Five
What is one talking about
when one says that something happened?
—Paul Ricouer,
Memory, History, Forgetting
p. 179
Off the Autobahn
27 April 2009, 4:21 p.m.
48° 57' 36.17" N, 8° 23' 55.34" E
I bite my lips, contort my cheeks into a grimace, first the left side, then the right side, pinch my leg, squeeze the steering wheel, anything to stay awake. The autobahn is even more soporific than I-55 in southern Illinois, especially when everyone else in the minivan has gone back to sleep, or is praying the office. I try to imagine life in the towns and villages whose names flit past on the blue signs: Durlach, Karlsruhe, Wolfartsweier, Ettlingen, but really all I can think of is a warm bed and closing my eyes.
Maybe it’s jet lag, maybe I’m resentful for having assumed the role of the only adult in the vehicle, maybe this whole project is a mistake—how was I so foolish as to expect that these people from another century, another era, whose view of life, after all, is fucking feudal—how could I have expected them to pitch in, offer me a banana, maybe, or a granola bar, or even just stay awake and make conversation—which is all I need to keep this goddamn minivan on the road.
I gotta watch my language. There’s just something wrong about a minivan driver mumbling curses into a Bluetooth microphone.
Now there’s a noise from the wayback seat. It’s Bertha’s cell phone again—that tinny techno beat. She answers it and talks for a while in a tone of studied nonchalance. Who could this be now? In the rear-view mirror I see her shrug her shoulders. Then Conrad, in his kindersitz, wakes up and starts screaming “Papa! Papa!” Bertha’s voice grows more argumentative for a moment, then stops. Can I really hear the tiny click of the cell phone closing, or do I just imagine it? I glance back in the mirror, just in time to see Bertha inhale sharply through flared nostrils.
There’s a lot of whispering and rustling behind me now. “Keep those seat belts on!” I shout. Even Lambert, in the seat beside me, wakes up, the prayer book sliding from his lap.
Eventually Bruno leans forward and tells me what’s going on. “Look,” he says, “I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but Bertha and Henry, well, their marriage is kind of rocky....”
“I noticed,” I say.
“Well, that was Henry,” Bruno says. “He’s not taking the autobahn. He’s got some vehicles in his retinue, they can’t do the minimum speed limit.”
“What?” I say. “Like Vespas?” I don’t know why I picture Henry riding around with a retinue of Vespas, except it seems so... European.
“Who knows,” Bruno says. “Anyway, Bertha, she has mixed feelings, you know, about Henry’s retinue, but at the same time she doesn’t want to get too far ahead of him. What with all the spies and the assassins and so forth....”
“You and Bertha,” I say to Bruno, “You seem to be close.”
“She needs someone to confide to,” says Bruno. “Anyway, you gotta admit she has a point. It would be very awkward for her—for us, all of us—to show up at Canossa without Henry—particularly after Matilda made those comments about taking Conrad to Rome... ”
“I suppose so,” I say.
“So Henry wants us to get off the road, cross the border into France, and meet him and his retinue in Strasbourg.”
“You mean get off the autobahn? No problem,” I say. “No problem at all!”
Next episode: The Gotha Conference
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