I gave her a light.
For an instant the warm, close light of the match illumined her face and my hands, and suddenly I had a mad feeling as if we had belonged to one another a long time.
I lowered the window to let out the smoke.
"Would you like to drive a bit now?" I asked. "I'm sure you'd find it fun."
She turned toward me.
"I'd like to; but I can't."
"You really can't?"
"No.
I've never learnt."
I saw my chance.
"But Binding might have shown you long ago," said I.
She laughed.
"Binding is too much in love with his car.
He won't let anybody near it."
"That is just stupid," I continued, glad to be able to give Fatty one. "I'll let you drive, certainly.
Come on."
I threw all Koster's warnings to the wind and got out to let her take the wheel.
She got excited.
"But I tell you I really and truly can't drive."
"Sure, you can," I replied. "Only you don't know it yet."
I showed her how to change gear and work the clutch.
"So," said I then, "now away you go."
"One moment!" She pointed to a solitary bus crawling along the road.
"Shouldn't we let that by first?"
"Certainly not."
I swiftly slipped the gear and let in the clutch. "Heavens!" cried Patricia Hollmann. "It's going." "That's what it was built for. Only no fear. Give it plenty of gas. I'll watch it."
She was gripping the steering wheel desperately tight and looking apprehensively along the road.
"My God, we are going pretty fast, aren't we?"
I glanced at the speedometer.
"You are doing now, just twenty-five kilometres.
That is in reality twenty.
A good speed for a long-distance runner."
"It feels like eighty to me."
After a few minutes the first fear was overcome.
We were driving along a wide, straight road.
The Cadillac reeled a bit now and then as if we had cognac instead of petrol in the tank, and occasionally ran suspiciously near the curb, but gradually it went quite well, and with the result I had anticipated—I got the upper hand, for we now suddenly had the relationship of pupil and teacher, and I made the best of it.
"Mind," said I, "there's a policeman over there."
"Should I stop?"
"It's too late now."
"And what happens if he catches me?
I haven't a driver's license."
"Then we both go to gaol."
"Good heavens!" Alarmed, she felt for the brake with her foot.
"Gas!" I called. "Gas!
Step on it hard.
We must go proudly and swiftly by. Boldness is the best rule against the law."
The policeman took no notice of us at all.
The girl sighed with relief.
"I never knew before that traffic police could look like fire-spitting dragons," said she when we had put him a few hundred yards behind us.
"They only do that when you drive around them." I slowly put on the brake. "So, now here's a fine empty byroad.