A little while later we picked up Steve, from Leicester, who worked in a nursery school, and a few miles on we picked up John, from London, who was out of work, like Hugh. It was a big van and there was plenty of room for all of us. Besides-I noticed this immediately-Hans liked to have company, people he could talk to and tell his stories to. Monique didn't seem quite as comfortable having so many strangers around, but she did what Hans told her to do and anyway she was busy taking care of the boy.
Just before we got to Carcassonne, Hans told us that he had business in a town in the Roussillon, and that if we wanted he could find good work for all of us. Hugh and I thought this was fantastic and we said yes straightaway. Steve and John asked what kind of work it was. Hans said we'd be picking grapes on land that belonged to one of Monique's uncles. And when we had finished picking her uncle's grapes we could go on our way with plenty of money, since while we were working our food and lodging would be free. When Hans finished we all agreed that it sounded like a good deal and we turned off the main road and made our way through one tiny village after another, all surrounded by vineyards, down rough tracks, a place like a labyrinth, I said to Hugh, a place (and this I didn't say) that in other circumstances would have frightened or repelled me. If, for example, I'd been alone instead of with Hugh, and Steve and John too. But I wasn't alone, luckily. I was with friends. Hugh is like a brother. And Steve and I hit it off right away too. John and Hans were another story. John was a kind of zombie and I didn't like him much. Hans was pure brute force, a megalomaniac, but you could count on him, or that's what I thought at the time.
When we got to Monique's uncle's it turned out there wouldn't be any work for a month yet. It must have been midnight when Hans gathered us all inside the van and explained the situation. The news wasn't good, he said, but he had an emergency solution. Let's not split up, he said, let's go to Spain and pick oranges. And if that falls through, we'll wait, but in Spain, where everything's cheaper. We told him we had no money and hardly anything left to eat. There was no way we could last for a month. At most, we had enough for three more days. Then Hans told us not to worry about money. He said he would cover our expenses until we were working. In exchange for what? said John, but Hans didn't answer. Sometimes he pretended that he didn't speak English. To the rest of us it really seemed like something heaven-sent. We told him we liked the idea. It was early August, and none of us wanted to go back to England just yet.
That night we slept in an empty house that belonged to Monique's uncle (there were at most thirty houses in the town, according to Hans, and half of them were the uncle's), and the next morning we headed south. Before we reached Perpignan we picked up another hitchhiker, a slightly chubby blond girl from Paris called Erica, and after a few minutes' discussion she decided to join our group. That is, come along to Valencia, work for a month picking oranges, then head back up to the Roussillon village in the middle of nowhere and work in the grape harvest with us. Like us, she didn't have much money, so the German would have to pay her keep too. Once Erica joined us, there was no more space in the van, and Hans told us he wouldn't stop for any more hitchhikers.
All day we drove south. Our group was cheerful but after so many hours on the road the main thing we wanted was a bath and a hot meal and nine or ten hours of solid sleep. The only one still going strong was Hans, who never stopped talking and telling stories about things that had happened to him or people he knew. The worst place in the van was the front passenger seat, meaning the seat next to Hans, and we all took turns there. When it was my turn we talked about Berlin, where I had lived the year I was nineteen. In fact, I was the only passenger who spoke some German, and Hans took the chance to speak his native language. We didn't talk about German literature, though, which is a subject I find fascinating, but politics, which always ends up boring me.
When we crossed the border Steve took my place and I took one of the back seats, where little Udo was sleeping, and from there I went on listening to Hans's endless talk, his plans to change the world. I think I've never met a stranger who was so generous to me and yet whom I disliked so much.
Hans was maddening, and an awful driver too. We got lost a few times, and spent hours driving all over some mountain, not knowing how to get back to the road that would take us to Barcelona. When we finally got there, Hans insisted that we go and see the Sagrada Familia. It was late, and we were all hungry and not in the mood to gaze at cathedrals, beautiful as they might be, but Hans was in charge and after driving in countless circles around the city we got there at last. We all thought it was pretty (except for John, who didn't have much appreciation for any kind of art), although we would certainly rather have stopped at a good restaurant and had something to eat. But Hans said the safest thing to eat in Spain was fruit, and he left us there, sitting on a bench in the plaza looking at the Sagrada Familia, and went off with Monique and their little boy in search of a fruit stall. When he hadn't returned after half an hour, as we watched the pink Barcelona sunset, Hugh said that he was probably lost. Erica said that the chances were just as good that he'd abandoned us. In front of a church, she added, like orphans. John, who didn't say much and when he did usually came out with something stupid, said that it was perfectly possible that at that very moment Hans and Monique were eating a hot meal in a good restaurant. Steve and I didn't say anything, but considering all the possibilities, I think it was John's theory that struck us as closest to the truth.
Around nine, when we were beginning to despair, we saw the van appear. Hans and Monique handed us each an apple, a banana, and an orange, and then he told us that he'd been parleying with the natives and in his opinion it was best that we postpone for the moment the trip to Valencia we had planned. If I'm remembering right, he said, there are some fairly reasonable campsites outside of Barcelona. For a modest daily sum we can rest for a few days, swim, sunbathe. It goes without saying that we all agreed, and we begged to go there straightaway. Monique, I remember, never said a word.
It still took us three hours to work out how to get out of the city. During that time Hans told us that when he was doing his military service, at a base near Lüneburg, he got lost at the controls of a tank and his superiors almost court-martialed him. Driving a tank, he said, is a lot more complicated than driving a van, I can tell you that, kids.
At last we made it out of the city and onto a four-lane highway. The campsites are grouped together in the same area, said Hans, tell me when you see them. The road was dark and all we could see to either side of it were factories and undeveloped land, and, farther back, some very tall, dimly lit buildings, seemingly set there at random and looking as if they were falling into premature ruin. A little later, however, we were in the woods and we spotted the first campsite.
But nothing was quite to Hans's liking, and since he was the one paying, we drove on through the woods until we saw a sign with a solitary blue star jutting out from amid some pine branches. I don't remember what time it was. The only thing I know is that it was late, and that all of us, including little Udo, were awake when Hans braked in front of the bar blocking the road. Then we saw somebody, or somebody's shadow, lifting the bar, and Hans got out of the van and went into the campsite office, followed by the man who had let us in. A little while later he came out again and leaned in the driver's window. The news he had to report was that the campsite didn't have tents to rent. We made some rapid calculations. Erica, Steve, and John didn't have a tent. Hugh and I both did. We decided that Erica and I would sleep in one tent and Steve, John, and Hugh would sleep in the other. Hans, Monique, and the boy would sleep in the van. Then Hans went back into the office, signed some papers, and got behind the wheel. The man who had let us in got on a very small bicycle and led us down ghostly streets, flanked by old caravans, to a corner of the campsite. We were so tired that we all went to sleep immediately, not even showering first.