The commandant warned her that as she headed north, closer to the territory held by the Nationalists, she might encounter enemy aircraft, mostly German. They did not, as a rule, go out on regular patrols, but there was still some danger that she might blunder into a bombing group. Nobody had been expecting the Guernica attack; it had occurred in the middle of the afternoon, on a market day, sunshine and stalls and fresh food brought in from the country farms, then out of the clear blue sky came the grind of propeller engines, bombs whining through the air and exploding everywhere. So keep your eyeballs peeled, Señorita Foster, the commandant said, proud of his command of American idiom. As Irene flew northward over the deserts and plains of central Spain, she wondered if he’d learned that phrase from Sam.

Because there was no airstrip at Guernica—or if there was, it was destroyed—Irene flew to Bilbao, which was about ten miles to the west. Four hundred miles separated Bilbao on the northern coast of Spain from the air base at El Carmoli on the southwestern coast, a flight of less than three hours for such a powerful airplane as the Sirius, but Irene would be crossing the frontiers of this war twice, from Republican to Nationalist territory and back again. Later, Irene remembered thinking how remote you were, flying two and a half miles above the earth. You would never have known this country was at war: it just looked like any old landscape. First she flew over the deserts of Valencia, then the hills and valleys of Aragon that grew into the deserts and mountains of Navarre. As she hurried north, the arid blue sky took on clouds. The ground became green and fertile. She passed from Republican territory into Nationalist territory, and there was no change at all. She would not have known the difference. She crossed into the ancient country of the Basques, where the Republicans still held control of a strip of land bordering the sea. Somewhere ahead lay the Bay of Biscay, that graveyard of ships, that cauldron of notorious weather. Five miles from the coast, along a river estuary, grew the town called Guernica, of which Irene had never heard until now: a town of only seven thousand souls, but vast significance to the Basque people. As Irene began descending into Bilbao, she looked east, in the direction of Guernica. She saw only fields, some woods, wisps of smoke, roads crawling with tiny vehicles. There was something there, but you couldn’t tell what it was.