pretending to cough, so he wouldn’t know that my voice trembled and my eyes were filling with tears.
“Okay, you didn’t steal it. You rent it. And this—” he tapped with his foot on the license plate—“this is the real number?”
“Yes.”
He blew out his cheeks. “Okay,” he said. “So. If you sell, you have to tell them car was stolen. Because you are a thief.”
“No. Yes. I know.”
“So if I buy, I need to change the plates, maybe change the color. So I pay less for car.”
“I need three thousand,” I said, without thinking. I was guessing; it sounded like enough to ask, enough to change Col’s mind.
“Maybe. Maybe not so much. It drives good? I need to drive it. If it drives good, I pay. No receipt, no documents.”
“How much?” I asked. “How do I know you’ve even got any money?”
He glanced at Anna, who was absorbed, digging a pebble out of the tread of one of the tires. Turning from her, he produced an envelope from inside his jacket. He drew out just enough for me to see the top edge of a wad of banknotes.
“I got money.” He stood watching my face as I tried to control another wave of tears. I had begun to tremble. I was horrified at myself, bartering a car that wasn’t mine for money to keep a baby. How flimsy it was proving to be, the border between the kind of person I was before this, whose life had never strayed off the path of the conventionally law-abiding, and the kind of person I was turning into; it was terrifying to learn how irresistible, how effortless was my descent. Could I have offered in mitigation of my wrongdoing the plea that I had no choice? Of course I had a choice. Having taken it upon myself to judge that the legal destruction of my baby was the greater and truly unacceptable wrong, I was choosing to break the law. But I was not acting out of principle in pursuit of a finer moral good. My reasons, circumstantial, quite possibly hormonal, were a clumsy, misshapen clump of love, need, fear, and in the end, self-interest. I was going about getting what I wanted.
“Okay, listen. You’re selling me rental car, you need money that bad. I need a car. For my wife. For a surprise, big surprise for her, big difference for her life.” He gave me a hard grin. “So, smart lady? You need the money, you owe it somebody?”
“I just need it. No questions.”
“Okay, right. No questions. We go now to drive car around. If car okay, we agree price, I pay.”
I shivered. “Okay.”
He went back inside the trailer and brought out a heap of bedding. He arranged it in a mound on the backseat, then lifted Anna on top of it and began to fiddle with the seat belt.
“That’s not very safe,” I said. “Small children are supposed to have those proper car seats when they go in cars.”
He clicked the seat belt in place and straightened. “Do I ask you for help? What can I do about it right now? You keep your mouth shut!”
Anna started to flail. “Jee-raff! Papa, Jee-raff!” she said and burst into tears. Stefan returned to the trailer and brought back her giraffe.
“You will get her a car seat, won’t you?” I didn’t care that I was making him angry. “You’ve got to get her a car seat so she’ll be safe.”
“You drive it back up the track,” he said, getting in on the passenger side. “Any damage then you don’t blame me.”
I drove very carefully up the track and stopped at the top, and we swapped places. He turned the car toward Inverness, nudging it back onto the road nervously, unused to having the controls on the right and possibly to driving at all. Anna dropped her giraffe and began to bounce and squirm on top of her heap of bedding in the backseat, and he spoke to her sharply, in their own language. I retrieved the giraffe for her, and she pushed it into her mouth; her eyes began to close. In silence Stefan drove us past the service station and onto the roundabout as if to turn left across the bridge, then reconsidered and swerved
“Okay, you didn’t steal it. You rent it. And this—” he tapped with his foot on the license plate—“this is the real number?”
“Yes.”
He blew out his cheeks. “Okay,” he said. “So. If you sell, you have to tell them car was stolen. Because you are a thief.”
“No. Yes. I know.”
“So if I buy, I need to change the plates, maybe change the color. So I pay less for car.”
“I need three thousand,” I said, without thinking. I was guessing; it sounded like enough to ask, enough to change Col’s mind.
“Maybe. Maybe not so much. It drives good? I need to drive it. If it drives good, I pay. No receipt, no documents.”
“How much?” I asked. “How do I know you’ve even got any money?”
He glanced at Anna, who was absorbed, digging a pebble out of the tread of one of the tires. Turning from her, he produced an envelope from inside his jacket. He drew out just enough for me to see the top edge of a wad of banknotes.
“I got money.” He stood watching my face as I tried to control another wave of tears. I had begun to tremble. I was horrified at myself, bartering a car that wasn’t mine for money to keep a baby. How flimsy it was proving to be, the border between the kind of person I was before this, whose life had never strayed off the path of the conventionally law-abiding, and the kind of person I was turning into; it was terrifying to learn how irresistible, how effortless was my descent. Could I have offered in mitigation of my wrongdoing the plea that I had no choice? Of course I had a choice. Having taken it upon myself to judge that the legal destruction of my baby was the greater and truly unacceptable wrong, I was choosing to break the law. But I was not acting out of principle in pursuit of a finer moral good. My reasons, circumstantial, quite possibly hormonal, were a clumsy, misshapen clump of love, need, fear, and in the end, self-interest. I was going about getting what I wanted.
“Okay, listen. You’re selling me rental car, you need money that bad. I need a car. For my wife. For a surprise, big surprise for her, big difference for her life.” He gave me a hard grin. “So, smart lady? You need the money, you owe it somebody?”
“I just need it. No questions.”
“Okay, right. No questions. We go now to drive car around. If car okay, we agree price, I pay.”
I shivered. “Okay.”
He went back inside the trailer and brought out a heap of bedding. He arranged it in a mound on the backseat, then lifted Anna on top of it and began to fiddle with the seat belt.
“That’s not very safe,” I said. “Small children are supposed to have those proper car seats when they go in cars.”
He clicked the seat belt in place and straightened. “Do I ask you for help? What can I do about it right now? You keep your mouth shut!”
Anna started to flail. “Jee-raff! Papa, Jee-raff!” she said and burst into tears. Stefan returned to the trailer and brought back her giraffe.
“You will get her a car seat, won’t you?” I didn’t care that I was making him angry. “You’ve got to get her a car seat so she’ll be safe.”
“You drive it back up the track,” he said, getting in on the passenger side. “Any damage then you don’t blame me.”
I drove very carefully up the track and stopped at the top, and we swapped places. He turned the car toward Inverness, nudging it back onto the road nervously, unused to having the controls on the right and possibly to driving at all. Anna dropped her giraffe and began to bounce and squirm on top of her heap of bedding in the backseat, and he spoke to her sharply, in their own language. I retrieved the giraffe for her, and she pushed it into her mouth; her eyes began to close. In silence Stefan drove us past the service station and onto the roundabout as if to turn left across the bridge, then reconsidered and swerved
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