300 Days of Sun (6 page)

Alva looked around and tried to detach herself like Michael. She felt it too strongly, though: in the course of leaving one life and crossing into another, they had ground to a halt. Who knew if they would ever get across? Too many ­people kept looking up at the sky, and she worried about an air attack. Michael struck a nonchalant pose as he lit and smoked a cigarette he had been saving.

Hours passed before the traffic moved forward to complete the crossing. Their documentation was examined. Finally, it was stamped. Their transit visa did not allow them to stay any longer than one night in San Sebastian but they had no desire to stay longer than necessary in arid, impoverished Spain, where portraits of General Franco were flanked by smaller likenesses of Hitler and Mussolini. After a night of fitful sleep on itchy straw mattresses in another small hotel, they clambered into the Packard and set their course for neutral Portugal.

S
pain gave a good impression of being enemy territory. As foreigners escaping from France, they were permitted to drive along the coast road, past sea and shacks. Under the wide roofs of wooden houses—­it rained a great deal here, explained Ronald—­hung bunches of maize, some so big they were the size of sacks. It was a tense road trip through hostile territory. Anything might happen to stop them, at any crossroad.

It was important to keep as clean and tidy as possible, Ronald said. Whereas some poor wretches on the road seemed to have given up, he shaved: not only to keep up morale, but because it was easier to bluff with a clean face. Michael followed his advice and Alva tried to keep her hair in check with a scarf.

Again, they were lucky. They covered the ground without hindrance, stopping only to refuel the tank and feed themselves on hard bread bought at a roadside stall. As they covered the last miles to the border crossing into Portugal, Alva prayed for grace. They approached the Spanish border guards. They passed the fake documents with a wave of the hand. Her fingernails dug into the flesh of her palms as they covered the no-­man's-­land to the Portuguese post at Vilar Formoso. They were greeted by young British men in flannels and tweeds who dispensed tea and eggs and meat stew, a band of brothers from a number of British firms in Porto who had organized a welcome for their own, but who held nothing back from any Americans, nor from the Belgians, Poles, and French who were equally in need. The Portuguese were friendly and hospitable, the atmosphere immediately lighter. They ate gratefully and greedily. They did not even mind the fleas, such was their relief at finding a bed of sorts for the night: another straw mattress on the floor of an outhouse. Ronald slept in the car.

But there was to be more waiting, as soon became clear. The next morning they were herded into the mass of ­people who needed to pass through the customs house and passport control before they could proceed anywhere. They walked to the railway station and got in line. On the walls, blue and white ceramic tiles told stories in pictures, of cities and travelers, and of the inhabitants of the country into which they had fallen, and there was plenty of time to study them. A train had come in, full of Jewish faces. When the Bartons and Ronald finally got to the head of the line late in the afternoon, their passports were confiscated, despite Ronald's best efforts to negotiate. Lisbon was full to the bursting point, they were told, and they could go only as far as Caldas da Rainha, some ninety kilometers outside the capital, until they could arrange to travel on to another country. The passports would be returned to them in Caldas da Rainha. The police were polite and fair, but it was hard not to feel that they had ended up, after all, being penned into some kind of holding camp.

It wasn't ideal, but they were released to get on the road again. At first the landscape was made up of scrubby yellow fields, just like those they had crossed under the incessant sun of Castile, but after a while they breathed more easily in swelling uplands, where the hills were wooded and green and cut deeply with ravines. Silver-­running streams fed orchards. Vineyards flourished. Flowers bloomed.

At Caldas da Rainha, hotel rooms were available, along with generous dinners. Old-­established thermal baths were central to the town's identity, and Ronald recommended they use them immediately to alleviate their aches and pains, ignoring the faint odor of rotten eggs in the tepid, sulphurous water. All she wanted to do afterward was to sleep, to allow her mind to calm, catch up with their altered circumstances.

They stayed in Caldas for a week, suspended in clouds of steam and uncertainty. Here, too, the Portuguese were courteous and welcoming. Ronald came and went, eventually returning with permission for them to move on to Lisbon.

The heat grew unbearable as they drove further south. Most of the roads were not tarred, just baked earth sprinkled with gravel. It wasn't wise to travel in the hours after lunch until five o'clock; the heat was suffocating. Dust thrown up by the car wheels obscured the roadside sights: hot, flower-­fragranced earth; hillside villages; the medieval walled city of Óbidos, high on a hill scored by a single winding road; pine woods releasing their deep green scent.

Ronald explained in some detail how the war situation was militarily the same as in 1808, when the threat was from Napoleon's dominance of Europe. “Never forget that Portugal is England's oldest ally,” he said. “We'll be all right.”

They arrived in a city of calm, tree-­lined avenues, elegant houses, flowers planted in window boxes and along all the main roads. Now and then there were tantalizing glimpses of the river Tagus, wide as a blue sea at the end of the street.

 

ii

T
he attic room at the Hotel Métropole was stuffy and a long way from the bathroom. But the Bartons were used to being thrown back on their own resources. Wasn't that how they had ended up here? They were still the ­people they were before they lay on these hard twin beds, getting up each morning to eat salty toasted cheese sandwiches for breakfast and lobsters and langoustines for lunch, considered not extravagant but very standard local fare. Scrupulous cleanliness was the norm and they were treated with warmth and cordiality by the Portuguese at the hotel, in the cafés, in the shops.

Like Rome, Lisbon was a city on seven hills. After it was destroyed by the great earthquake of 1755, the architecture that rose from the ruins was bold and uniform in style, the best the eighteenth century could offer. Set back from the Tagus waterfront behind a wide square with a horseman statue was a triumphal arch with colonnaded buildings forming wings to either side, reminiscent of the Rue de Rivoli in Paris. In its way, the city was as self-­confident and beguiling as Paris. It even had its Champs Elysée: the magnificent tree-­lined Avenida de la Liberdade.

On display in the stores of the Rua Augusta was an abundance of goods and food, much of it imported: McVitie's biscuits from England, Haig whisky from Scotland, German stollen cakes made with marzipan. Newspapers with all the familiar titles, the
Daily Mail
from London, the
Herald
and
France-­Soir
from Paris, the
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
, squashed together into the racks in similar proportion to the displaced persons in the cafés. The British Embassy was next to the building that housed the German Legation, which left the Union Jack fluttering with authority only a few hundred yards from the Nazi swastika.

At night, Lisbon possessed a rare beauty. Light danced from shops and houses; churches and palaces were floodlit like stage sets. The streets were full with a sense of happiness until three in the morning. The clubs oozed American dance music. It was all too possible to mistake it for a safe haven, a place of excitement and adventure. When they heard gunfire as they walked through a side street, on the second night, they cowered against a wall but no advance troops appeared. The next day they were told that what they had most likely heard was the beating of carpets. A local law forbade the practice between the hours of nine a.m. and midnight, so those householders who abhorred early rising beat their carpets in the party hours.

I
n the days after their arrival, the Bartons experienced a peculiar kind of loneliness tinged with possibilities. No one knew who they were. They could be whomsoever they chose. By the same token, there was no shared history with others, no acts of kindness and connection that root a person to a place. Achievements in a former life had no bearing.

Alva wrote in her journal: “Like all the many refugees, we report to the police at regular intervals. We assume no certainty but the continuous threat of deportation. We are vagabonds in a country that, in the friendliest way possible, does not want us. Spain is largely closed to foreigners, with only transit permitted. Portugal—­a small, poor country—­is the only open door for those many thousands fleeing west who hope to make the final jump across the sea toward the Americas.”

Michael put it more succinctly. “We are huddled on the edge of Europe, with nowhere left to run.” That was the opening line of the first newspaper piece he sent back to New York.

A
t first, the big question was how soon they would be able to get home. The length of time it was taking for a visa to be issued or a sea passage to be allocated was getting longer. Every day there were lines outside an office to be endured. You couldn't trust that word of any progress would reach you; you had to go in person, at least three times a week, to the consulate, or the American Export Lines bureau, which was the exit of choice. If you could afford it, that is.

As the city's luminous streets filled with strangers, the star prize was an American visa. The United States Consulate on the Rua Augusta was in a state of siege, and new acquaintances who had excused themselves from café tables would meet sooner than they wanted in the waiting line that snaked down the stairs from the Immigration Section. Everyone knew the name on the door: Mr. Herbert Pell, the United States minister in charge, and “Pelling” soon became shorthand for trying again.

“Here's the deal,” said Michael, pulling off his tie on his return from the shipping office on their fifth day in Lisbon.

Alva looked up from a guidebook she was reading, lying on her bed as there was no chair in the room.

“There are three thousand displaced persons wanting berths from the last remaining open port of continental Europe, and more arriving by the day. A ship sails once a week and it can only take one hundred and eighty passengers.”

“So . . . months then,” she said.

“That's optimistic.”

“What about by air?”

“There's the Pan Am Clipper but you'd have to sell your soul to get on that if you're not either extremely wealthy and well-­connected, or you work in some kind of official role.”

Michael took a ­couple steps one way at the end of the bed and a ­couple more back. “I've been thinking.”

“Yes?”

“The way to get through this is to work. Not to put too fine a point on it, we need funds. I couldn't withdraw everything from the bank in Paris, and our cash won't last for long. Plus, there are stories playing out here—­more than you would believe. Once the AP knows I've pitched up here it shouldn't be too hard for me to get in on the action.” Alva didn't disagree with any of it. They had to have money. Michael had a fine track record; he would surely be able to pick up enough work to tide them over.

It didn't take him long to find out where the international press corps drank. After that, he began most of his days at the Café Eva on Rossio Square with the other pressmen. They gathered for a convivial coffee at nine outside under the canvas parasols and swapped information, keeping each other in the loop. He knew Blake Curnow from way back, or knew of him, at any rate. They had ex-­colleagues in common back in New York. Blake was saturnine and cynical and worth listening to. He had been in Madrid at the
Herald Tribune
bureau there, and had got himself into some kind of trouble with the Spanish authorities. He was separated from his wife, who was giving him more trouble from New Jersey. In Lisbon, Blake had wangled some post in the information department at the U.S. Embassy and had a boss he called the Propagandist-­in-­Chief.

Alva was never more grateful that Michael was outgoing and made friends easily, even if that was only on a superficial level. The way he had of acting confident when he was worried worked in his favor, too; with his regular guy smiles and the gray flannels and sports coat, he fit right in.

It wasn't quite as easy to get going as he'd hoped, though. The AP had a full staff, all of whom guarded their positions zealously. What crumbs were offered to Michael were mostly just “a hat full of disappointments.” That was a phrase Michael used. Alva never knew where it came from. She never heard anyone else use it. Perhaps it was a local term from the wilds of New Hampshire where his folks were farmers and shopkeepers. But he didn't let anything go, which made him both a great reporter and a spouse with an unforgiving streak. Here in Lisbon he seemed immune from the almost universal setbacks and atmosphere of anxiety.

Alva took her cue from him, as always. But it wasn't so far from her own temperament. Her father's family, the Marinellis, came to the United States from Calabria at the turn of the century. Her mother was only half-­Italian, being the daughter of a Neapolitan immigrant and a nice girl from the Bronx. Alva wouldn't have known how to sit around and do nothing. The Marinellis tried not to get involved with disappointment either, by the hatful or otherwise; they just worked harder and trusted that everyone had to get a break sometimes.

Alva decided she, too, should have a useful occupation.

I
n Rome, Michael had bought a Leica camera when he needed a last-­minute illustration for some piece he was sending by AP Wirephoto. There wasn't a story that couldn't be improved by a good picture.

Alva was the one who really took to the Leica. She walked around with it in her bag and learned about light and shutter speed, and how to focus fast to capture a good frame. She'd harbored some thoughts about being a writer but those had been quietly shut down after Michael was less than encouraging. But he had no objections to her becoming a photographer. He even made use of her pictures from time to time when none better were available at short notice.

By 1940, Lisbon was one of the few countries in Europe where you could still point a camera at a port or an airfield, or a factory or government building or hospital. But with the fear of invasion so constant, no one knew how long this freedom would last. It was worth getting what stock shots could be taken. Soon Alva was going out to take photographs, looking for all the world like another bored woman forced to be a tourist as she waited for transit, trying not to think of herself as one of those sad ­people who were stuck between a past that lay ruined in another country and a future on the other side of an ocean with no means of crossing.

She captured the present moment—­the present, that was all any of them had. Focus. Press the shutter button. Rossio Square, the statue of Dom Pedro IV on a column nearly thirty yards high. The bronze fountain. The waves of black and white cobblestones, like the tide coming in, rippling across the square, scene of revolutions and bullfights. In the run-­down Alfama district, washing was strung up high on lines above the street like flags flapping, the neutral flags of normality. She photographed barefoot fisherwomen walking with their baskets on their heads; the yellow trams as they cornered like fairground rides past tiled buildings; groups of men staring bemused at the newfangled traffic lights as they changed from green to red.

She went down to the maritime airport at Cabo Ruivo to see the Clipper flying boat terminal. A boat with wings sat buzzing on the water off the end of a long pier. Its nose and tail turned up perkily; the wings were set high on the fuselage like shoulders raised in a sulk; on each wing, two propellers. The Stars and Stripes painted on a cheek below the cockpit was a cheerful wave from the old country. She snapped away as a launch went out to fetch the passengers, delivering them to a pontoon at the end of the pier, steadied by men in sailors' whites; she continued to take photographs as these passengers came ashore—­men mostly, in dark suits and overcoats and hats. They carried briefcases, and walked with the air of businessmen arriving at their commuter stop on the way to the office. Several looked down or turned their heads away from her as they passed. Only one person looked pleased and excited to have arrived, a woman who took the arm of the man she was with, and chattered through a beaming smile.

“Who are all these ­people?” she asked Michael later.

They had wandered down to the port and slipped into a garden restaurant where an elderly ­couple served clams and green wine to the background music of ships' horns on the river.

“Do they look like businessmen?”

“I guess. And their mistresses, maybe.”

“They're politicians and diplomats and journalists—­or that's what it says on their papers.”

“They're not?”

“They're spies, honey.”

“Surely not—­not just delivered by the planeload!”

“They'll be what they pretend to be, at least they'll try. Just . . . they have a higher purpose. There are hundreds of new officers at all the embassies here. As we know, they're certainly not all stamping visas.” He cocked his head to one side, intimating that everyone knew, except her. “Mostly, they're spies.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes.

“Either that, or they're looking to get rich quick,” he said. “I just filed a story about the trade in false travel documents. The embassies of several small countries have been quick to spot the commercial opportunities of supplying papers. There was an auction. Bids were taken for new passports with visas to various South American countries. According to the U.S. and British Embassies, these documents are meaningless, but there were still too many willing to take a chance. News spread through the cafés, and ­people have paid thousands of dollars. They don't want to know that the likelihood is they will be stuck on a boat that never gets permission to dock anywhere.”

“When folks are desperate . . .”

“That's right.”

“At least we haven't been forced to leave a home where our families have lived for generations to the mercy of an advancing army,” said Alva. “It's not so bad here for us, is it?”

“We're doing OK, don't you think?”

“I found a little photography shop today that has very good rates for developing. Their film is cheap, too. We'll see if it's any good.”

Later on, one of the magazine photographers Michael knew, a man who was regularly published in
The Living Age,
let Alva have use of the darkroom he had found, on the understanding that Michael would put in a good word for him with the
New York Times
. That kind of barter was the lifeblood of the Waiting Room, as they had started to call it. The other kind of barter was in information, and given Michael's gift for eliciting that, it didn't take long for the city to sharpen into focus along with her pictures.

Alva went out with renewed hope, and in the evenings she would return with the muscles in her legs aching from walking up and down hills.