The Driver Read Free Page A

sympathetic agreement, silently mouthing I know . “Because,” he said, “he never stopped attacking the wall.”
    â€œThis…” I hesitated. “This…driver?”
    â€œThe Driver,” he groaned, “against the wall.”
    â€œOn one of these secret races.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd why did he call you now?”
    â€œHe can’t…he can’t attack the wall alone. Trust…who to trust?”
    â€œTrust who?”
    â€œTo go…against the wall. He called Sascha. My God, was it twenty years ago? My memory…my memory. Sascha knows. Sascha knows. But no one has done it.”
    â€œHold on,” I said, “when did he—”
    â€œSascha wanted to go, but his wife. Your mother. Sascha told everyone we could beat it. If we’d finished. In ’79. But the sabotage. Sabotage, he said. Sabotage.”
    â€œSo…you were sabotaged? In ’79?”
    â€œI don’t know,” he rasped, “but he can’t find Sascha, so he found me.”
    â€œDidn’t Sascha pass away some time ago?”
    â€œI can’t remember…I mean yes. Do you know how to reach him?”
    â€œNo.” I could have cried.
    â€œYesterday,” he said, “he said…it was sabotage.”
    â€œ Who said what yesterday? The Driver?”
    â€œHe knows…he knows.”
    We sat in silence as I struggled to filter truth from medically induced hallucination. I knew nothing of dementia or memory disorders, but there was one sure way to test his lucidity.
    â€œDad,” I said gently, “do you remember your Social Security and bank account numbers?”
    â€œDon’t insult me.” He recited the numbers perfectly.
    â€œBut why this whole story—”
    â€œFind him. Race.”
    â€œMe?”
    â€œBeat thirty-two. It’s possible. Sascha knows how. Sabotage,” he rasped. “He knows. It doesn’t matter. Thirty-two. Just go.”
    â€œDad…I don’t know anything about racing.”
    â€œThink you can’t, but you can. Only now. You’re so young. No children. If you ever do it.” He leaned back again, seemingly ready to pass out.
    â€œBut…but how will I find this…Driver?”
    His eyes briefly lit up. “Un rendezvous.”
    â€œA meeting? How?”
    â€œEnough. Come back tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 2
Rendezvous
    I was blessed with two sweet, kind, loving eccentric parents. My father’s parents were German Jews who moved to Brussels in 1934 and then escaped the Nazis and emigrated to the United States in 1942. My father helped liberate the concentration camps, returned with a Purple Heart, and founded Europe By Car, the family business. My mother escaped Communist East Germany at twenty and moved to New York in 1965 hoping to meet Elvis. They met on an American Airlines flight from New York to Paris in 1970. Henry Roy was a single, forty-three-year-old war veteran and businessman who dressed like Austin Powers. Ingeborg Schneider was a petite blond twenty-seven-year-old ex-schoolteacher, ex–au pair, ex-model-turned-stewardess who liked to wear go-go outfits and go dancing with her five stewardess roommates. They made a maturity pact before getting married and having me—he quit smoking, shaved his mustache, and stopped wearing vertically striped pants. She stopped dressing like she was sixteen and partying with the pot-smoking gay Japanese fashion designer who’d adopted her as his muse.
    I was born nine months later.
    I had a normal childhood, lived in Manhattan, and went to good schools. I studied piano and took art classes. I graduated from New York University with a 3.5 GPA. I double-majored in politics and journalism, with a minor in urban studies, a euphemism for criminology. I volunteered for various charities and gave money when I had it. My father wanted me to take over the family business. My mother wanted me to become an