answer. You have a problem and he fixes it. He’s really smart.”
“He sounds wonderful.” She was careful to make her voice m sound enthusiastic. “Where did you meet him?”
“Oh, I ran into him.” The way his voice dropped warned her this was none of her business.
“Why isn’t he travelling with you?”
He laughed, slapping his big hand on his thigh.
“Right now, ma’am, he’s in jail.”
“In jail!” Her voice shot up a note. “But why?”
He looked at her, peering at her from under the peak of his cap.
“Don’t think he’s done anything wrong, ma’am. Sure, I know when you hear a guy is in jail you think he must be bad, but Ron’s not like that. He’s a protester. He staged this protest march in Hamburg so they put him in jail.”
With her hands resting lightly on the driving wheel, her eyes on the road ahead, Helga asked, “What was he protesting about?”
There was a long pause and she glanced at him.
“What was he protesting about?” she repeated.
“I’m not too sure, ma’am.” He pulled at the peak of his cap. There was an awful lot of talk. All I know is he had good reason to protest.”
“What makes you think that?”
He shifted uneasily.
“He told me so.”
What a baby! she thought and she warmed to him.
“If he’s as smart as you say he is, Larry, why is he in jail?”
“He is smart!” He nodded emphatically. “He explained that to me. He told me if people don’t know about you, you’re nothing. He said publicity was the big thing. By getting tossed into jail, he got his photo in the papers. Right now, people are talking about him in Hamburg… that’s smart!”
“He is anti-rich, of course?”
Larry frowned.
“Yeah… you could say that.”
“Are you anti-rich?”
“Maybe. I haven’t thought about it much.”
“But you listen to Ron?”
“Sure… you can’t help listening to him! This Hamburg shindig was a ball! He got a bunch of guys together. I was one of them. It was raining fit to drown a duck. I wanted to stay under cover, but Ron wanted me out in front, so that’s where I was.
“We were all standing there like corpses… wet, hungry and cold. Then Ron started shooting the breeze. In five minutes he had us exploding like fire crackers. Man! That was something! We had a ball. We yelled, smashed shop windows, turned cars over and set fire to them. We threw bricks at the cops… we had a real ball!”
“But why, Larry?”
He looked at her, his eyes suddenly hostile.
“It had to be done… Ron said so.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well the cops got tough. They used these water cannons and Man! was it cold!” He laughed. She was relieved that his hostility had been just a brief passing thing. “Then they used tear gas. It really got tough. Ron reached me. We were ankle deep in broken glass and there were five cars exploding… it was like a battlefield. Everyone was yelling and fighting. He said for me to get out of Hamburg fast… so I got out.”
It was now light enough to turn off the headlights and the snow had stopped. She increased the speed of the car.
“How long will he be in jail?” she asked.
“I don’t know… maybe a week.”
“Do you plan to see him again?”
“Sure, I’ll see him again. I have his address. You don’t find a guy like Ron and then lose him. I’ll send him a card.” He nodded to himself as if a postcard solved all problems. “I sure hope to see him again… he’s something special.”
His vagueness, Helga thought, could mean he wouldn’t see this man again, and she felt relieved.
“You worry me,” she said. “You have no luggage, no clothes, no money. I can’t see how you are going to exist.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, ma’am. I’ll get by. I’ll find a job.” He smiled confidently at her. “It’s nice of you to worry. I’ll get a job in a hotel or a garage. I don’t need much money.”
Ahead of her she saw a parking sign and she slowed the car.
“Would you like to drive?”
“I’d be glad to.”
She drove into the parking bay and stopped the car. He got out, walked around to the on side door as she slid over to the passenger’s seat.
By the way he drove on to the autobahn, she knew immediately he was an expert driver. He had the car moving at 170 k.p.h. in a few minutes, and she felt not only slightly ashamed, but also elderly that she had been driving so cautiously.
“We’ll be in Basle in a couple of hours at this rate,” she said.
“Am I driving too fast, ma’am?”
He was driving too fast, but she couldn’t bring herself to admit it.
“No… I like it. You drive very well.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
By the slight frown on his face, she realized he didn’t want to talk. He wanted to concentrate on his driving, enjoying the power of the car and showing her his expertise. She relaxed, and after watching the monotonous road racing towards her for some time, her mind drifted back into her past: something she caught herself doing as she grew older.
