Herr Werlin tries to interpose his body, to become a screen between his customers and the children. The loss of dignity he would suffer in chasing off a pair of ragged children might result in the loss of a sale.
♦
‘Put your breast away,’ Ishmael said.
‘Are you some kind of pervert?’
‘Do I look like one?’
‘You can’t always tell by looking.’
‘Actually, sex is something I haven’t got sorted out yet.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘Debby and I had a perfectly good sex life. It was very pleasant but not really spiritual. Or maybe it was spiritual, just not all that much fun.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Yes, why indeed? We’re here to sort out your problems not mine. Tell me your troubles.’
♦
In the same building as the Benz showroom is the editorial office of the Volkischer Beobachter, the newspaper of the National Socialists. Herr Hitler is often seen entering and leaving the building. Jacob Werlin finds him a nice enough chap, perhaps faintly extreme in his opinions about Jews and communists, but with his heart more or less in the right place. He drives a Benz, or rather his chaffeur does. Herr Hitler too is a motoring enthusiast, although inevitably he sees it from a rather uncompromising political perspective.
Herr Hitler now emerges from the newspaper office, sees the children at the window and delivers sharp, accurate slaps to their ears. The children run, the little boy dribbling as he goes. Herr Hitler enters the showroom.
♦
‘Well,’ said Marilyn, ‘I had a pretty bad childhood if you really want to know.’
‘Yes, I really want to know.’
‘My mother drank. She wasn’t up to the job of motherhood. She was a barmaid when she worked at all. She had sailors in a back room of the pub, on the bare lino. It wasn’t a pretty sight.’
‘You watched?’
‘I had to. We six children all slept in that back room.’
‘That’s awful.’
‘Then there was my father, when he was around, which wasn’t often. He was a jazz musician, a drummer. He did some drugs — joybanging he called it. He always said he wasn’t hooked. We knew better. He interfered with me, quite often.’
‘This is heart-rending,’ Ishmael said.
‘Of course, I married to get away from my background but it was no good. He was called Carlos. He used to beat me. I discovered on my wedding night that he was a pimp. I had to take on a couple of clients so we could afford to pay for the hotel on our honeymoon.’
‘I don’t think I can stand to hear any more.’
‘So are you surprised that I hitch lifts on motorways, tear my clothes and demand money?’
♦
‘Good afternoon, Jacob,’ Adolf Hitler says.
Jacob Werlin introduces him to the two potential customers.
‘The Benz is a fine car,’ Hitler says. ‘My friend Jacob here sold one to me, not so grand as the one you were looking at, but a fine car even so. It is efficient. It is comfortable, and it is German.’
‘It is also expensive,’ Herr Weiss says.
Hitler smiles knowingly.
‘It is luxurious,’ Jacob offers.
‘Yes,’ Hitler says, ‘it’is luxurious. At this moment in German history the motorcar is a luxury item, and I suppose that will always be one of the roles of the car, but it need not be only a rich man’s status symbol. It isn’t that in America. There Henry Ford has made motor transport easily and cheaply available to the ordinary man.’
‘You would not have me driving around in a Model T,’ Herr Weiss laughs.
‘No, I would not. But I wish there was a German car that was as cheap, as reliable and as available as a Model T. It is my opinion there will be such a car. I have one or two ideas myself.’
‘You are ambitious, Herr Hitler,’ says Weiss. ‘A politician, a newspaper man, now an automobile engineer.’
He looks straight into Hitler’s laundry-blue eyes, notices the flat, wide, mongrel face, the hair and moustache that signal some form of misplaced bohemianism. And he listens to the harsh but uninflected voice that betrays its owner’s unimpressive Austrian origins. And Herr Weiss is deeply unimpressed.
‘I have read widely,’ Hitler replies. ‘I have read recently some copies of an American newspaper called the Dearborn Independent. It is run by Mr Ford. He seems to have one or two sound ideas. I have a copy I could lend you if you are prepared to take an interest, and I suggest you should be. The leading article is entitled ‘The International Jew — the World’s Problem’.’
♦
Ishmael was moved.
‘I knew there had to be a reason,’ he said.
Marilyn was crying quietly.
‘I’m sorry to burden you with my problems,’ she said.
‘No, no, a problem shared. I’m sorry I threatened you with the hammer. It was because you obviously thought I was an easy touch. For ten years in that bloody library everyone thought I was just a wimp, just a nothing. Nobody’s ever going to think I’m an easy touch again.’
‘I don’t think you’re an easy touch. I think you’re really sweet.’
‘Oh,’ he said. Nobody had ever said anything like that to him before.
‘I don’t suppose,’ she continued, ‘you could see your way clear to lending me twenty quid or so, could you? Just to tide me over.’
‘For a fellow-traveller it would be a pleasure. It would be a duty.’
‘Thank you. I’m really grateful. They broke the mould when they made you.’
In the end he gave her twenty-five pounds and let her out at the next services. It was dark now. He watched as she walked away from the car towards the brightly lit buildings, the clatter of her high heels audible even after she had disappeared into the blur of lights.
Ishmael sat at the wheel in silence, drinking in the evening, savouring this moment of shared humanity. Then somebody in a Ford Capri sounded his air horns behind him. He was blocking the entrance to the petrol pumps.
The still moment was over. He drove on.
Do not expect to fare well. Only hope to fare forward.
♦
Herr Weiss says, ‘I am interested in buying a car, Herr Hitler. I am not interested in hearing the views of an arrogant and ill-informed young man who happens to lead an insignificant workers’ party. Jacob, I shall return another time. Perhaps.’
Jacob Werlin shuffles uneasily, attempts a bow of farewell. There is a general movement towards the door but Adolf Hitler moves fastest and blocks the exit. He begins to harangue the departing couple.
‘I am well-informed and I am well-educated. A good deal more than yourself. I have studied as an artist and I am a self-taught expert in architecture, military science and engineering. I have served the Bavarian Infantry with honour, and I tell you this: there will be a new Germany. You will see the moral, industrial and military rearmament of our country. You will see new wealth. You will see new buildings, new factories, autobahnen to link place to place and man to man, and you will see a German people’s car — an emblem of freedom, mobility and egalitarianism for the German working man. And perhaps then, Herr Weiss, you will remember this conversation, and you will know that I was right. And I shall remember you, with your foolish dog, and your more foolish wife, and you will be sorry.’