Page 143 - Exile-ebook

142 AN EXILE OF THE MIND CHEAP WINE AND PAELLA 143

Cheap wine and paella

Stopped at gunpoint in Bulgaria. The night the roof
disappeared. The stern Swiss judge and the campervan.
Down and out in France.

ight faded into chill darkness on a narrow road skirted by houses,
Lshabby and uninviting. We heard Slavic words not understood,
from a figure chasing us waving a gun. Uncertain whether to hit the
accelerator and flee, or lock ourselves in and hide under a blanket,
we screeched to a halt. A plain-clothed policeman wagged a finger
at our number plate covered in mud. With the sleeve of his coat he
wiped it clean and allowed us to drive on.
We had crossed over into Bulgaria by taking a wrong turn from
Thessaloniki on our way to Turkey. Entry papers were demanded
for the campervan and I tendered instead a receipt from a hotel in
Greece, officially inked with rubber stamps. Satisfied, the border
guards added a stamp of their own and let us through. We drove
northerly to Sofia and took a right turn to Istanbul.
The camper carried also an American artist, his wife and two
children, our neighbours on Paros. With six people already huddled
in a sardine scrunch, we stopped to pick up a young boy on his way
to his village. The lad beamed fumes of garlic at us as we drove with
our heads craning out of windows to suck in the fresh air.
With the American family safely back in Athens, we drove
through the Balkans with Zagreb quickly passed to reach the
enchanting city of Venice. Motoring along the stunning coast of the
Riviera we saw tourists descending from the chilly north in droves,
enticed by a warmer sun, the sea, romance and cheap wine.

The resort town of Antibes on the Côte d’Azur.