Lost Luggage (24 page)

Once the first acid ripple had passed, Anna and the brothers started adapting to the new reality. Inside their heads, the nonstop movements of the ferry and the tempest battering the Channel turned into a thunder-and-lightning Wagnerian soundtrack. The seashell of the world encased them with maternal warmth. In the midst of the airy cavalcade of these sensations Anna's thoughts fixed on a horse with a wild mane. And all of a sudden, with hyperreal, visionary clarity, she understood that she had a mission, and that mission was to liberate the horse that was dying of a broken heart down in the hold of the
Viking III.
She got up, kissed the brothers on the forehead and, tugging at the silver threads that joined all three, explained that they had to go and find a horse called Sans Merci and take him to the English coast. The two young Frenchmen followed her somewhat cagily.

Exeunt omnes.

Meanwhile, at the poker table, Gabriel and Bundó were losing. They were being massacred. Monsieur Champion and Ibrahim's winning streak was leaving them stone broke. If they counted in pesetas, it wasn't such a huge sum but when that was turned into francs—as they'd agreed—the total was distressingly large. To make matters worse, every time he won a hand, the Frenchman poked fun at the truck drivers and Ibrahim giggled at his witticisms. Gabriel, who had rare insight into the psychology of the poker player, suspected that behind these outbursts of glee lurked a bent for bluffing, for lying and for winning without holding a good hand, yet he couldn't find the chink in the armor—a repeated
gesture, a way of breathing, the underlying tic that devious players can't control. Bundó was doubly on tenterhooks. He wasn't getting the right cards, and was waiting for the moment when Gabriel would ask for a bathroom break. They played four more hands. Gabriel won the first, but the next three went to the Frenchman and his groom, making the initial win look like a lousy tip. Just as he'd done the first time on the ferry, just as he always did, he asked for a break so he could go to the loo. Monsieur Champion looked him up and down, nodding magnanimously as if conceding a last-minute stay of execution.

Gabriel's intention was very clear: He was going to lock himself in the men's room and slip a few cards through the open cuff seams of his shirt. A couple of aces, a king, a queen at the most. The ace of spades hadn't turned up yet, had it? Well, he'd bring that out when it was needed. Cheating was an art too.

It was only after he'd walked a few steps, leaving behind the microcosm of the game of cards, that Gabriel realized that they were in the midst of the most incredible storm. Its movements made his head spin and he nearly fell. Any sense of time and space was gone. Hanging onto a chair, he looked at his watch and saw that they'd been playing for nearly two hours. Passing by his side, the English actor flung a few words by old Prospero in his face: “No more amazement: Tell your piteous heart there's no harm done.”

Not understanding a word, Gabriel ignored him and staggered off to the men's room. The last time he'd checked on Anna, although he couldn't say when that was, she was with the two hippies with the guitar. He saw their backpacks stowed under the stairs, but the three kids had disappeared. His eagerness to get back to the game of cards dispelled ominous niggling doubt. Lost in thought, he went into the men's room.

As he emerged with stiffened sleeves (which the other players wouldn't notice because they never noticed), he ran into a girl. I'd venture to say that, right then, that moment in October 1966, the only person in the world who could have distracted him from the game of cards was precisely that girl: Sarah. Sarah, twenty-two years old, red-headed, white-skinned, with bright, fearless eyes. Sarah,
in her white nurse's coat underneath which was a short, very short skirt: a precursor of swinging London fashions in her part of town.

Sarah, my future mum.

Gabriel was so flabbergasted that he lost track of everything. He was helped by the fact that she was carrying a small case marked with a red cross. A memory of three months earlier came back in a sweet pang. Their first and only meeting. Sarah had been doing work experience in the ferry's infirmary all that year. Three days a week she was on board for ten hours—four crossings—and she had to deal with the various incidents that cropped up. Seasickness, someone slipping on the deck, Scottish truck drivers brawling in the bar . . . nothing too serious. Despite the hassle of having to sleep three nights a week in a pension in the port of Dover, she found it quite a relaxing job. At that very moment, for example, with the boat at the mercy of the storm, she was calmly walking around handing out seasickness pills to the passengers.

Their first meeting had taken place in the summer during a smooth crossing. The waters were calm, Bundó and Gabriel had avoided the hordes of people by taking refuge in the bar and were fleecing the Frenchman in a game of cards. The pregnant girl was up on deck, basking in the faint sun that lit up the Channel on cloudless days. Then she fainted. A passenger half caught her as she fell and left her lying on the deck. Those nearest to her soon crowded around, and everyone had something to say. At her side, someone was trying to revive her, saying they had to let the air in, but the air was already there. The girl didn't regain consciousness. An overexcited passenger set off the alarm, and one minute later nurse Sarah appeared with her first-aid kit. She took the girl's pulse, looked up at the throng of people, and they all agreed it was nothing to get worked up about, but they'd take her down to the infirmary just in case. When they got there—two brawny Englishmen carrying her down—they saw Gabriel and Bundó coming along the passageway. After the alarm went off, the story had run the length and breadth of the boat. The infirmary was a minuscule room, and Sarah told them that only one person could come in. Bundó, who couldn't stand the sight of blood, disqualified himself
saying he was too fat for such a tiny space. Thus it was that Gabriel and Sarah were left alone behind the closed door of the infirmary. With the girl who'd fainted, of course.

“We laid her on the stretcher bed”—my mother recalled—“and before I could say anything, Gabriel gave me to understand, with sign language and touching his belly, that the girl was pregnant. I asked, ‘Are you the father?' His eyes went wide as saucers. I repeated the question, this time more slowly. ‘No, no, no, no. I only driver. Driver.' He was driving with an invisible steering wheel as he spoke. ‘To Londres. London. I . . . driver hospital. She . . . avortar in hospital.' He made another gesture, as if the girl's belly was a balloon and she wanted to make it explode. It was like playing charades. I nodded, letting him know I understood, giving him a soothing look. I have to admit that as soon as I set eyes on him and heard his babbling, he had me seduced. It's difficult to explain in any rational terms. When he wanted to speak, Gabriel shed that rigid look of his and became a stream of affection and concern. His gestures conveyed a kind of tenderness you never see in Englishmen. There was also a sort of Spanish machismo about him, something primitive and exotic and, I confess, I was doomed from the start. The taut muscles, suntanned skin, hot blood . . . When I looked at him, he made me think of a kettle full of cool water that, once on the fire, starts vibrating, showing its true temperament. There were so many stories about the impetuosity of Spanish men, and Gabriel seemed to be my one and only chance to experiment. I've always been one for trying everything.”

When they met up again on the day of the storm, a crumpled memory of unbuttoned shirts, a raised skirt, and unbridled lust took Gabriel and Sarah back to the infirmary. It was so clear that it usurped the reality. In fact, nothing much had happened so they'd had to create the fantasy after going their separate ways. Now they were mixing memory and desire. The facts of the first meeting were as follows. That day, Sarah revived the pregnant girl by waving smelling salts under her nose. Then she took her blood pressure and pulse and, seeing that everything was fine, advised her to go back up on deck and get some fresh air. When the girl
left, still trembling with fright, Sarah asked Gabriel to stay behind for a moment to sign her report. Then, without further ado, she shut the door and threw herself at him with predatory force. After the first instant of surprise, Gabriel understood the situation and went along with it (he always went along with any opportunity that came his way). Papers flew as they kissed, a box dropped and pills rolled around on the floor, medical instruments fell with a tremendous clatter, and, just as they were starting to get their clothes off, three blasts of the ship's siren announced they were coming into Dover. Loudspeakers summoned drivers downstairs to the car deck to get their vehicles ready to disembark. They were so steamed up that Sarah totally ignored it, but Gabriel was too responsible. He immediately stopped, sweaty and disoriented, and got dressed again as fast as he'd undressed. Before leaving, he gave Sarah a long kiss. “Another day,” he said, getting the English right when he whispered the words in her ear. The warmth of his voice, its soft tickling, had the effect of an anti-itch cream. Later, when the truck drivers and the pregnant girl were on their way to London, Sarah, tidying up the mess in the infirmary, found a poker card in one corner under the bed. As chance would have it, it was the king of hearts. “That's a nice touch,” she told herself. “These Spanish lovers are in a class of their own.”

This second time around, Sarah might have felt conned if she'd known that Gabriel had another king of hearts up his sleeve ready to be unleashed in the game, and this might have put an end to the attraction she immediately felt for him, intact and even heightened by memory. Might or might not. Luckily for me (born nine months later) we'll never know. What we do know is that Gabriel totally forgot about the cards and the game and Monsieur Champion and went over to kiss Sarah. At the last minute she stopped him. “Here no. Now no,” she said in English, getting him to understand that the crew couldn't know about this. She quickly told him her plan. She had to give out some more pills, and, in half an hour, they could meet up in the infirmary and play doctors again (with
a wink from Sarah). Gabriel seemed baffled so she gave him a clue before leaving him: Taking one of the pills, she put it directly into his mouth, letting her fingers rest there for a few seconds. Then she removed them, put them in her own mouth, and, sucking them lasciviously, moved on along the passageway in search of seasick passengers.

The ferry's rocking as it sought to dodge an army of gigantic waves brought Gabriel back to an uncertain reality. He checked that the cards were still in place and returned to the cafeteria, trying to calm down as he went. At the entrance he found Bundó, who was about to go looking for him. He was extremely twitchy. Since he and Muriel had been courting, he couldn't stand being around Frenchmen because he saw a potential client of his girlfriend in every single one of them. It was tough on him. He only had to cross the border and the first customs official he sighted was a suspect.

“Where were you?” he asked testily. “This Frog's a cunning bastard, and he might smell a rat.”

“It's all under control,” Gabriel reassured him. “Leave it to me, just like always. When you see me loading up my bet, go for it even if you haven't got anything. The more money at stake, the more excited he gets. I've got his number.”

Convinced that his luck was holding, Monsieur Champion was in a hurry to hang them out to dry and started to deal without saying a word. Ibrahim picked up the cards, fumbled, and one fell on the ground. He dived down to pick it up before the Frenchman yelled at him. He was tormented by the vision of Sans Merci suffering inside the horsebox. He might be dead. Only when everyone was holding his cards did Monsieur Champion break the silence as he puffed on his cigar.

“What a long visit to the men's room,
mon ami.
You must have had a nice rest.”