Winter of the World

  "I'm a mason," he said, hefting his canvas bag. "Going home to Spain. Leandro is my name."

  A fat man in an undershirt said: "I can take you halfway."

  "Thank you."

  "Are you ready now?"

  "Of course."

  They went outside and got into a grimy Renault van with the name of an electrical goods store on the side. As they pulled away, the driver asked Lloyd if he was married. A series of unpleasantly personal inquiries followed, and Lloyd realized the man had a fascination with other people's sex lives. No doubt that was why he had agreed to take Lloyd: it gave him the chance to ask intrusive questions. Several of the men who had given Lloyd lifts had had some such creepy motive.

  "I'm a virgin," Lloyd told him, which was true, but that only led to an interrogation about heavy petting with schoolgirls. Lloyd did have considerable experience of that, but he was not going to share it. He refused to give details while trying not to be rude, and eventually the driver despaired. "I have to turn off here," he said, and pulled over.

  Lloyd thanked him for the ride and walked on.

  He had learned not to march like a soldier, and had developed what he thought was a fairly realistic peasant slouch. He never carried a newspaper or a book. His hair had last been cut by a brutally incompetent barber in the poorest quarter of Toulouse. He shaved about once a week, so that he normally had a growth of stubble, which was surprisingly effective in making him look like a nobody. He had stopped washing, and acquired a ripe odor that discouraged people from talking to him.

  Few working-class people had watches, in France or Spain, so the steel wristwatch with the square face that Bernie had given him as a graduation present had to go. He could not give it to one of the many French people who had helped him, for a British watch could have incriminated them, too. In the end, with great sadness, he had thrown it into a pond.

  His greatest weakness was that he had no identity papers.

  He had tried to buy papers from a man who looked vaguely like him, and schemed to steal them from two others, but people were cautious about such things just now, not surprisingly. His strategy was therefore to steer clear of situations in which he might be asked to identify himself. He made himself inconspicuous, he walked across fields rather than take roads when he had the choice, and he never traveled by passenger train because there were often checkpoints at stations. So far he had been lucky. One village gendarme had demanded his papers, and when he explained that they had been stolen from him after he got drunk and passed out in a bar in Marseilles the policeman had believed him and sent him on his way.

  Now, however, his luck ran out.

  He was passing through poor agricultural terrain. He was in the foothills of the Pyrenees, close to the Mediterranean, and the soil was sandy. The dusty road ran through struggling smallholdings and poor villages. The landscape was sparsely populated. To his left, through the hills, he got blue glimpses of the distant sea.

  The last thing he expected was the green Citroen that pulled up alongside him with three gendarmes inside.

  It happened very suddenly. He heard the car approaching--the only car he had heard since the fat man dropped him off. He carried on shuffling like a tired worker going home. Either side of the road were dry fields with sparse vegetation and stunted trees. When the car stopped, he thought for a second of making a run for it across the fields. He dropped the idea when he saw the holstered pistols of the two gendarmes who jumped out of the car. They were probably not very good shots, but they might get lucky. His chances of talking his way out of this were better. These were country constables, more amiable than the hard-nosed French city police.

  "Papers?" said the nearest gendarme in French.

  Lloyd spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "Monsieur, I am so unfortunate, my papers were stolen in Marseilles. I am Leandro, Spanish mason, going--"

  "Get in the car."

  Lloyd hesitated, but it was hopeless. The odds of his getting away were now worse than before.

  A gendarme took him firmly by the arm, hustled him into the backseat, and got in beside him.

  His spirits sank as the car pulled away.

  The gendarme next to him said: "Are you English, or what?"

  "I am Spanish mason. My name--"

  The gendarme made a waving-away gesture and said: "Don't bother."

  Lloyd saw that he had been wildly optimistic. He was a foreigner without papers heading for the Spanish border: they simply assumed he was an escaping British soldier. If they had any doubt, they would find proof when they ordered him to strip, for they would see the identity tag around his neck. He had not thrown it away, for without it he would automatically be shot as a spy.

  And now he was stuck in a car with three armed men, and the likelihood that he would find a way to escape was zero.

  They drove on, in the direction in which he had been heading, as the sun went down over the mountains on their right-hand side. There were no big towns between here and the border, so he assumed they intended to put him in a village jail for the night. Perhaps he could escape from there. Failing that, they would undoubtedly take him back to Perpignan tomorrow and hand him over to the city police. What then? Would he be interrogated? The prospect made him cold with fear. The French police would beat him up, the Germans would torture him. If he survived, he would end up in a prisoner-of-war camp, where he would remain until the end of the war, or until he died of malnutrition. And yet he was only a few miles from the border!

  They drove into a small town. Could he escape between the car and the jail? He could make no plan; he did not know the terrain. There was nothing he could do but remain alert and seize any opportunity.

  The car turned off the main street and into an alley behind a row of shops. Were they going to shoot him here and dump his body?

  The car stopped at the back of a restaurant. The yard was littered with boxes and giant cans. Through a small window Lloyd could see a brightly lit kitchen.

  The gendarme in the front passenger seat got out, then opened Lloyd's door, on the side of the car nearest the building. Was this his chance? He would have to run around the car and along the alley. It was dusk: after the first few yards he would not be an easy target.

  The gendarme reached into the car and grasped Lloyd's arm, holding him as he got out and stood up. The second one got out immediately behind Lloyd. The opportunity was not good enough.

  But why had they brought him here?

  They walked him into the kitchen. A chef was beating eggs in a bowl and an adolescent boy was washing up in a big sink. One of the gendarmes said: "Here's an Englishman. He calls himself Leandro."

  Without pausing in his work, the chef lifted his head and bawled: "Teresa! Come here!"

  Lloyd remembered another Teresa, a beautiful Spanish anarchist who had taught soldiers to read and write.

  The kitchen door swung wide and she walked in.

  Lloyd stared at her in astonishment. There was no possibility of mistake: he would never forget those big eyes and that mass of black hair, even though she wore the white cotton cap and apron of a waitress.

  At first she did not look at him. She put a pile of plates on the counter next to the young washer-up, then turned to the gendarmes with a smile and kissed each on both cheeks, saying: "Pierre! Michel! How are you?" Then she turned to Lloyd, stared at him, and said in Spanish: "No--it's not possible. Lloyd--is it really you?"

  He could only nod dumbly.

  She put her arms around him, embraced him, and kissed him on both cheeks.

  One of the gendarmes said: "There we are. All is well. We have to go. Good luck!" He handed Lloyd his canvas bag, then they left.

  Lloyd found his tongue. "What's going on?" he said to Teresa in Spanish. "I thought I was being taken to jail!"

  "They hate the Nazis, so they help us," she said.

  "Who is us?"

  "I'll explain later. Come with me." She opened a door that gave onto a staircase and led him to an upper
story, where there was a sparsely furnished bedroom. "Wait here. I'll bring you something to eat."

  Lloyd lay down on the bed and contemplated his extraordinary fortune. Five minutes ago he had been expecting torture and death. Now he was waiting for a beautiful woman to bring him supper.

  It could change again just as quickly, he reflected.

  She returned half an hour later with an omelette and fried potatoes on a thick plate. "We've been busy, but we close soon," she said. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

  He ate the food quickly.

  Night fell. He listened to the chatter of customers leaving and the clang of pots being put away, then Teresa reappeared with a bottle of red wine and two glasses.

  Lloyd asked her why she had left Spain.

  "Our people are being murdered by the thousands," she said. "For those they don't kill, they have passed the Law of Political Responsibilities, making criminals of everyone who supported the government. You can lose all your assets if you opposed Franco even by 'grave passivity.' You are innocent only if you can prove you supported him."

  Lloyd thought bitterly of Chamberlain's reassurance to the House of Commons, back in March, that Franco had renounced political reprisals. What an evil liar Chamberlain had been.

  Teresa went on: "Many of our comrades are in filthy prison camps."

  "I don't suppose you have any idea what happened to Sergeant Lenny Griffiths, my friend?"

  Teresa shook her head. "I never saw him again after Belchite."

  "And you . . . ?"

  "I escaped from Franco's men, came here, got a job as a waitress . . . and found there was other work for me to do."

  "What work?"

  "I take escaping soldiers across the mountains. That's why the gendarmes brought you to me."

  Lloyd was heartened. He had been planning to do it alone, and he had been worried about finding the way. Now perhaps he would have a guide.

  "I have two others waiting," she said. "A British gunner and a Canadian pilot. They are in a farmhouse in the hills."

  "When are you planning to go across?"

  "Tonight," she said. "Don't drink too much wine."

  She went away again and returned half an hour later carrying an old, ripped brown overcoat for him. "It's cold where we're going," she explained.

  They slipped out of the kitchen door and threaded their way through the small town by starlight. Leaving the houses behind, they followed a dirt track steadily uphill. After an hour they came to a small group of stone buildings. Teresa whistled, then opened the door to a barn, and two men came out.

  "We always use false names," she said in English. "I am Maria and these two are Fred and Tom. Our new friend is Leandro." The men shook hands. She went on: "No talking, no smoking, and anyone who falls behind will be left. Are we ready?"

  From here the path was steeper. Lloyd found himself slipping on stones. Now and again he clutched at stunted bushes of heather beside the path and pulled himself upward with their aid. The petite Teresa set a pace that soon had the three men puffing and blowing. She was carrying a flashlight, but she refused to use it while the stars were bright, saying she had to conserve the battery.

  The air got colder. They waded across an icy stream, and Lloyd's feet did not get warm again afterward.

  An hour later, Teresa said: "Take care to stay in the middle of the path here." Lloyd looked down and realized he was on a ridge between steep slopes. When he saw how far he could fall, he felt a little giddy, and quickly looked up and ahead at Teresa's swiftly moving silhouette. In normal circumstances he would have enjoyed every minute of walking behind a figure like that, but now he was so tired and cold he did not have the energy even to ogle.

  The mountains were not uninhabited. At one point a distant dog barked; at another they heard a tinkling of eerie bells, which spooked the men until Teresa explained that mountain shepherds hung bells on their sheep so they could find their flocks.

  Lloyd thought about Daisy. Was she still at Ty Gwyn? Or had she gone back to her husband? Lloyd hoped she had not returned to London, for London was being bombed every night, the French newspapers said. Was she alive or dead? Would he ever see her again? If he did, how would she feel about him?

  They stopped every two hours to rest, drink water, and take a few mouthfuls from a bottle of wine Teresa was carrying.

  It started to rain around dawn. The ground underfoot instantly became treacherous, and they all stumbled and slipped, but Teresa did not slow down. "Be glad it's not snow," she said.

  Daylight revealed a landscape of scrubby vegetation in which rocky outcrops stuck up like tombstones. The rain continued, and a cold mist obscured the distance.

  After a while, Lloyd realized they were walking downhill. At the next rest stop, Teresa announced: "We are now in Spain." Lloyd should have been relieved, but he just felt exhausted.

  Gradually the landscape softened, rocks giving way to coarse grass and shrubs.

  Suddenly Teresa dropped to the ground and lay flat.

  The three men instantly did the same, not needing to be prompted. Following Teresa's gaze, Lloyd saw two men in green uniforms and peculiar hats: Spanish border guards, presumably. He realized that being in Spain did not mean he was out of trouble. If he was caught entering the country illegally he might just be sent back. Worse, he could disappear into one of Franco's prison camps.

  The border guards were walking along a mountain track toward the fugitives. Lloyd prepared himself for a fight. He would have to move fast, in order to overcome them before they could draw their guns. He wondered how good the other two men would be in a fracas.

  But his trepidation was unnecessary. The two guards reached some unmarked boundary and then turned back. Teresa acted as if she had known this would happen. When the guards disappeared from sight, she stood up and the four of them walked on.

  Soon afterward the mist lifted. Lloyd saw a fishing village around a sandy bay. He had been here before, when he came to Spain in 1936. He even remembered that there was a railway station.

  They walked into the village. It was a sleepy place, with no signs of officialdom: no police, no town hall, no soldiers, no checkpoints. Doubtless that was why Teresa had chosen it.

  They went to the station and Teresa bought tickets, flirting with the vendor as if they were old friends.

  Lloyd sat on a bench on the shady platform, footsore, weary, grateful, and happy.

  An hour later they caught a train to Barcelona.

  v

  Daisy had never before understood the meaning of work.

  Or tiredness.

  Or tragedy.

  She sat in a school classroom, drinking sweet English tea out of a cup with no saucer. She wore a steel helmet and rubber boots. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and she was still weary from the night before.

  She was part of the Aldgate district Air Raid Precautions sector. Theoretically she worked an eight-hour shift followed by eight hours on standby and eight hours off duty. In practise she worked as long as the air raid continued and there were wounded people to be driven to the hospital.

  London was bombed every single night of October 1940.

  Daisy always worked with one other woman, the driver's attendant, and four men, forming a first-aid party. Their headquarters was in a school, and now they were sitting at the children's desks, waiting for the planes to come and the sirens to wail and the bombs to fall.

  The ambulance she drove was a converted American Buick. They also had a normal car and driver to transport what they called sitting cases--injured people who could nevertheless sit upright without assistance while being transported to hospital.

  Her attendant was Naomi Avery, an attractive blond cockney who liked men and enjoyed the camaraderie of the team. Now she bantered with the post warden, Nobby Clarke, a retired policeman. "The chief warden is a man," she said. "The district warden is a man. You're a man."

  "I hope so," Nobby said, and the others chuckled.

  "Th
ere are plenty of women in ARP," Naomi went on. "How come none of them are officials?"

  The men laughed. A bald man with a big nose called Gorgeous George said: "Here we go, women's rights again." He had a misogynist streak.

  Daisy joined in. "You don't really think all you men are smarter than all of us women, do you?"

  Nobby said: "Matter of fact, there are some women senior wardens."

  "I've never met one," said Naomi.

  "It's tradition, isn't it," Nobby said. "Women have always been homemakers."

  "Like Catherine the Great of Russia," Daisy said sarcastically.

  Naomi put in: "Or Queen Elizabeth of England."

  "Amelia Earhart."

  "Jane Austen."

  "Marie Curie, the only scientist ever to win the Nobel Prize twice."

  "Catherine the Great?" said Gorgeous George. "Isn't there a story about her and her horse?"

  "Now, now, ladies present," said Nobby in a tone of reproof. "Anyway, I can answer Daisy's question," he went on.

  Daisy, willing to be his foil, said: "Go on, then."

  "I grant you that some women may be just as clever as a man," he said with the air of one who makes a remarkably generous concession. "But there is one very good reason why almost all ARP officials are men, nevertheless."

  "And what would that reason be, Nobby?"

  "It's very simple. Men won't take orders from a woman." He sat back with a triumphant expression, confident that he had won the argument.

  The irony was that when the bombs were falling, and they were digging through the rubble to rescue the injured, they were equals. There was no hierarchy then. If Daisy shouted at Nobby to pick up the other end of a roof beam he would do it without demur.

  Daisy loved these men, even George. They would give their lives for her, and she for them.

  She heard a low hooting sound outside. Slowly it rose in pitch until it became the tiresomely familiar siren of an air raid warning. Seconds later there was the boom of a distant explosion. The warning was often late; sometimes it sounded after the first bombs had fallen.

  The phone rang and Nobby picked it up.

  They all stood up. George said wearily: "Don't the Germans ever take a ruddy day off?"

  Nobby put the phone down and said: "Nutley Street."

  "I know where that is," said Naomi as they all hurried out. "Our M.P. lives there."

  They jumped into the cars. As Daisy put the ambulance in gear and drove off, Naomi, sitting beside her, said: "Happy days."