Lost Luggage

by Jordi Puntí

  “You don’t want one, do you?”

  “No, thanks, it’d probably poison me,” Rita shot back, but took one anyway. Then she looked him up and down, feigning scientific objectivity. “Have you lost weight? You look skinnier.”

  Leiva, a good fellow, didn’t understand she was messing with him. His blue work coat was too tight as usual, straining over his belly.

  “Maybe I have,” he said smugly. “It’s because of the flu, but I’ll soon put those kilos back on, I can assure you.”

  He gave emphasis to his words by undoing one button of the coat and pulling it open as if it were about to explode. It was then that Rita noticed the shirt he was wearing underneath.

  “That shirt . . . Let’s see. Take off your coat, Leiva. Please.”

  Leiva needed no further encouragement and revealed a flannel shirt in a moiré black-and-white herringbone pattern so garish that it hurt the eyes.

  “You like it, eh? It’s the first day I’ve worn it. And the last. It makes me sweat too much.”

  Rita recognized in a flash the horrible shirt that Bundó was wearing in the photo she’d been shown the day they buried him. There couldn’t be two the same. That was inconceivable, and Leiva was wearing it with exactly the same sloppy indifference.

  “Where did you get it?” she demanded.

  Leiva moved a little closer and lowered his voice.

  “Here. You know. Our business . . .” and he winked, not knowing how otherwise to hint at their shared secret.

  “When was that? I don’t remember . . .”

  “Must’ve been three weeks ago. It was one of those days when you were so busy with other bags and you told us you didn’t want anything, that it was all ours.”

  “It wasn’t a black canvas bag, was it?”

  “No, I don’t think so . . .” Leiva was evidently unsure of himself and scared of blowing it. After all, Rita was the boss when it came to stray luggage. He ran his hand over his greasy hair in an effort to recall. “No, now I remember. It was one of those khaki bags, like those big army ones. I don’t know if you remember it . . .”

  “Sounds familiar. Yes.”

  “It looked full but, the thing is, when we opened it up, it was almost empty and inside there was . . . yeah, that’s right, there was another bag inside it. And it was black. I remember it now because when we discovered it, Sayago came out with one of those sayings of his: ‘The big fish has eaten the little fish.’ The Lufthansa people didn’t give a shit and shoved it in there, I suppose, to save space on the plane.”

  “And why didn’t you tell me the next day?”

  “You were so hot and bothered dealing with your own stuff that we didn’t want to worry you, girl. You’d passed out, as I recall, and you looked very peaked. And there was nothing valuable in it anyway. Useless stuff like a rusty bottle opener and some old sunglasses. You know. This shirt was the best part of the loot!”

  “And what did you do with the bag? Weren’t there any papers? Or some address?”

  “Yes, I’d say so. But I reckon we threw the whole lot away, like we always do . . .”

  “Poor you, if you did!”

  “No, hang on. No, of course we didn’t!” Leiva immediately exclaimed, wanting to set things right. “Porras kept it. There was a folder, just like some minister would have, from the Spanish embassy or something like that in Germany, and we were so impressed we couldn’t throw it into any old wastepaper basket. I think he’s still got it in his locker.”

  “Well, you can just go and look for him and tell him to bring it to me right now!” Rita was beside herself and Leiva barely recognized her. “You’ve got no idea what I’d give to have that folder!”

  Rita’s words, of such surprising vehemence, rained down on her partner in crime like lashes from a whip, and he scuttled off like a man possessed to go and find Porras.

  Within ten minutes Rita had the consulate folder in her hands and was caressing it with a despot’s greed. The black canvas bag had been lost along the way, dumped in some anonymous garbage bin, and the objects it sheltered had met a similar unfortunate fate. They were the inevitable losses, the victims of friendly fire, leaving more space for maneuvre in the operation of closing in on Gabriel.

  Now a few words about Rita. When I push her into the torture chamber of memories—because, yes, I do that to her and am a bad son—my mother admits that she spent the energy reserves of half a lifetime in that period. She puts it like this:

  “My natural state then was wakefulness, vigilance, being on the alert, a state of ecstasy that drove me day and night, a courage I’ve never known since. It’s because I was living in the future and not in the present (the present was only a springboard), and, as everyone knows, when you pine for something it’s quite easy to get your imagination to come up with the five extra letters you need to turn pine into happiness. When I was walking up and down that toy-size Barcelona I never doubted, not even for a single second, that I’d end up bumping into Gabriel. I knew he wouldn’t run away from me. It was enough to have looked into his eyes during those five minutes at the airport.”

  “This business of love at first sight, without knowing the person . . . it makes me think you were in love with love,” I tell her. “There are people like that. Maybe Gabriel was just a screen onto which you projected . . .”

  “No, no, it’s not like that at all,” she cuts me off, very sure of herself. She doesn’t like me interrupting her with silly theories. “The proof is that I never again repeated the same error. I was in love with Gabriel and that’s that. In love with a future with Gabriel. Not all love stories have to be conventional, do they?” I can see she’s getting upset. “So you think I never had any other opportunities? I was twenty-one with a personality forged to struggle against family misfortunes and loneliness and I don’t know which was worse. I’d learned to take care of myself. More than one traveler with a stuffed wallet (which they showed me without the slightest embarrassment!) proposed to me on the spot, at the Cage, standing there at the counter five minutes after laying eyes on me for the first time. Maybe I should have taken them up on it . . . Who knows where I’d be now. You, nowhere, my little one, that’s for sure. You wouldn’t be anywhere.”

  Okay. I get the hint—I always get it—and hold my tongue. At the age of fourteen or fifteen I begged her never to say “my little one” ever again, but on these occasions it’s her secret weapon.

  When she finished at the airport, Rita bore the folder off to her apartment. She carried it with extreme care, like a chaste student pressing it tight against her breast, wary of anyone who went near her. She could have opened it on the train but she didn’t dare to look at it in public. Once she got through her front door, caution flowered into adoration. She left the folder on the dining-room table ready for examination. First, however, she got changed, went to the loo, and fixed herself a cup of hot milk and some chocolate, which is what she did when she wanted to watch a good film on TV or read the last chapter of whatever novel she was into. Nothing was going to disturb her. There was no hurry and she was enjoying prolonging the suspense. Destiny had promised her and then withheld so many things, she told herself, that it had no right to disappoint her this time.

  Two months earlier, in the car that was taking him to the airport, Gabriel had put the contents of the folder in order. Now, in reverse, trying to roll things back, Rita set about correcting that past.

  Inspecting the Pegaso papers was fascinating because they brought her physically closer to Gabriel: Most of the sheets were marked with greasy fingerprints, some of which had to be his. The international driver’s licence and the route plans seemed cryptic and of little interest. The publicity leaflets for the apartments in Via Favència confirmed she’d been spying in the right place but didn’t stir up any nostalgia for that weekend mislaid between wretched coldness and wretched coldness. It was obvious that the remaining papers were boring company circulars, crumpled receipts from moves dating back five years (but to her sta
rstruck eyes they became autographs penned by Gabriel, who had frequently signed them), instructions and addresses at which loads of furniture were to be delivered . . . She went through all these items somewhat dejectedly, like an archivist on the point of retirement, until she detected a more recent one. It bore the “La Ibérica Transport and Moving” logo, and, on reading it, she let out a cry of happiness. Rita had before her the sheet of paper that Rebeca had given to Gabriel and Bundó just before the last move, the one with the dates of their medical checkups. The message couldn’t have been more definitive. It was as if someone was communicating with her, giving her instructions.

  Dates of medical examinations of Gabriel Delacruz and Serafí Bundó

  (Yes, I know it would be better to do it all in one day but it’s impossible).

  Place: Transport Insurance Company. Clínica Platón, Calle Platón, 33.

  Thursday, April 20, 9 a.m. Blood test. It has to be done on an empty stomach—and that means no breakfast, Bundó.

  Friday, April 28, 10 a.m. Oculist. Doctor Trabal.

  Friday, May 5, 10.30 a.m. Ear, nose, and throat. Doctor Sadurní.

  Monday, May 8, 9 a.m. General checkup. Doctor Pacharán.

  The dance of figures and days intoxicated and muddled her. For a moment she seemed unable to interpret the jumble. What day was it today? Friday, already? Thursday? Thursday, April 27? Yes it was, wasn’t it? One of her colleagues at the Cage, a woman called Montse, had brought them some cakes from Tortosa in celebration of her name day. Or was that yesterday? She didn’t have a calendar at home and cursed herself for being so susceptible: One Saturday at the end of the year, she’d gone shopping in the market and, when she was paying, the butcher presented her with a pocket calendar with a photo of cute little kittens. It was ridiculous, cheesy, and she’d thrown it in the wastepaper basket, even knowing that she’d need it one day. The same thing happened every year. Now, all those dates had her completely flustered. She went out on to the landing and knocked at her neighbor’s door. A lady opened, wiping her hands on her apron. She must have been cooking dinner.

  “What day is it today?”

  “What?”

  “What day is it today, Mariona?”

  “Thursday, love.”

  “And what’s the date?”

  “Thursday, the twenty-seventh of April, feast day of the Virgin of Montserrat. But, tell me, Rita, what’s wrong? Come in. I’ve got a potato omelet cooking . . .”

  “No, thank you. Bye . . .”

  The words faded away along Rita’s hallway. She’d forgotten to close the door, as she’d done on so many other occasions, and the neighbor closed it for her. Meanwhile, Rita was calculating her chances of success. One of the dates was gone, history, but three more dates lay ahead, three more glorious chances—April 28th, May 5th, and May 8th—and all the calendars in the world should have them marked in red as holidays.

  The next day she phoned the Cage and told her colleagues that she’d woken up with an extremely swollen eye—a sty, that’s what it’s called, isn’t it?—and she had to go to the eye doctor. The lie, masquerading as half-truth, cheered her up and got her in the mood for coincidences. We might say, Christophers, that it was the Stanislavski System applied to the theatre of work. Bundó and Gabriel’s appointment with the eye specialist was at ten that morning. By half past nine, Rita had patrolled up and down past the clinic twenty times. At quarter to ten she went in, asked where the oculist was, and sat down in the waiting room. Three men were there ahead of her, but none of them was Gabriel. Or Bundó (that would have been the last straw). A receptionist asked what her name was in order to check her appointment time, and she explained that she was there to help a girlfriend.

  “She phoned me this morning and asked me to come,” she invented. “She’s not here yet. She says she’s got a swollen eye, I’m not sure if it’s the right or left one and, depending on what Dr. Trabal says, I might have to take her back home.”

  The receptionist believed her. Rita had brought all the papers—at last she had the perfect excuse to talk to Gabriel—and she was so nervous that she started picking at the plastic on the corners of the folder and peeling it back. The next few minutes went by with her attention oscillating from folder to door, door to folder as if she were watching a game of tennis.

  All the patients in the waiting room went in to see the doctor, and new ones arrived but Gabriel didn’t appear. At ten past ten, the receptionist stuck her head around the door.

  “Serafín Bundó.”

  She repeated the name. Since no one got up, she read another name.

  “Gabriel Delacruz.” Pause. The other patients looked at each other. “Gabriel Delacruz?”

  Rita felt so identified with the name that she was about to shout “Here” and go in to see the doctor herself, but then they called the next name on the list, and a girl got up. She waited ten minutes more, just in case, and then crept out with her tail between her legs. Unlike her other disasters, this new disappointment had her in despair. Like an actress who has trouble coming out of character after the show, she left the oculist’s office with blurry vision. Although the sun was shining, the outside world had turned into a diffuse melange of colors in which grays predominated. If she managed to focus, allowing things to recover their natural form, it was because she still had two bullets left to fire, on May 5th and 8th. In a flash of pragmatism, she promised herself that if Gabriel didn’t turn up on either of those dates she’d forget about him forever.

  She walked up Carrer Muntaner, trying to persuade herself of these arguments, when she thought she recognized him sitting on a bench in Plaça Adrià. He had his back to her, and she couldn’t see his face, but the appearance of the man—bony back, short hair, longish cranium—fitted with the image she had of him. Instant conjecture: Maybe he’d gone to the clinic and then had second thoughts; maybe he’d lost the address and didn’t know what to do now; maybe . . . Recently, before Rita had got her hands on those crucial dates, the city had been full of Gabriels, and these apparitions had become a constant in her everyday existence. In her walks around Barcelona, she could spend half an hour following a Gabriel candidate, or studying him until something convinced her it wasn’t him. Restrained by some sort of superstition she never directly approached them to ask their name. Now it seemed that, at long last, the situation warranted this, so she crossed the street. However, a girl got in ahead of her and, going up to the bench from behind, she covered his eyes with her hands, saying, “Guess who?” Three meters away, Rita heard the answer, and saw the man turn around and kiss the girl. No, that one wasn’t Gabriel either. Luckily.

  Now, it’s time to give an account of Bundó’s supernatural intervention. Parapsychology must have a name for this phenomenon, but I don’t know what it is. The fact is that on Friday morning, thirty hours before Gabriel’s appointment with suicide, he woke up with an excruciating earache. Expanding waves of pain had filtered into his sleep, swamping whatever dream he was having, and hadn’t stopped jabbing at him until he opened his eyes in a state of anguish. Searing pain shot out from deep inside his right ear. It gushed forth from his brain, radiating out in concentric circles to ravage all the nerve endings on that side of his skull. Pain surged through his blood with each beat of his heart. The few steps to the bathroom produced the distressing sensation of a continuous detonation of his eardrum. He realized that the ear was clogged with pus and he was totally deaf on that side. He looked in the mirror to make sure that the afflicted side of his face still existed. His right eyelid was twitching. Once Petroli had tried to describe the pain of a full-blown ear infection: “It’s like toothache but with all your molars at once.” He and Bundó had accused him of exaggerating, but now Gabriel conceded he was right. In such a situation he thought what all of us would have thought: “With this pain, I can’t kill myself tomorrow.”

  If it had ever sunk in, which is doubtful, Gabriel had forgotten that he had an appointment with the insurance company’s ENT man p
recisely that Friday. Furniture movers going around in trucks don’t have leather-bound diaries for writing these things down (they might steal them at times, but then they usually give them to somebody else). The procedure tended to be more pedestrian. Obliged by Senyor Casellas, Rebeca gave them the papers in question; they immediately mislaid them; two days before the doctor’s appointment, Rebeca reminded them, and they slotted it into their immediate memory. But this time, Rebeca hadn’t said anything to Gabriel because he no longer worked at La Ibérica. If the list of appointments no longer had any meaning for him after the accident, it meant everything to Rita, who’d rescued it and was clinging to it as if her life depended on it.

  Yet, the fact remains that Gabriel woke up that Friday morning with a dreadful earache.

  Since he’d got up and dressed, his ear had started suppurating, discharging a revolting green liquid that he stanched by wadding his ear with cotton puffs. It was nine in the morning. Unable to eat anything solid because each bite would have been torture, the truck driver Gabriel decided that his only option was to present himself at the Emergency Department of the insurance company’s clinic and get them to stop the pain. He arrived there an hour later, at ten o’clock, having changed buses twice to cross the city. The other passengers looked at him compassionately, and he felt that his ear was swelling with every blaze of pain. For the first time in all those months he’d wished he was in the La Ibérica van.

  When Gabriel was entering the Clínica Plató, Rita was walking up Carrer Muntaner. It was still too early for the appointment noted on the piece of paper but, as on the previous Friday, she wanted to get there in good time and monitor the entrance. Gabriel looked for the receptionist and asked for the Emergency Department. They wanted to know what the problem was. When they saw his ear in such a state, so red and purulent, they sent him straight to the ear, nose, and throat specialist. Once he got there, the nurse asked him for his insurance company card and, on reading his name, told him they were expecting him. He’d come early but they’d put him through straight away so he didn’t have to suffer any more. Gabriel told himself that such coincidences were pain-caused hallucinations.