300 Days of Sun (16 page)

 

iv

A
t Faro, she walked out of the station and was immediately surrounded by children offering to carry her luggage.

Alva gave them a few coins but toted her own bags along the main street to the harbor. A year ago, she thought, she would have been nervously aware of being alone in a strange place, but through all that had happened since leaving Rome, she had toughened up. She was conscious that she was testing herself, and she thought that might have something to do with Michael, but chose not to dwell on that.
Whatever I find here, I can handle myself
, she repeated to the beat of her steps. If an Englishwoman who is a terrible driver can travel alone, so can I.

The walkway along the seawall was softened by short palm trees shaped like upended shaving brushes. A row of shops sold fishing equipment, ropes, and parts for boat repairs. Beyond were grander buildings, and ancient walls. A raised bandstand stood proud on a patch of grass ringed by public benches. Alva caught a few curious glances in return as she went by, but she did not elicit much interest.

She hesitated, wondering which was the best way to find somewhere to stay, and then turned left up a street marked in painted tiles as Rua Dr. Francisco Gomes. Not far along the street was the kind of grand cosmopolitan café she was familiar with from Paris and now Lisbon. She would be able to order a decent lunch there.

T
he Hotel Sol was a good find: cheap, clean, and within a five-­minute walk of the café down a quiet side street. A yellow plaster façade was held together by a long wrought-­iron balcony, and there must have been few other visitors as she was shown a room with long windows that opened out onto it. It was as well she had her rudimentary grasp of Portuguese, as the owner and his wife were a ­couple in late middle age who spoke no English. Senhor Cardoso dressed his hair with scented pomade; his formal suit was worn to a shine, but his courteous manner showed quiet pride in their establishment. Senhora Cardoso had a plump, unlined face and wore a hand-­knitted sweater with a cardigan over her shoulders; whenever she sat down, at the desk, or in the corner room off the entrance foyer, she would take out her knitting needles and continue with whatever new garment she was creating. She even knitted standing up, pulling wool from a ball in her pocket.

It was a nice, family-­run hotel, a thoughtful recommendation for a woman on her own. Alva unpacked her sparse belongings, and rested awhile before going out again.

Through the ornate gatehouse, the Arco da Vila, she discovered a wide piazza around a cathedral, caught in a web of narrow cobbled streets. Orange trees around the edge of the square held glowing lamps of fruit. She went into the cathedral, sat for a while, then lit a candle.

The sun was burning a hole in the horizon when she arrived back at the harbor where a crowd had gathered. Two ­couples danced to an accordion and a drum on the quayside, the men in black and the women dressed in regional costume. She watched as the dancers worked through patterns of intricate movements. Out on the water, bright bunting garlanded the masts of the fishing boats at anchor.

She raised her camera and focused carefully, hoping the light would hold for a while.

A marching file of boys in blue uniforms arrived from the direction of the customs house, and then a wide banner hove into view followed by children dressed as angels with wings made of paper. She hardly had time to wonder what was taking place when a procession formed behind a statue carried on a table by eight men in robes. As the statue wobbled past—­the effigy of a saint, Alva deduced—­the men and women in the crowd bowed and crossed themselves. It was followed by more children in costume, brocaded cloaks and embroidered dresses, and more trestles bearing images of Christ and the Blessed Virgin. All moved in silence toward the fishing boats.

The sky seemed to explode. Sirens blared from trawlers outside the harbor walls, horns were sounded, and fireworks screamed into the sunset leaving trails of sparks and burst into flower with loud bangs. A pall of smoke unfurled across the water bringing the scent of gunpowder, the convulsions above illuminating the figures and the procession. A priest brought up the rear, walking slowly under a canopy held by six bearers, giving the Sacrament. Again the crowd dropped at the knee as he faced the boats and blessed them.

Alva watched for a while longer as the procession broke up and children were claimed by their families, small groups formed and dispersed, and the crowd thinned.

Night fell. Faro was darker than Lisbon. In place of the capital's gaudy light shows, carbine lamps moved across the harbor as night fishermen prepared their boats and set off. Soon the lamps were so few that it was possible to see them being extinguished, one by one, like rooms in a distant house.

T
he crucifix above the bed and the crude light on the ceiling confused her. For a few seconds, after a deep sleep without waking, she thought she was still in the cramped apartment in Lisbon, and reached out for Michael. The bed was narrow and she was the only occupant.

Sun gilded the windowsill but the iron of the bedstead was freezing cold. Alva stretched and then padded over to the washstand. If she was going to give the right impression in a town like this she had to be proper in all respects. A plain skirt and coat. Blouse with collar. Sensible shoes. She brushed her hair and applied some lipstick, took a handkerchief, clean and pressed into a triangle, from her suitcase and placed it in her purse. A dab of verbena cologne on the inside of her wrists, and she was presentable.

When she went out she had the sensation that the cobbled pavement was wobbling under her feet. The morning was not as bright today. The harbor water reflected clouds. You got so used to being saturated by light in this country that overcast skies seemed weighty and depressing. She supposed she ought to let Michael know she was okay. The Café Eva had a telephone booth; it was highly probable that the Aliança would, too. When she next went in, she would ask about making a call. For now, she walked in the other direction, through the Old Town with its defensive walls and out to the embankment where the sea lapped.

For so long, Michael had been her anchor. Now she was adrift—­she had cut herself adrift. The events of the past few years had put so many relationships under strain. It was just the war, ­people said. But they were different, surely? There must have been a moment when it started. Was it in the bus down from Paris, when he could not bear the children's crying? If one of those babies had been his own, he would have felt differently. Or so she had thought; she might have been wrong. Was it in Ronald Bagshaw's car, when Michael felt small and beholden instead of plain lucky? Was it in the visceral light and poisoned normality of Lisbon where no one knew what to believe, or the hedonistic unreality of Estoril?

The same Atlantic water joined the two of them but the more Alva stood contemplating it, the more the way back seemed un-­navigable. Waves churned and chopped the surface into scribbles made by the wind, like messages she wished she could read.

After one of her old school friends had separated from her husband, Alva saw the man once with a new woman friend in a line for the movies at Loew's 175th Street Theater. How strange that had been. All those evenings spent bowling and eating meatball dinners on cheap furniture; the life they had all joked would get better, and maybe it did, just not in ways any of them had imagined. For a moment she wanted to have it all back. If she thought hard enough she could still be that person again, with the red dress she saved up for from Bloomingdale's and the pure happiness that Mike was there by her side.

She shivered. Any glimmers of sunshine had been snuffed out. It was a swirling winter morning, damp with mist. A fresh wind pushed at her, a powerful hand on her back. She could always go back to Lisbon. But not while she was trying to process this new person, unrecognizable person, she was becoming—­wanting to become, despite her fears. Surely she still carried the kernel of the girl who once went to Catholic church and helped in the store after school, who polished the eggplants till they gleamed and arranged the green peppers and smiled at customers in a way that left them in no doubt that the family was genuinely pleased they had decided to shop for their groceries at Marinelli's? She felt wetness on her cheeks. It was impossible to tell whether it was caused by the sharp breeze, or by unhappiness.

She found shelter in the lee of ancient stones salted white by winter winds and gave in to her feelings. She was furious with Michael. Not sad, not wistful, not hollowed out by loss, but howling inside with anger. She wanted to scream. If he was here right now she would beat her fists against his chest, railing in her outrage against his insulting calm.

At the growl of a small airplane above, she tensed instinctively. She had thought that she would be less fearful further away from the savagery of the war. But she had brought the ugly reminders with her.

T
he streets of the Old Town felt almost uninhabited. A man in a dusty black suit stared as she passed. She put her head down, resigned to being more cautious than in the capital city where the influx of strangers had relaxed the rules and the curiosity value of foreign women. For the first time she wondered if she had made a mistake in coming to this unfamiliar place where the streets made waves under your feet and the wind pushed the breath out of you.

She came out of the old gate on the Rua da Misericórdia and crossed the road into the public garden. At first she told herself she was just imagining things. But as she exited the garden and turned north into a street of shops and other businesses she was not so sure. It was the sensor they had all developed in Lisbon where the Portuguese secret police watched the Americans and the British watched the Germans, and observed the Germans returning the favor. When eyes were on you, it felt as real as a hand reaching out to tap halfway between the back of the neck and the top of the right arm.

She stopped as if to look in a shop window. At a certain angle, she could see back up the street behind her. The man was wearing a black homberg hat, pulled down low. The coat that swung from broad shoulders and self-­confident bearing gave the lie to any assumption he was a local fisherman or peasant. He also stopped and feigned interest in some display. She set off, and repeated the maneuver; he did the same. Instantaneously, she quickened her pace.

Think this through, she reminded herself, forcing herself to slow down. The police would know by now that she was an American visitor; she had filled in a form with her passport number when she checked into the hotel. She was doing nothing wrong. She felt the tension in her shoulders ease, all the while stiffening her resolve not to let down her guard. Another glance back—­it bothered her that there was something she needed to recall, but couldn't—­and she walked on toward a public place. She would go to a café, have a cup of coffee, act normally. She tried not to hurry toward the Café Aliança. However mad she was at him, she ought to make that telephone call to Michael. Close to lunchtime, he would most likely be at the Café Eva. She had a quick coffee for form's sake and to ask how to place a long-­distance national call. Ten minutes later, a waiter came over to her table, and showed her to the booth.

She spoke clearly, in a phrase she knew, into the heavy Bakelite receiver. “Is Senhor Michael Barton with you, please?”

In her mind she could see the Lisbon café: the shiny brown wood of the bar, the globe lights glowing around the walls, the cigarette smoke, the clatter of bottle and glasses, cups and saucers. Michael would be at the usual table, leaning in to hear what was being said, that frown of concentration when he was memorizing what he was being told, not wanting to spoil an illusory confidence by reaching into his breast pocket for that small notebook.

“He's not here.”

“Do you have any idea where I might find him?”

There was a silence, during which her panic drew sweat to her hairline.

“No, senhora.”

And that was that. That was the moment. Would it have been different if Michael had come to the telephone, a little the worse for rough brandy, a little belligerent maybe, at being called to account, but none the less there? She would never know. Somewhere in the sea mists of Lisbon he had disappeared into a world where she did not exist. She put down the receiver knowing only that she had lost him. Perhaps it had happened much earlier, but it had only just registered. She shut the door of the booth. Her feet on the polished checkerboard floor seemed unreal, as if they did not belong to her, that she was not actually in this place but could break out of it like waking from a bad dream.

She sensed rather than saw the figure planted in black shoes that blocked her path. She stopped and looked up. The man in the homberg and the well-­cut coat was waiting for her. He removed the hat and nodded a curt greeting.

It was Klaus Mayer.

She tried to sidestep him, but he grabbed hold of her arm. “Please don't make a fuss, Mrs. Barton. That would be most regrettable,” he said. “Just accept that I am here and that I would be most grateful to have a conversation with you.”

None of the waiters or even any of the customers took any notice of her as she tried to signal that she was leaving under duress. The café was busy and lunch was being served with bustling efficiency. Mayer steered her out of the Café Aliança, north into a maze of streets.

As they crossed a triangular road intersection, she thought she saw another man make eye contact with the German. His strength propelled her along, not roughly but carrying the message that she would do what he asked, whether she wanted to or not. She stumbled and he pulled her upright as easily as if she were a child.

“Are you all right?” It didn't sound like a threat.

“I'm fine. Where are you taking me?”

He didn't answer but kept her moving.

“What do you want with me?”