Free 300 Days of Sun by Deborah Lawrenson Page B

and had already said too much.
    The car started up. They began to move. What was the point of giving in to panic? Think positive. It was warm and she never liked the cold—­that southern Italian blood again. Wherever the road led, that was where they were going. They had come a long way since New York. Alva was a secretary—­well, a typist with big ideas—­on the sports desk at the Times when she noticed Michael liked to hang around to pick up spare tickets to games. He was a big Dodgers fan in those days. Their first date, he took her to a game, and fed her a hot dog that spilled mustard down her expensive navy jacket. He didn’t even notice that, far less remember it. A whole week’s pay, that jacket had cost.
    Soon they could see the sea border. Then another holdup pinned them down again on the bridge from France to Spain. Ronald lit his pipe and got out of the car to greet some old friends. Between the lines of cars going nowhere over the water, he had somehow bumped into ­people he knew.
    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