Chapter Two Thousand Eighty-Seven
4th September 1970
Mitte, Berlin
The Model of car wasn’t even making its debut to the public until the International Motor Show in Frankfurt. Somehow, Zella’s father had convinced BMW to give him one of the first cars to come down the production line. He said that he was giving it to Zella as an early Christmas present to replace her old car before it completely fell apart. The two cars were superficially similar, the new one being dark blue while the old one was maroon.
Zella had noticed the key differences though as soon as she got a look underneath. While the engine was still displaced 700 cubic centimeters, but unlike the old boxer engine in the rear of the old car, this one was mounted under the bonnet in the front. It was an enlarged version the of the four-cylinder K Series engines that Zella knew quite well. Her motorcycle used the smaller three-cylinder engine that was a part of the same series. The new car was also a Saloon model, so the back seats were not as cramped as they had been in the Sport Coupe.
“Shouldn’t it be pointed the other way?” Yuri asked as he looked over Zella’s shoulder.
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be” Zella replied, looking at the valve cover and wires from the spark plugs, revealing that the engine was mounted parallel to the firewall. Just in front of that was the aluminum housing of the transmission which the front axle ran through and the radiator.
“You’re the mechanical expert” Yuri said, “So I’ll need take your word for it.”
As Zella closed the bonnet, she wondered for what must have been the millionth time what made Yuri tick. Most men were into mechanical curiosities, all he cared about was if the new car would continue to get them from point A to point B like the old one had. She figured that it was just Yuri being Yuri.
“How did things with Thea go?” Zella asked changing the subject.
“She asked me not to ask her out again” Yuri replied.
“Do you have any idea what I went through to get her to take you up on your invitation in the first place?” Zella asked as she watched Yuri shuffle his feet nervously. “I thought that things were going well between the two of you?”
“Thea said that she wasn’t interested in settling for second place” Yuri said.
“What the Hell was that supposed to mean?”
Yuri looked like he was about to say something, but stopped for an awkward moment before saying, “I haven’t the foggiest” instead.
“I don’t understand Thea then” Zella said, “She should be able to see what you got going for you.”
“If you say so” Yuri replied.
“Let’s go for drive then, around the Orbital and we’ll stop at the roadhouse for a lousy cup of coffee” Zella said, “That will help get rid of the cobwebs.”
“Cobwebs, Zee?” Yuri said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s something my father says” Zella replied as she opened the door of the car and got behind the wheel.
As Yuri climbed into the passenger seat, Zella turned on the ignition. While this new 700 was clearly built for economy over speed, that didn’t mean that it was incapable of doing a few impressive things. Whoever had given it a five-speed manual transmission had to have understood that. For Zella it was only a matter of seeing what this car could do.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Driving around A10, the Orbital highway that circled Berlin, listening to Rock music, and singing along badly with Zella did help Yuri forget things for a time. It wasn’t until got to the junction of A10 and Bundesstraße 1 that his reality started to intrude on his thoughts again. He’d had the perfect opportunity to tell Zella the truth, but he had chickened out. When Thea had told him that she wasn’t interested in coming in second, she had obviously meant behind Zella though she hadn’t actually said that. That had been what he had almost told Zella.
Entering the car park that the Roadhouse Diner shared with a petrol station, Yuri saw that like most weekend nights during the summertime, the place was packed. A couple years earlier there had been a happening that had involved a midnight motorcycle ride around the A10 involving possibly hundreds of riders that had started at the V8 Club and ended here. The Diner, open 24-hours a day, didn’t have great food, they just served a lot of it at reasonable prices. It had catered mostly to the Lorry Drivers who came in and out of Berlin at all hours. They still did that, however much to the owner’s astonishment, Zella had written a widely read article about the place after the midnight ride, and it had swiftly gained a whole lot of new customers. With all the motorcycles and even a few hotrods, a factory new BMW stood out like a sore thumb. Zella just laughed at the strange looks she was getting when they realized that it was her driving.
When Zella came through the front doors, she was warmly greeted. The diner was full of Rockers, Racers, and Gear Freaks, many of them people who Zella had known since she was a teenager. This was her scene and Yuri was out of place like he always was whenever he went somewhere with Zella.
“Who’d you steal the car from?” Someone asked and Zella just laughed.
“From no one” Zella replied, “It’s for work, you know, looking respectable on Television.”
“What’d you know about that Zee?” Someone else asked and Zella didn’t bother answering as she pushed her way through the crowd to the counter to order coffee. Like always, Yuri followed closely, a bit worried about what these people thought of him.