She’d meant that as a wry joke, and I smiled a little in response. It was true; all the high-ranking Nazis trailed retinues in their wake.
“Don’t worry about me, Ferdinand.” She leaned forward, her eyes intense, and wrapped her own bare hand around my gloved one where it grasped the fence. “They won’t harm me, and they can’t force me to marry. But I have family here...” Her other hand rose, gesturing to the world outside the palisades. “My parents, my brother, my grandmother...and of course...” She glanced over her shoulder at the pram and its snug bundle. The child—quite invisible—wore a woolly knit cap with an enormous red bobble on it that trembled in the slight wind.
“If I left—” Another deep breath. “Well. There’s nothing to leave for, is there? Not without Bernie.” She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them.
“But if I were to go to the newspapers, if you and I were to tell what you’ve found out—it might damage Eberan and the others...God damn their souls!” she burst out. She stood with her fists clenched, trembling. I said nothing, and after a moment, she got hold of herself again.
“It might,” she said, her words clipped off like bits of wire. “But it might damage me and my family a lot more. The newspapers accusing me of betraying Germany, planning to leave, making up stories. Auto Union has a relationship with the Reich; they wouldn’t suffer me to slander them. Or you.”
There was a long silent moment between us. I coughed and bowed my head.
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “If you should change your mind, though...”
“I won’t,” she said, and she reached for the handle of the pram. “Bernie never looked back—I won’t either.”
She put both hands on the handle and pulled the pram to turn it, to head to her house. She looked at me then, one last time, her eyes now dark in the shadow of her hat.
“But that doesn’t mean I will ever forget. I won’t do that either, Ferdie. Good-bye.”
I stayed there for some time, long after she had disappeared; I heard the clang of the gate on the other side of the park.
I knew enough.
It was my car. And Bernie was my friend.
Author’s Note: This story is really a piece of historical narrative rather than historical fiction. The events are factual, taken from primary sources of the time and from analyses published after the accident. The technical details are taken mostly from Aldo Zano’s thorough analysis of the record attempt and the Stromlinienwagen’s engineering details. Most of the people mentioned are real people, and their backgrounds, positions, and relationships are drawn from biographical accounts. Only the inquiries undertaken by Dr. Porsche and Elly Beinhorn are fictional. I am deeply indebted to Doug Watkins, both for the original suggestion for the story and for the research material that gave it its bones.
WHIPPERWILL AND BACK
By Patterson Hood
CHARLIE ALWAYS DROVE way too fast. The car was overpowered and rusted, and the road twisted and wound through red-clay foothills and pine thickets. Lester was slouched down in the passenger seat, rolling a joint with one hand while exclaiming and gesturing wildly with the other. They both had Milwaukee’s Best cans between their legs as the car tried to hang on to every curve. There was a cooler with a bunch more Milwaukee’s Best cans on some ice just behind the driver’s seat and every so often Lester and Charlie would throw their empties out the window, Charlie would say, “Lester, grab another Beast,” and Lester would grab two more, open them, and light another joint. It could have been just any Thursday night, or any other night, for that matter. With one difference.
“I ain’t heard Dale lately. Think we ought to check on him?”