june-2012

In the East, I could camp in city centres. Towns were still pocked with bomb sites and derelict lots which,
as western prosperity began to seep in, were used as ad hoc car parks. In Dresden, I found a vast empty plot
behind the station. In the far corner stood a single tree and a huge, white American car. I pulled Rula in close
alongside it and went off to work.
Late that night I was woken up by torchlight outside the window. “Th ieves,” I thought, realising how far
away I was from any other apparent habitation. I was just about to turn the radio on, and talk to myself in a
variety of loud voices to give the impression that Rula contained a posse of burly men, when something made
me peek outside. All four doors of the white Chevvie were open, their inside panels had been removed,
and – not one metre away – a man was stuffi ng the hollows with little plastic
packages. Two others waited.
Every movie I had ever seen about innocent witnesses to murder and
mayhem replayed itself for me. I went from planning to be six burly men to
wishing I was invisible. Dreadfully aware of misting-up windows, and that
every movement seemed to make Rula creak, I crept out from under the
duvet so that the bed looked empty, and pushed myself as close as I could
against the wall. I stayed there, naked and terrifi ed, for more than two hours
before the doors slammed and the Chevvie roared away.
Of course, life wasn’t all brown rice and beans. Here and there across the
country, the publishers had arranged a few free nights in luxurious hotels. I
still remember those beds, every one of them. But the problem with really
posh hotels is that breakfast is oft en not included in the overnight rate. And
it costs – sometimes more than my weekly grocery allowance – so I’d slip
out for a roll and coff ee at a cheap café nearby. Until I got to the Frankfurt
Kempinski. A former country manor, the hotel is surrounded by a vast park,
way out of town. Th ere was only one solution. Each morning, dressed in my
jogging togs, I’d stride energetically through the lobby as if setting off on a
run around the lake. Th en I’d sneak off to Rula at the farthest end of the car
park, and boil myself an egg.
“Graveyards
were a boon:
there is
always a
water tap,
and usually
good
parking ”
I spent winter in Bremen, writing up what I’d covered so far and teaching English to top up the
coff ers. Next spring Rula and I set off again, but it took months more travelling and a second dark Bremen
winter before the book was fi nished. Finally, almost two years to the day since we had set out, with Rula
stuff ed to bursting with brochures, fi les and booklets, we aimed for the German border.
By this time, she was beginning seriously and frequently to conk out. I made one last bargain with her:
“Just get me home, and you can retire forever.” Rula kept her side of the deal. Just. Two blocks away from
home, she suddenly stopped. Aft er a lot of coaxing, she spluttered on a bit, getting me to the front door. Next
morning she wouldn’t start. And she never went again. At least, not to my knowledge. dge. Two months later, she
was stolen – an act which at the very least must have involved towing her, or loading ng her up on to a lorry. But
then Rula was worth that sort of eff ort.
Rula had class. v
Rodney Bolt’s guide to Germany is now out of print. He now writes biography and historical storical fi ction and has
written travel articles for Th e Daily Telegraph, Vogue and Condé Nast Traveller. His s fi ctional life of Christopher
Marlowe, History Play, was published by HarperCollins, and Lorenzo Da Ponte (a biography iography of Mozart’s
librettist) is published by Bloomsbury. See rodneybolt.com.
TRAVEL TALE GO!
Holland Herald 49