300 Days of Sun (15 page)

She met his eyes, expecting to have to counter the challenge she found there. Instead, there was only kindness in his expression.

Be careful, she told herself, this is how men like this win. “I wouldn't betray him that easily.”

“Betrayal is the ultimate form of self-­expression. We live in brutal times.”

Again, he made it hard for her to make a response. She didn't disagree.

“When you return to the city, if you want my help, you can find me at the Hotel Métropole,” he said. “Whatever you think you know, I am sincere.”

Was that a casual insult, given the common knowledge that the place was effectively a German SS stronghold?

“When hell freezes over,” she muttered.

He didn't seem to notice. Perhaps he was used to it. She wouldn't ask about the woman.

She walked away, down to the sea.

“
He knows exactly who we all are. And he's been watching me, too,” Alva told Michael. He looked rested, far better than he deserved.

“Klaus Mayer, you said?” Michael had not reacted at all in the way she had expected. He was delighted, couldn't have been happier. He had pulled on yesterday's crumpled shirt and left the three top buttons open. She wanted to slap him.

“He's an Abwehr officer, Alva. The German intelligence agency.”

“I know what it is.”

“I think you should string him along. It's a game of cat and mouse, of course, but this could be just the break I need. If you were the one to throw the stone and run away . . .”

“Whatever do you mean?”

Michael was pacing with excitement. “Agree to meet him. Hear him out and see what he wants. Hope to gain more than he does. Feed him some barium, see where it gets dumped.”

He didn't appear to have any sense of how frightened she had been. He was too enraptured by the intrigue.

“What do you think he wants?”

“That's what we have to find out.”

“But Mike—­”

All the way along he had kept her at arm's length from what he was doing, and now he was asking her to become actively involved. She didn't know how to react: was she to be pleased that he thought her useful now, or appalled that he was so blithe about the potential risks she would be taking? But maybe he wasn't the only one who was changing. On balance she was more angry with Michael than upset. He refused to say anything more about Otávia. Alva could barely look him in the eye, perhaps not wanting to see more shame or deception there, as she listened to his schemes.

 

iii

I
n Lisbon at that time, rumors flew ever more wildly: Germany planned to occupy Portugal within seven days; the partisan Spanish were planning their own invasion; someone had seen Nazi stormtroopers in the Avenida de la Liberdade. Innocents were arrested by the Portuguese police.

At dawn one morning a great black crow blundered through the open window and into the bedroom of the cramped apartment. The curtains swelled then released the intruder. The room shrank as blue-­black wings flapped and became violent. The thought of the poisonous-­looking beak that could slice into skin, or an eye, made Alva pull the sheet around her and over her head. “It won't go out on its own, Mike. Get it out!”

Reluctantly, he sat up and reached for the towel he had dropped over the washstand. She peeked out as he held up the towel and advanced on the bird as it knocked into her toiletries on the top of the chest of drawers and scattered them on the floor.

“Flying vermin,” he said. “I don't want to touch it.”

He shook the towel ineffectually. Alva squirmed.

Michael lunged for the curtain and threw the window as wide as it would go. She heard him moving heavily, and the crow's wings beating, and then the window was slammed shut.

A minor incident, except that when Alva closed her eyes again, all she could see was the crow. Cruelty embedded in the ordinary that seemed to warn of evil. She had never been superstitious, but this shook her. The room had closed around a threat that she had not the courage to confront.

A
lva passed the Hotel Métropole and carried on along the Praça Dom Pedro IV. According to Michael, a diamond dealer had been found shot in his room there the previous day. (“Probably doing rather too well out of the general desperation.”) Even ­people who owned valuable gems were worried that they were running out of money, that they had not been able to bring enough, that their hastily arranged affairs were left open to theft and fraud.

She found the bookstore and went inside. She had been browsing awhile in the English language section, when she felt a tap on the shoulder.

“Mrs. Barton, always a pleasure to meet again,” said Ronald Bagshaw. “Have you managed to find anything to your liking despite the lamentable quality of the selection on offer?”

“Hello, Ronald. I'm not sure—­perhaps you could help me. I was hoping to find a book about the history and customs of this country. But there seem to be very few guidebooks to Portugal in any language. The best I can find is a travel guide to Spain with a few pages tacked on the end about Portugal.”

“Fairly typical, I think you'll find. Portugal has never been on any main itinerary. A closed-­in country—­what is known as a ‘hidden gem'—­and all the better for it, in my opinion.”

“Is there any publication you can recommend?”

“You'll have to wait for it. An intrepid Englishwoman of my acquaintance has recently set off to the south, intending to write a travelogue.”

There was a hint of mockery in the way he said it that made her rise to the challenge.

“Interesting. How is she traveling?”

“She drives her own little car. Rather badly, as it happens, but she hasn't come a cropper yet. There is a great deal less traffic on the roads down south so I expect all will be well and she'll reach Faro without mishap.”

“Faro?”

“A town on the Algarve coast, rather charming.”

“Will she be safe traveling on her own?”

“I don't see why not. The coastline is beautiful and rather wild, but the ­people are delighted to receive visitors. Faro is no backwater. She is chasing after pink flamingos.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“All kinds of birds can be found on the sea marshes, and she has heard that pink flamingos can be spotted. So she is off, in the grand tradition of English eccentricity.”

Alva replaced the unsatisfactory book. “That makes this sound very dull indeed.”

“A cup of coffee?” he offered.

“Thank you, but no, not this time. I am expected somewhere.” It was a lie, but she noted the flicker of interest it raised.

Bagshaw stepped back and raised his hat. “Another time, then. Goodbye, Alva.”

“Goodbye. And thank you for your advice.”

“You're welcome. Though I hardly gave any.”

She smiled sweetly. “And I am most grateful for that.”

“
Ronald set me thinking.”

Michael looked up.

“I want to make the most of being here,” she said. “I should take advantage of all there is to see in this closed-­off country.”

“Well sure . . .”

Positive and optimistic, that's what he wanted to see, so she would give it to him. “I'm going to take a trip south.”

She watched him gauge the advantages. It would be easier for both of them if she wasn't there waiting and wondering what he was doing. He would be able to do what the hell he liked at night, too. “I guess if Bagshaw is taking you—­”

She shook her head. “There's an Englishwoman who has set off to write a travelogue on her own. That's what I want to do. Have an adventure. Take pictures of a part of the country hardly any foreigners know beyond Lisbon and Porto—­do it while this edge of Europe still survives outside the war. I want to go on my own.”

That was when the argument started. “You will not.”

“I want to do this trip from a woman's perspective. It can be done. Imagine the copy! That could make something special for a magazine, couldn't it! We are in the business of taking risks. That's what you said.”

“But this is different!”

“No, it is not, Mike.”

After the standoff, which lasted the best part of a week, a compromise was reached. A ­couple they knew, John and Betty Andrews—­he was U.S. Embassy staff and due a week off in February—­happened to tell Michael they were taking a vacation. Their plan was to drive to the Algarve in the south of the country and spend their time exploring the wild coast full of caves and spectacular rock formations. Even in winter, there were days of warm sunshine.

“Why don't you go with them?” he asked Alva.

“I couldn't possibly! They won't want me tagging along.”

“Sure, they wouldn't mind. He owes me a favor.”

She wasn't going to ask what that was. Better to take what was offered, then play it her own way when she was beyond his control. So she agreed. Michael was letting her go, and she supposed she should appreciate it. It did occur to her that he might have had reasons of his own; he had never given an entirely satisfactory explanation for Otávia.

B
etty and John Andrews were as straightforward as their names. She was petite and brunette, a neat-­waisted creature with kind but dull conversation. He was pale, clearly exhausted, but maintained a bluff can-­do attitude worthy of his Wisconsin origins. Alva assumed Michael had met him through his new trade and that part of the deal was that John Andrews kept a close watch on her. He was Diplomatic Corps accredited, which meant he was the closest thing to travel insurance she was likely to be offered.

Alva sat in the back of their sedan, a hat pulled down deep over her forehead. She was excited, yes, but there was another feeling that she had not yet identified: it might have been freedom, or relief. Either way, she put it down to the open road, the rush of wind as they bowled along. It would do Michael and her good to spend a little time apart. Watching John and Betty, their mild bickering over which route to take, the flatness of their voices, the air of resignation, she wondered whether the same might not have been true for them, too, and that perhaps, far from feeling that a third party was an intrusion, they had welcomed the ballast of a passenger.

The only way across the Tagus was by steamer ferry crossing, the first bridge being over eighty kilometers from the mouth of the estuary. Alva observed the city, the buildings encrusting the hills, its high castles and venerable churches diminishing across the wide river. The water simmered with shipping crafts, from primitive canoes and sailing yachts to warships of the United States Navy in close proximity to those of the Japanese. The sky was azure, far from the gray of a New York February. It was an electric morning, or that may have been her nerves crackling. What awaited her? The country could swallow her up, and there would be barely a trace left that she had ever been there. At that moment, she didn't care. She was free, heading south into the blue.

As soon as they reached the landing stage at Cacilhas, the landscape felt different. In Lisbon and Estoril they had gotten used to the sight of large American cars, the latest models, on the roads. Either the Portuguese drove those, or they had no car. Away from the main routes, all was quiet, except for the occasional rusting French vehicle, but the side roads were rough going, and the shaking and pitching soon led them to abandon the scenic backwoods, dense with umbrella pines.

The town of Setúbal, on the Rio Sado, was set on a fine harbor. They stopped at a junction. Child beggars ran up to them and John dropped a few pennies. He had heard there was disapproval if foreigners ignored beggars.

Leaving the town, the road continued through shady pine woods for some time until the soil became poorer and the countryside uncultivated. Soon the view was of endless scrublands, rolling out toward ragged, barren hills and desolation. It felt remote already. Villages were shuttered, and the dusty locals stared glumly as they passed through. Mules drew carts piled with cabbages and potatoes.

They stopped to picnic in an olive grove. Betty spread a tablecloth on spiky ground and unwrapped packages of bread and cheese and cold roast chicken and oranges. They had a few glasses of wine to toast their vacation and John spoke of how he had been posted to Lisbon as a consular officer two years previously, which meant he was midway through his tour. He had learned plenty about the country and was keen to know more.

They were now in the Alentejo region, John explained. It was a vast province, almost desertlike in parts, and said to have no shade except during the hours of darkness. Away from the main towns, there was a sense that the villages were self-­contained worlds with their own ways and histories. Betty seemed content to listen to him talking, without adding any of her own thoughts.

They pushed on quickly, eager to make the coast before nightfall. They planned to stay the night at Quarteira, where the Andrewses had been assured the winter climate was warm and settled. The sea was heated by the beneficent Gulf Stream, and the hotel justifiably called Bella Vista. By the afternoon the road was bordered with vineyards and fruit orchards. Both men and women tilled the fields barefoot, stooped over the earth in bright costumes of scarlet and orange, yellow and blue. Carts pulled by oxen lumbered past loaded with dried maize. When they stopped for a break to stretch their legs, Alva bought some preserved figs from a peasant woman in a straw sombrero who only reluctantly accepted payment, and insisted that they also take six plump oranges. John resumed his commentary about the explorers of the Middle Ages, the desolate points from which they set sail, and Alva allowed her eyes to close.

It was dark when they arrived at Quarteira, and none of its anticipated beauties were visible. They were shown to spotlessly clean plain rooms and a spicy fish dish was provided for their supper.

At breakfast the next morning, in a room filled with light and a view of the sea, Alva said to the Andrewses, “I'll leave you to enjoy your day here,” she said. “I am going to take a train trip.”

John straightened his glasses. “I'm not sure, Alva. I promised Michael I would be responsible for you.”

“And I appreciate that, John. Very much. But my mind is quite made up.”

“But you can't!” said Betty. “However can you, on your own?”

“The same as anyone else. I walk to the rail station and I take a train. I want to see the flamingos.”

“Flamingos?” repeated Betty.

“Did Michael not tell you? I have wanted to see the wild flamingos on the salt marshes ever since I arrived in Portugal.”

“We'll have to come with you, won't we, John?”

“No,” said Alva. “You really don't. I'll tell you all about it when I get back, now if you don't mind, I must hurry to catch the coast train.”

She left them to their breakfast, suppressing the urge to pop a piece of toast into Betty's open mouth.