began to pray.
There were six stand-bys this day, five young girls and a boy from a university in Sweden. They all said they didn’t care much where they went so long as there was sun, so Britta proposed: ‘If you don’t care, and if there’s only one seat on the Torremolinos plane, could I have it?’
‘We’ll go where they send us,’ one of the girls said.
‘At these prices you can’t be selective,’ the boy said.
So Britta stood by herself with her fists clenched, and when the travel man came to the stand-bys and said, ‘We have two seats for Torremolinos,’ she almost knocked him down as she leaped forward, and even when she was strapped in her seat she was afraid to relax, but when the huge SAS jet finally sped down the runway and left the ground, she was at last satisfied that her protracted dream was to be a reality, and disregarding the startled passengers around her, she threw her arms high in the air and shouted, ‘It happened!’
When the jet landed at Málaga and the two hundred Scandinavian tourists disembarked, a curious thing happened. As they entered the airport they ran into anothertwo hundred whose vacation had ended and who were returning to Scandinavia, and as the two groups passed, there was vibrant excitement showing in one set of faces, dejection in the other, for the first were coming into sunlight, the latter were heading back into the tunnel. Men tourists on their way home masked their faces in stolid acceptance, consoling themselves with the fact that as between modern Sweden and archaic Spain, there was really no choice; any man in his right mind would prefer Sweden with its insurance, its fine hospitals, its even finer schools and its just, democratic government freed from clerical influences. But the young girls, tanned by the wintry sun, did not so deceive themselves; they had loved Spain and wanted to remain, at least till summer reached the north-lands, and their faces were often clothed in gloom: ‘I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go home!’ they seemed to be chanting, like the chorus in some Scandinavian saga.
Britta Bjørndahl’s first view of Spain, exceeded her expectations: for once the travel posters had not lied. The day was bright and there was a sun, with fleecy clouds drifting in from the Mediterranean and warmth nestling against the mountains to the north. A covey of yellow buses pulled up to the airport entrance, and as the newcomers piled in, they saw the SAS jet refueling, like some huge bird impatient to return to its nest. Britta nodded to it as she went past. ‘Go home!’ she whispered. ‘I shall not be needing you again.’
The trip from Málaga to Torremolinos required less than twenty minutes but it represented a journey from one civilization to another: golf links waiting in the sun, small restaurants with patios open to the sky, glimpses of a Mediterranean more deeply colored than sapphire, and surprisingly, a cluster of twenty-seven skyscrapers marking the official beginning of the town. The buses sped directly through Torremolinos, turned left toward the sea, and pulled up in a neat convoy before a new seventeen-story hotel called the Northern Lights, whose staff was completely Scandinavian. With the efficiency that came from handling such incoming groups twice each week throughout the year, the blond young men behind the desk distributed numbers and room keys as fast as the tourists entered the lobby and handed them printed cards which explained how to get to their rooms and from there to the dining hall. Within six minutes of having descended fromthe bus, Britta was carrying her small bag off the elevator onto the sixteenth floor. Pushing open her assigned door, she found a Swedish girl who introduced herself as Sigrid and who said within the first minute of greeting, ‘I have to go back on Friday.’
Britta’s first question was one she would repeat constantly for the next two weeks: ‘Is it possible to find work
There were six stand-bys this day, five young girls and a boy from a university in Sweden. They all said they didn’t care much where they went so long as there was sun, so Britta proposed: ‘If you don’t care, and if there’s only one seat on the Torremolinos plane, could I have it?’
‘We’ll go where they send us,’ one of the girls said.
‘At these prices you can’t be selective,’ the boy said.
So Britta stood by herself with her fists clenched, and when the travel man came to the stand-bys and said, ‘We have two seats for Torremolinos,’ she almost knocked him down as she leaped forward, and even when she was strapped in her seat she was afraid to relax, but when the huge SAS jet finally sped down the runway and left the ground, she was at last satisfied that her protracted dream was to be a reality, and disregarding the startled passengers around her, she threw her arms high in the air and shouted, ‘It happened!’
When the jet landed at Málaga and the two hundred Scandinavian tourists disembarked, a curious thing happened. As they entered the airport they ran into anothertwo hundred whose vacation had ended and who were returning to Scandinavia, and as the two groups passed, there was vibrant excitement showing in one set of faces, dejection in the other, for the first were coming into sunlight, the latter were heading back into the tunnel. Men tourists on their way home masked their faces in stolid acceptance, consoling themselves with the fact that as between modern Sweden and archaic Spain, there was really no choice; any man in his right mind would prefer Sweden with its insurance, its fine hospitals, its even finer schools and its just, democratic government freed from clerical influences. But the young girls, tanned by the wintry sun, did not so deceive themselves; they had loved Spain and wanted to remain, at least till summer reached the north-lands, and their faces were often clothed in gloom: ‘I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go home!’ they seemed to be chanting, like the chorus in some Scandinavian saga.
Britta Bjørndahl’s first view of Spain, exceeded her expectations: for once the travel posters had not lied. The day was bright and there was a sun, with fleecy clouds drifting in from the Mediterranean and warmth nestling against the mountains to the north. A covey of yellow buses pulled up to the airport entrance, and as the newcomers piled in, they saw the SAS jet refueling, like some huge bird impatient to return to its nest. Britta nodded to it as she went past. ‘Go home!’ she whispered. ‘I shall not be needing you again.’
The trip from Málaga to Torremolinos required less than twenty minutes but it represented a journey from one civilization to another: golf links waiting in the sun, small restaurants with patios open to the sky, glimpses of a Mediterranean more deeply colored than sapphire, and surprisingly, a cluster of twenty-seven skyscrapers marking the official beginning of the town. The buses sped directly through Torremolinos, turned left toward the sea, and pulled up in a neat convoy before a new seventeen-story hotel called the Northern Lights, whose staff was completely Scandinavian. With the efficiency that came from handling such incoming groups twice each week throughout the year, the blond young men behind the desk distributed numbers and room keys as fast as the tourists entered the lobby and handed them printed cards which explained how to get to their rooms and from there to the dining hall. Within six minutes of having descended fromthe bus, Britta was carrying her small bag off the elevator onto the sixteenth floor. Pushing open her assigned door, she found a Swedish girl who introduced herself as Sigrid and who said within the first minute of greeting, ‘I have to go back on Friday.’
Britta’s first question was one she would repeat constantly for the next two weeks: ‘Is it possible to find work
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