Actually, it was not mine, but my sister’s, a 2CV Citroën. It was the cheapest car available in France, for about 1,000 francs. I was just 19 and had just passed the test to receive my driver’s license, but I was afraid to drive into Paris. My parents had a little country house some 15 miles away, so I decided to go there in the middle of the week, when the traffic was more concentrated in the city than outside. In one week, I practiced the round-trip route three times. After that, I lost my apprehension and could drive anywhere, including into the city and around the Arc de Triomphe, where the traffic is very heavy and fast.
On various occasions, I worked as a tour guide. Once, I had a group of Hungarian tourists who were real card-carrying members of the Communist Party. It was in 1960, and these tourists were more interested in showing me the superiority of their system over ours, criticizing everything they saw, saying that everything was much better in their Communist paradise than in the “terrible” capitalist French country. So, one day, I borrowed my sister’s car to go to the hotel, and I purposely arrived a few minutes late, so they could see me pull up. When they saw me in that car, they could not believe their eyes: “Is it yours?” they asked me. “Yes,” I replied. “But you are just a student, how can you afford a car?” they asked. So, I answered that I did side jobs and, therefore, I could buy myself this car. That was the end of their criticism of France.
I took my family on trips in this car. The most adventurous was a trip in the mountains of Switzerland with my parents. The Citroën was a slow climber, and I remember one day when I had neglected to fill up the tank before leaving, and we were on our way to Italy. We had to climb and climb and climb; we could not see the end of that road—my parents were concerned, and I was afraid to run out of gas in the mountains. I hadn’t told my parents that we might run out of gas. My father was particularly nervous about that, and I was worried about his reaction if that happened. Finally, after I don’t know how many hills we climbed, we finally reached the summit and started the descent. When we reached Italy, I stopped at the first gas station I could find. What a relief!
We did a lot with that car. I also drove to Amsterdam on a May 1st weekend, again with my parents, to see the tulips. What a beautiful spectacle! All those tulip fields, red, yellow, with the windmills in the middle. My parents had never had a car, and therefore, could not drive. So, I was their driver, which was not a relaxing experience, but today, those trips are good memories. I think I ended up liking that car. Since then, I have had quite a few cars of my own. I remember the first one I bought with my own money, the year I started my career: a navy blue Simca 1000. I lost it in Spain, crushed against a pole in a hotel parking lot. I have had many more, but I have the fondest memories of those two cars.
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