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which will give aim and desire to the tip of his cue.
    Jauma and Rhomberg were waiting for him outside the Holiday Inn in Market Street. Carvalho took one more turn round the parking lot in his VW and finally found a space, whereupon he was greeted effusively by Jauma, who, paradoxically, was claiming to be depressed.
    ‘The prospect of a sightseeing trip doesn’t really appeal to me. Just as well that we get back to Vegas at the end of it. I’m a born gambler. Are you a gambler, Carvalho?’
    ‘No. I sometimes visit the casinos, but once I’ve lost ten dollars in the fruit machines I call it a day. As for roulette and that sort of thing, I don’t really understand them.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘They don’t interest me. As I say, it’s all Greek to me.’
    They left Rhomberg at the Avis counter sorting out the car hire. Jauma sat in the front passenger seat, and Carvalho sat—or rather sprawled—in the back. Every now and then he would interrupt Jauma to point out something interesting about the San Francisco that they were now leaving to go to Los Angeles, but the reluctance with which this information was received was so obvious that he opted for a state of silent somnolence. He awoke to find himself being shaken by a smiling Jauma, who was pointing at something out of the window. The car was parked at a gas station, and the spectacle was that of Dieter Rhomberg in conversation with the two young Chicanos who ran the place.
    ‘Observe the infinite patience of the pure-bred Aryan.’
    Rhomberg seemed to be trying to explain something, and the Chicanos were listening with puzzled interest. Rhomberg’s hands waved in a more or less easterly direction, and then tried to trace a shape in the air. The Chicanos repeated his gestures.
    ‘He looks like an explorer trying to enlighten the natives.’
    Judging by the flora and the openness of the countryside, Carvalho concluded that they had traveled a fair way south, and were probably approaching Carmel.
    ‘Is it far to the beach from here?’
    ‘No. I’d quite fancy having lunch there. Dieter! Dieter! Leave them in their state of ignorance and let’s get a move on.’
    Dieter shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of didactic impotence and returned to the car.
    ‘What were you talking about?’
    ‘They were asking me where Europe is.’
    Rhomberg had an air of resignation tinged with irritation that seemed to strike Jauma as funny. He laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks.
    ‘I don’t see what’s so funny. They asked me if I was in the movies, and I told them that I was from Germany. They asked me where Germany was. I couldn’t believe it! “Didn’t you go to school?” Yes, yes, they’d been to school. “Fine. Didn’t they teach you where Germany was? “No.” “It’s in Europe.” Well, they’d heard of Europe, but it could have been in the Indian Ocean or the Arctic Circle for all they knew. “Germany, Germany!” I said. “Brandt. . . ! Adenauer. . . !” Nothing doing. “Hitler” —oh yes, they knew that Hitler was something to do with Germany. Then they asked me whether Germany is smaller than Mexico or the United States. I ask you! What kind of geography do they teach in this shit country?’
    ‘Rhomberg’s indignation reminds me of the eminent geographer Paganal in The Sons of Captain Grant , when he discovers that the British colonial teachers had taught their geography in such a way that the natives believed that the whole world was British. The viewpoint of the colonizer and the viewpoint of the colonized. When you work for a big multinational, the world takes on quite different geographical divisions. I could draw you a map representing Petnay’s growth over the years, which would stretch over four continents. One of the managers of the British section described it to me one day, as follows: when a Petnay executive farts in Calcutta, the smell can be smelt in Chelsea. I thought it would have been the other way round. When an