The next day I left Vienna. My driver was a German named Walter Timmermann. He was from Vienna but lived in Pfungstadt, near Darmstadt. He drove a truck for the U.S. Army delivering copies of The Stars and Stripes, the American army newspaper, from its printing presses in Griesheim, to Salzburg and Vienna. The truck was a Dodge three-ton cargo truck with canvas sides and U.S. Army livery, which meant that it was never searched by the military police of any of the four powers. On the way back to Germany, the truck carried unsold copies of the previous edition so that these could be pulped and used again. And it was among these that I hid when we were crossing from one zone of occupation into another. The rest of the time I sat in the cab with Timmermann and listened as he talked, which, he said, he liked to do because most of the time he was driving he was usually on his own, and it could get a bit lonely on the road at times. That suited me just fine as I had little or nothing to say to anyone. He had served in the Luftwaffe during the war, at Griesheim, which was how he had come to be there when the war ended. And how he had come to start driving for the Amis some two years earlier.

“They’re not so bad to work for,” he said. “Once you get to know them. Most of them just want to get home. Of the four powers, they’re the best people to work for. But probably the worst soldiers. Seriously. They don’t give a damn about anything. If the Russians ever attack they’ll walk right on through Germany. The security on the bases is nonexistent. Which is how I get away with so much. All those Amis have some kind of racket going. Booze, cigarettes, dirty books, medicines, women’s hosiery, you name it, I’ve hauled it for them. Believe me, you’re not the only illicit cargo this truck is moving.”

He didn’t say what the truck’s illicit cargo was on this occasion, and I didn’t ask. But I did ask him about Father Lajolo.