Page 4 of Winter of the World (The Century 2)

"I had it when I was a kid," he said, as if that was ever such a long time ago. "I must hurry," he added apologetically.

Carla did not want to lose sight of him so quickly. She followed him outside. Ritter was holding the rear door open. "What kind of car is that?" Carla said. Boys always knew the makes of cars.

"A Mercedes-Benz W10 limousine."

"It looks very comfortable." She caught a look from her mother, half surprised and half amused.

Werner said: "Do you want a lift?"

"That would be nice."

"I'll ask my father." Werner put his head inside the car and said something.

Carla heard Herr Franck reply: "Very well, but hurry up!"

She turned to her mother. "We can go in the car!"

Mother hesitated for only a moment. She did not like Herr Franck's politics--he gave money to the Nazis--but she was not going to refuse a lift in a warm car on a cold morning. "How very kind of you, Ludwig," she said.

They got in. There was room for four in the back. Ritter pulled away smoothly. "I assume you're going to Koch Strasse?" said Herr Franck. Many newspapers and book publishers had their offices in the same street in the Kreuzberg district.

"Please don't go out of your way. Leipziger Strasse would be fine."

"I'd be happy to take you to the door--but I suppose you don't want your leftist colleagues to see you getting out of the car of a bloated plutocrat." His tone was somewhere between humorous and hostile.

Mother gave him a charming smile. "You're not bloated, Ludi--just a little plump." She patted the front of his coat.

He laughed. "I asked for that." The tension eased. Herr Franck picked up the speaking tube and gave instructions to Ritter.

Carla was thrilled to be in a car with Werner, and she wanted to make the most of it by talking to him, but at first she could not think what to speak about. She really wanted to say: "When you're older, do you think you might marry a girl with dark hair and green eyes, about three years younger than yourself, and clever?" Eventually she pointed to his skates and said: "Do you have a match today?"

"No, just practise after school."

"What position do you play in?" She knew nothing about ice hockey, but there were always positions in team games.

"Right wing."

"Isn't it a rather dangerous sport?"

"Not if you're quick."

"You must be ever such a good skater."

"Not bad," he said modestly.

Once again Carla caught her mother watching her with an enigmatic little smile. Had she guessed how Carla felt about Werner? Carla felt another blush coming.

Then the car came to a stop outside a school building, and Werner got out. "Good-bye, everyone!" he said, and ran through the gates into the yard.

Ritter drove on, following the south bank of the Landwehr Canal. Carla looked at the barges, their loads of coal topped with snow like mountains. She felt a sense of disappointment. She had contrived to spend longer with Werner, by hinting that she wanted a lift, then she had wasted the time talking about ice hockey.

What would she have liked to talk to him about? She did not know.

Herr Franck said to Mother: "I read your column in The Democrat."

"I hope you enjoyed it."

"I was sorry to see you writing disrespectfully about our chancellor."

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