300 Days of Sun (23 page)

“What then?”

“They want me, as a German, to accept the Lisbon Pact. To be part of it. To pay their tariffs and accept their trade rules. That's what they call it. We would say blackmail.”

“Buying a quiet life.”

“Maybe.”

Silence.

“So they have been in contact with you—­before today?”

“Yes.”

A breeze brushed her skin, soft as chiffon, and it seemed to mock her. She would not berate him, not now. “You don't play by their rules. You never have.”

“Exactly.”

“So what do we do?”

“We don't do anything,” he said. “You must leave this to me.” As if an unseen chain of command still existed, though there was no other side to thank and reward Klaus now, no one to call on for help.

D
ried blood. That was the shade of the rocks at daybreak. After a sleepless night, Alva stood, feeling disembodied, at the top of the cliff path. The tide was looking for the best angle of attack. The boulders in the sea were pockmarked islands, prized from gaping wounds in the cliff. Nothing was stable. Not the sand displaced by crabs and insects and the waves. Not the sea's weave worked and reworked by the wind. Not the ever-­fluctuating dark shapes beneath the surface, the sunken cities of stones and sea grass.

She shivered. The children were safe. Klaus was safe. She tried to reassure herself. Although she had risen innumerable times in the night to creep along the corridor for confirmation, it had been impossible to set her mind at rest.

It took her awhile to decide what she was going to do.

H
er passport was about to expire. The trip to Lisbon to renew it had already been discussed. She and Klaus had agreed she would go on her own, that there was no need for him to leave the hotel. Now it was clear that one of them had to be with the children at all times. She persuaded him, with the greatest difficulty, to allow her to go as planned.

At the United States Embassy in Lisbon the consular official was an enthusiastic young man with a feeble mustache. If it had been grown to lend gravitas befitting his position, it had only the effect of underlining his youth. Alva's was the first appointment of the day, and he seemed a little bleary, still trying to reconcile the administrative demands of the U.S. government with Iberian hours. After the papers and headshot photographs were presented, taken, and signed, Alva asked what protection was afforded to American citizens in Portugal.

“Depends what you do, lady.”

“I mean, if a U.S. citizen was threatened.”

“This embassy is considered to be the United States. Our territory. There is no one can harm you here. Does that help?”

“I guess so.”

“Come back at the end of the day. Your new passport should be ready for you then.”

“One more thing . . .”

“Yes, ma'am?”

“Do the foreign correspondents still meet at the Café Eva?”

It obviously didn't mean anything to him. “You could go see.”

Alva thought about asking at the British Embassy for Ronald Bagshaw, but quickly discounted that. He wouldn't be there now. No one she used to know was still here.

T
he Café Eva was unchanged, except for the clientele. The ghosts of Michael, Frank Ellis, and Blake Curnow lingered in a smoke-­filled corner, but she walked on by without regret, only a passing wonder at the person she used to be.

She had been so sure that she could rely on nothing but her own guile that she had booked a hairdressing appointment at the salon at the Hotel Métropole for the latest short cut with permanent wave. The style would flatter her, she thought, and hint that she was no docile country wife. On the way to the salon, she went into a dress shop and spent some money she had saved on a midnight blue creation à la mode with a wide flowing skirt.

She emerged from the salon newly shorn, unused to the air on her neck, and having successfully achieved the real aim of her visit. It was the same the world over: hairdressers loved to gossip. She now knew that Manfred Himmelreich did indeed maintain a suite at the hotel, and that the hairdressing bills of several women had been charged to his account. In the ladies' restroom, she changed into her new dress and applied a little eyeliner and lipstick. Now she was confident she looked the part.

Alva crossed the hotel foyer to the reception desk. Once again she was ambushed by the past, as she remembered standing, waiting nervously, in this very spot, the day she arrived in the city with Michael. She was stronger now, in every way, she told herself sternly.

“I should like to leave a message for one of your guests, Herr Manfred Himmelreich.” She handed over a sealed envelope to the concièrge. “Will you see that he gets it as soon as possible, please?”

A courteous nod.

She made her exit conscious of his eyes on her. “I am an American citizen in a neutral country; I have nothing to fear,” she repeated to herself as she slowed her pace along the Praça Dom Pedro IV.

A
n hour and a half later, having allowed ample time for her message to be delivered, she entered the neighborhood fish restaurant down by the waterside where she and Michael had once regularly sat in the garden. It was the only place she could think of where she would feel safe, and she hoped it hadn't changed too much in a decade.

First impressions were that it had not. She glanced around. Lunchtime ser­vice was almost over, and customers were drinking coffee or squeezing out the last drops of wine in carafes. She told the waiter she was expecting a guest and was shown to a table for two.

Now all she could do was wait. According to the chatty coiffeuse, Himmelreich was a large man with a several chins; the inference being that ready cash rather than physical charms provided the attraction for the women he sent to be crimped and permed. His clothes would be expensive, and she should expect a cigar clamped in his teeth.

The only possibility was a man of about sixty who slid a lascivious look over her. She had the impression that Himmelreich was younger, but this man was alone at his table, raising a thin cigar to slack fleshy lips. Alva watched discreetly. After about five minutes, he was joined by another man, younger, with a pencil mustache. This one took off a baggy, belted raincoat, splashed with mud (the weather was fine; where had he been?). Both looked her way and then away again.

Minutes passed. Alva waved away the waiter apologetically, saying she would wait until her friend arrived, then thought better of it and ordered a glass of watered wine. The reality of what she had done was beginning to bite. She took a deep breath. She would be pleasant and she would stand her ground and say what she wanted to say to this man. Horta das Rochas was an independent business. The war was over. The Nazis had been defeated. She was an American and he could do nothing to her that would not see him pay a worse price himself. You had to stand up to bullies, that was the only way.

Again she found herself thinking of Michael, that she could almost hear him saying it. Where was he now? She hoped he was happy. She had a lot to thank him for, one way and another. It turned out after the divorce that her family hadn't thought much of Michael. They were even less well-­disposed to an ex–­German officer, as it turned out, and resistant to any explanation she could offer. She still wrote her parents, trying to explain what it was to know true contentment. Sometimes she heard back, sometimes not.

“Frau Mayer?”

The man wore a suit that hung admirably well over an obese body. He narrowed his eyes; the lenses of his round glasses were smeared, so that he seemed to squint from behind smutty portholes. From the way he mopped sweat from his brow and chins, it was evident that he was acutely uncomfortable in the heat.

“Herr Himmelreich. Thank you for coming,” she said pleasantly. “I believe we have met before. Do sit down.”

Alva wondered if she could discern any resemblance to the man who spoke to her in the garden at Estoril now that he had run to fat, his features swollen by too many fish-­and-­potato dishes served in oil. She could not.

He clicked his fingers at the waiter and asked for French brandy, speaking in Portuguese with a pronounced German accent. He took the chair opposite her, overflowing the seat. So far he had not spoken to her beyond ascertaining her identity. She felt the air deaden around him, now that it was too late to back away.

“I assume you know why I have asked to meet with you,” said Alva.

“I can guess—­from your name. I do not know you.” He looked around. He was still sweating profusely. “I must say, I'm surprised you know this place.”

“I used to come here during the war.”

“I see.”

“I want to explain to you in person why I am not intimidated by you and your associates, Herr Himmelreich.”

Alva watched closely as he scanned the room. Considering the importance of this conversation, it was highly irritating not to have his full attention. Was it possible he was nervous? She waited for him to turn back to her and said nothing more as another woman came into the restaurant on her own and was shown to a table. A diamond brooch winked from her lapel, and she wore a wide-­brimmed hat low on her brow. Himmelreich was still staring as she took off the hat to reveal half-­moon eyebrows drawn by pencil.

“The reason you cannot intimidate me is—­”

He held up a chubby finger. “Excuse me.”

“I would like you to hear me out, please.”

But he had pulled himself upright, with some effort. “Just one moment.”

Alva sat back in her seat. Her heart was beating uncomfortably fast with the effort of maintaining the veneer of calmness and confidence that she had decided was crucial. A person had to stand up for what they knew was right. If they hadn't learned that from the sacrifices of war, they hadn't learned anything.

Himmelreich jerked his unwieldy belly between the tables and out the entrance. Through the window she could see him out on the street, jabbing his finger at a young man. From side on, he was balder than she thought, with a large bruise above one ear. Was this shambling wreck truly a cruel opportunist who had evaded war crimes?

The waiter brought her glass of watered wine. Alva smiled; he did not. As he bent down to place it on the table, he leaned in and spoke directly into the ear. “Go now. Get out. Quickly.” At least she thought that was what he was saying. Then, in a normal voice, pointing, “Yes, Senhora, the toilet is in the back.”

She hesitated.

“It's all right, someone will show you.”

Alva picked up her bag and rose. She was halfway to the kitchen when unseen arms grabbed her and she stumbled forward as she was dragged into a side room. Her squeak of protest was capped by a hand over her mouth. The door closed on her.

From the main room came shouting, then a woman screamed. Several gunshots were followed by the sound of boots on the wooden floor. The crash of falling furniture. Alva waited, listening, her back rigid against the wall of the tiny room. She could hear a man's voice, pleading, in Portuguese. Cutlery clattered onto a hard surface. Dishes smashed and the noise continued to ring, as if a plate was spinning on the hardwood floor. Then the sounds died away, and all she could hear was her own breathing. She didn't dare emerge.

Minutes passed.

A soft knock on the door. “Senhora? It is OK.”

Alva stepped out unsteadily. “What happened?”

“Don't look,” the waiter was saying. “You must not look.”

“But I—­oh—­”

She saw the blood on the tablecloth first, scarlet poppies across the white linen. Then she saw the woman: the woman with the painted half-­moon eyebrows who had caught Himmelreich's attention. She was slumped sideways over the banquette where she had been sitting. A corsage of blood flowered on her chest.

“What's happened? Who is she?” asked Alva, her voice shaky.

“Best not to ask.”

A man in a pinstripe suit materialized at her side. His accent was unmistakably British. “I'd get out of here if I were you.”

He reminded her of Ronald Bagshaw, though it wasn't him. This Englishman had a pointed nose and a sharp parting, but the same air of bemused detachment. Lord only knew what he was doing there.

“But—­”

“The police will be here any minute, and you won't want to get caught up.”

She hardly had time to register anything more about the man before he propelled her outside onto the street. There was no sign of Himmelreich, nor the man she had seen him speaking to. “Do you know a man named Himmelreich?”

He reassessed her. She could see him calculating. “You should count yourself lucky. Very lucky indeed.”

“What do you mean?”

“That could have been you.”

“How—­why do you say that?”

“A woman on her own, easily mistaken if the gunman doesn't know precisely what his intended victim looks like.”

“But—­”

“Stop asking questions and go now, while you can.”

“Who are you?”

A crowd was gathering, and she was jostled. When she looked back, the man had gone. Alva pushed her way through, feeling more frightened now that the immediate danger had passed. She used every scrap of her strength to walk back toward the center of town, looking for a taxi cab. Was it really possible that she could have been the intended victim? That she had recklessly put herself in the line of fire, because the Himmelreichs were just as ruthless as Klaus had said? Who had saved her—­the waiter, the British man, or someone else who remained in the shadows? Part of her didn't want to know the answer.

She finally found a cab, gave the name of the modest business hotel where she had stayed the previous night and left her overnight bag, and sat rigidly upright in the deep seat, watching the familiar landmarks slide by.

How much worse had she made the situation? She had assumed this was a fair fight. She found herself mentally overlaying the grand Lisbon avenue with the cathedral square in Faro. She and Klaus hadn't long bought Horta das Rochas when they took a trip along the coast to Faro to see his friends. Palhares had shown them how to read the stories told by the cathedral's
azulejos
, tales of history and faith, then they climbed up a narrow winding stairway to the
miradouro
, the bell tower, and gazed out over the grassy marshes and mud flats.