The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir who got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe

by Romain Puertolas

  He turned round and pointed at the six black men sitting in the fourth row.

  ‘So, if I understand correctly, of the three of us, none came from Barcelona,’ said the Moroccan.

  ‘I doubt we’re the only ones like that on this aeroplane,’ concluded the Pakistani.

  ‘If all you need is a guitar or a moustache for the English to suspect you of coming from Spain, then yes, I have a feeling you’re right about that . . .’

  He pointed discreetly at a man in the same row as them who wore a thick brown moustache and a black canvas hat.

  ‘My friends, just think of this as a free holiday paid for by the Queen!’ declared a thick Russian-accented voice from somewhere behind them. ‘They put me on this frigging aeroplane because I rolled my rrs!’

  SOMEWHERE IN THE pile of rubbish at the local dump, next to which the Palourde family had set up camp, a rusty alarm clock announced it was 8 a.m.

  ‘By this time, he should be in England,’ muttered Gustave. He was sitting at a camping table, a million miles from imagining that the object of his thoughts was at that very moment 20,000 feet above him, stuck between an asthmatic Moroccan and a flatulent Pakistani, on an aeroplane flying south at terrific speed.

  As he spoke, he caressed the sharpened blade of his Opinel knife. His only consolation was that the gorgio was travelling in the trailer of a heavy goods vehicle, locked inside a wooden crate without food or water. With a little luck, the thirst would slowly kill him, like a rat in a trap. It was a shame, though – he would have liked to deal with him personally, making him suffer very, very slowly.

  Something moved inside the caravan.

  His wife Mercedes-Shayana appeared on the doorstep in a flowery dressing gown. Then it was the turn of their daughter, Miranda-Jessica, to show her face, which was plastered in make-up and crowned by her blonde, dishevelled hair.

  ‘You went out again last night!’ said Gustave reproachfully, pointing a threatening finger at his daughter. ‘I’d told you to stay in the house [the caravan] because you needed to rest. Look at the state of you now!’

  ‘I don’t care, as long as Kevin-Jésus doesn’t see me like this. Anyway, I’ll sleep on the plane.’

  ‘Oh great, so Kevin-Jésus is back on the scene,’ said her father sarcastically. ‘I thought it was all over with him?’

  Miranda-Jessica just yawned in reply.

  ‘You’re like a broken record, Gus. Leave the kid alone.’

  The mother had just sat down at the little camping table and was pouring herself some of the coffee her husband had made when he got up. She put down the Thermos and buttered a slice of toast for Miranda-Jessica, who sat next to her.

  ‘Anyway, you two had better get off your arses unless you want us to miss our plane!’ shouted the taxi driver, getting to his feet and stalking off to warm up the car’s engine.

  Twice a year, in an unchangeable ritual, Gustave Palourde, his wife and their daughter would leave the family house (caravan) to go on holiday. The first trip was to the gypsy festival in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Each 24 May since the Middle Ages, the gypsies had reunited in the Camargue to celebrate their patron saint, Sarah, the wax statue of whom, crying golden tears, they carried to the seaside church. More than a pilgrimage, this gathering allowed them to see friends from the diaspora who were scattered all over the world. Some of them came from more than two thousand miles away to take part in the event. The Palourde family had a seven-hour drive in Gustave’s taxi, fitted out especially for the occasion. For a few years now, they had been going without their caravan (house), spending the night in the home of their cousins, whom they had known as children, lost touch with, and then reconnected with later.

  For Gustave and his wife, it was the most exciting event of the year. For their daughter, it was the exact opposite, a heartbreaking nightmare. Firstly, because it meant she had to leave her current lover, and she was always afraid that, in her absence, he would find someone prettier than her, even though there were no gypsy girls prettier than her. Secondly, because long processions featuring thousands of gypsies dressed in black, weeping and yelling under the burden of a statue weighing several hundred pounds, was not necessarily the kind of activity designed to appeal to a teenage girl. And, what’s more, the long black dresses and veils did not suit her at all. She had never liked Madonna’s style. She was much more into the flashy, quirky style of Lady Gaga. Her only consolation was that she was able to go to the arenas at night and cop off with the young men taking part in the Toro Piscine1 or the blunted-horn bull races.2

  The second event of the year happened in early August – now, in other words. Gustave took a week off and they caught a plane to Barcelona to spend the money they had worked hard all year to earn. They owned a real brick house there, which had previously belonged to a great-uncle who, towards the end of his life, had no longer been able to bear the dampness of caravans.

  Miranda-Jessica did not have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to Barcelona. There was no lack of nightclubs and boys in the Catalan capital. She knew the hottest venues off by heart – those in the Maremagnum, the Barrio Gotico and the fantastic Port Olímpic, where she would stay up all night, shaking her booty to her favourite songs.

  Which is why, on this particular morning, missing the plane was unthinkable. So the teenage girl drank her chocolate milk down in two swallows and got up to change in the caravan. She squeezed herself into a pair of faded denim shorts consisting of a few square inches of material, put on a yellow bikini top, six-inch heels decorated with diamanté, and emerged carrying a large handbag under her arm. She would take a shower that afternoon, on Barceloneta Beach.

  Her mother would do the same. But it was inconceivable for her not to apply a fresh layer of make-up. So Mercedes-Shayana plastered some foundation on her face, spread Rimmel on her lashes, and smeared fuchsia-pink lipstick over her lips. She did not remove her flowery dressing gown, as she thought it was very summery and Spanish and therefore perfect for the occasion, but added some pink Lycra leggings and a pair of beach sandals.

  ‘What a beautiful bevy of women!’ exclaimed Gustave, shoving the luggage into the boot of his car.

  Then he got behind the steering wheel, making the little wooden beads of his seat cover creak as he did so.

  THE BELLS OF the church clock tower situated opposite the police station announced it was 8 a.m.

  ‘By this time, he should be in England,’ muttered Police Commander Alexandra Fouliche, sitting at her desk.

  All the same, she was not going to ask a judge for an international arrest warrant because a taxi driver had been conned out of €100. She would look like an idiot. And you know how much she hated the thought of that. She would rather have paid the man back his €100 from her own pocket and preserved her dignity.

  So the police commander closed the file on Gustave Palourde, Gypsy Taxis, and threw it into the graveyard of abandoned cases, a large drawer like those you see at the chemist’s, where it joined 150 other cases fit only to disappear from the face of the Earth. After that, she stood up and went to join the others at the coffee machine.

  Walking past the two-way mirror that they used for identifications (‘line-ups’, as they called them on American TV shows), she thought she had aged overnight. Large dark rings shadowed her eyes like two parentheses that no longer had the strength to stand straight. This job is slowly eating me alive, she thought. I need a holiday.

  * * *

  1 A game where bulls are ridden through a swimming pool.

  2 The bulls wear balls or champagne corks on their horns, so that the participants are not injured.

  Spain

  WALKING PAST THE floor-to-ceiling windows of the arrivals lounge in Barcelona Airport, Ajatashatru thought he had aged overnight. Large dark rings shadowed his eyes like two parentheses that no longer had the strength to stand straight. This trip is slowly eating me alive, he thought. I need a comfortable bed.

  He no longer looked even remotely like
a wealthy Indian industrialist. He now had the shop-soiled appearance of an illegal alien and he understood why the policeman who had interrogated him had not believed his Ikea story. He would have thought the same thing, in Officer Simpson’s place.

  The large digital clock on the wall of the arrivals lounge indicated that it was exactly midday. Above all, the fact that he was in the arrivals lounge indicated his freedom. The Spanish immigration services, when he was taken to see them by his British escort, had barely even looked at his papers. As his passport was in order, they had grudgingly pointed him, along with three other lucky passengers, towards the nearest exit.

  The clock also indicated that, at this time, Ajatashatru should have been at Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport, nearly seven hundred miles from here, waiting for the aeroplane that would take him back to India, with a new bed of nails in his luggage.

  But all of that belonged to his old life.

  While he walked through the brand-new Terminal 1 towards the baggage claim area – an obligatory trip even for those without suitcases – the Indian swore that from now on, he would not do anything else illegal. He thought about what Marie had said to him. It’s so good to meet someone sincere and genuine like you. The kind of person who does good and spreads that goodness around them. He thought again of the story of Assefa, the leader of the Sudanese Jackson Six, whom he had just left in the passport control area with Kougri, Basel, Mohammed, Nijam and Amsalu (they did not have passports and would be there for a while yet). The two men had parted with an emotional hug, each wishing the other good luck on their journey. ‘Mektoub,’ Assefa had said. ‘It was written. We were meant to meet.’

  The North Africans were going to try to enter Great Britain again. They believed in their promised land just as the first colonists had believed in America when they saw its coastline on the horizon. They would go back up through Spain, across France, and stop in Calais to wait for passage to England, hidden between crates of onions or cabbages.

  ‘What about you? What are you going to do?’ Assefa had asked him.

  ‘Me? I don’t know yet. I’ll probably visit Barcelona, seeing as I’m here. Even though I don’t have any money.’

  He decided not to tell his friend that he was going to try to become a good person, that his life had changed, and that he too now wanted someone to help and to provide for.

  He also kept to himself his thoughts about Marie and the crazy plans that were taking seed in his mind.

  As incredible as it may seem, it was with these thoughts of love, compassion and fraternity filling his head that our fakir found himself face to face with the Parisian taxi driver whom he had conned the day before, nearly seven hundred miles from here. The man was arm in arm with what appeared to be two prostitutes and was staring at the Indian with a desperate desire to kill him.

  The first thing Gustave Palourde did when he came face to face with the Indian was stare at him with a desperate desire to kill him.

  ‘Gorgio, I knew I would see you again one day!’

  The taxi driver was not even momentarily surprised to see the Indian here, in Barcelona, though only three hours earlier he had imagined him in England, still trapped like a rat in the trailer of a truck on its way towards the most northerly latitudes of the globe. Gustave was naturally impulsive, and his anger often overwhelmed his logical and analytical abilities.

  There was no need to be a mind-reader (although Ajatashatru excelled in that particular discipline) nor to speak French (in this case, the difficult-to-comprehend French of an irate gypsy) in order to understand that our fakir ought not to hang around the area very long. But he did not have time to move a muscle.

  ‘I’m going to kill you!’ yelled Gustave, who wanted to kill him.

  Saying this, he smashed him in the head with the ice cooler he had just taken from the baggage carousel.

  ‘I love his pierced lips!’ exclaimed his daughter, who had never been allowed to pierce her lips.

  ‘Who is he?’ asked his wife, who was seeing this man – a turban on his head, olive-skinned face, huge moustache, tall and thin and gnarled like a tree – for the first time in her life.

  Quickly realising that he was not a family friend, she joined forces with her husband and bravely hit the stranger in the ribs with her very full crocodile calfskin bag.

  Ajatashatru, surprised by the sudden attack mounted on him by these amateur Gipsy Kings, had not been able to evade the fifteen-pound ice cooler, which banged into his cheek, nor the crocodile bag, which struck him in the ribs. Naturally skinny, he was projected like a wind-blown feather onto the baggage carousel for a flight coming from Majorca. For a brief moment, he lay there motionless, more out of strategy (playing dead) than pain (although, now you mention it . . .), between a pushchair and a mountain of boxes of ensaïmadas (you don’t know what that is? Neither did he). But when he opened his eyes – very carefully, in case the gypsy was waiting for him to do that before smashing him in the face with the ice cooler again – the Indian realised that he had played dead for slightly too long.

  Just like Alice, the fakir had passed through to the other side of the looking glass – or, to be more accurate, the baggage depot. The machine that vomited bags had swallowed him like a common suitcase that had already been around the carousel, unclaimed by anyone.

  His face burned with pain.

  Gingerly, he touched his cheek. A multitude of tiny ice crystals, probably thrown from the ice cooler at the moment of impact, had lodged in the scars left behind by the chronic acne that had ravaged his face when he was a teenager.

  The left half of his face was numb and frozen, as if he’d been smashed in the face with an ice cooler, which was in fact the case, or as if he’d been hit by an iron that had been left too long in a very cold room, which is, I acknowledge, a very odd analogy.

  Goodness gracious! he thought suddenly. Because while it was true that he had managed to escape the madman and his harpies, there was perhaps worse yet to come.

  Indeed, he now found himself in the secure (and thus forbidden) zone of a major European airport, which was not the best way of keeping his promise to return to the straight and narrow.

  If any police had passed by at that moment, they would have seen a poor man’s Aladdin who had swapped his magic carpet for a baggage carousel. And if the Spanish had been as competent and efficient as their English counterparts, as soon as they had overcome their shock, Aladdin would have found himself – before he had time to say ‘Phew’, and in accordance with the same international readmission agreements that had caused him to be sent here – somewhere between the North Pole and Iceland, for the good and simple reason that he had been discovered with little ice crystals embedded in his cheeks.

  So, like a criminal seeking to rid himself of damning evidence, the fakir vigorously rubbed his face with the sleeve of his shirt while the carousel continued to carry him along its meandering path into the depot.

  TOM CRUISE-JESÚS Cortés Santamaría had spent the past five minutes looking at himself in the rear-view mirror of the little red-and-yellow golf cart belonging to the airline company Iberia.

  Though he was only twenty-eight, he thought he had aged overnight. Large dark rings shadowed his eyes like two parentheses that no longer had the strength to stand straight. This job insecurity is slowly eating me alive, he thought. I need a permanent contract.

  As he was about to drive back into the baggage depot, a man carrying an ice cooler strode towards him. He was accompanied by a woman in a flowery dressing gown who looked like she had just got out of the bath and a teenage girl dressed like those professionals he saw by the side of the road on his way to work.

  ‘Señor, my suitcase has been eaten by the machine,’ said the man in fluent Spanish with the hint of a French accent.

  Having decided not to let the Indian escape him this time, this was the only excuse Gustave had come up with to enter the secure zone of the baggage depot. His large beer belly and lack of physical fitness prev
ented him jumping onto the carousel and following his enemy directly.

  ‘Just wait a bit, it’ll come back out,’ the baggage handler replied, tired of always having to respond to the idiotic requests of passengers whenever he was unlucky enough to find himself on this side of the terminal. ‘The carousel goes round in circles.’

  ‘I know, I know . . .’

  ‘But if you know, then why –’

  ‘Yes, but the problem is that my daughter is hypo!’ the Parisian taxi driver improvised, having seen that his plan A was not going to work.

  ‘Hyper? She looks pretty calm to me. Not to mention very pretty.’

  Flattered, Miranda-Jessica gave a shy smile and bowed her head, her cheeks aflame. The young Spaniard was very handsome in his blue uniform. Almost more handsome than Kevin-Jésus.

  ‘Not hyper – hypo!’ the gypsy corrected him, shouting to demonstrate the urgency of the situation. ‘Hypoglycaemic! My daughter is diabetic! She needs a GlucaGen injection straight away to get her blood sugar levels back up! And the GlucaGen is in the suitcase!’

  He had always wanted to replicate an episode of E.R., his favourite American TV series. The long-awaited day had finally arrived.

  ‘She doesn’t look sick,’ replied the baggage handler, unfazed by the man’s exigent demeanour.

  Gustave elbowed Miranda-Jessica, who immediately lifted up her head and put on the most pain-filled expression she could manage.

  ‘OK, I’m going,’ said the baggage handler, who preferred to give in to the tourist’s demand rather than stay there and talk about it.

  And, anyway, the girl was very cute.

  He started up his golf cart.

  ‘I’m coming with you. You don’t know which suitcase it is,’ said Gustave truthfully, placing the ice cooler on the floor and his large backside on the passenger seat.