The globe traveller
When I met him in the lift he was carrying a globe in his hands. Across the lands of two continents red and blue lines were drawn that must respectively represent his proposed route and the one already carried out. It was an original way to take note of a travel itinerary and it naturally led me to exchange a few words during the handful of seconds that the lift ride lasted. At the hostel door we said goodbye. I was going into town and he to a bookshop, with his globe.
The day was a perfectly clear one, and warm for December. It was hard to believe that Saturday’s gloominess had been able to transform itself into such radiance of light and outburst of colour. The previous day, a cloudy sky had not allowed me to fully enjoy the harbour view from the overlooking knoll, but today was the perfect weather for no matter what open air activity. I walked to the Sagrada Familia, gasped in front of the formidable unfinished construction from the outside, while the inside literally made me hold my breath. The Gothic cathedral pattern had been updated into a wonderful flourish of modern art where nature-inspired motives were not only the decoration but also the structure. The bright sun filtered through the stained glass and painted a kaleidoscope of coloured patches on the light columns and on the floor.
In the evening I was back at the hostel. The globe was standing on a table in the common room, apparently abandoned. But the owner was not far, sitting at another table intent on eating his dinner. He lifted his head and nodded hello as I passed him on my way to the kitchen. When he came to wash his dishes, I asked him about his travel plans and he fetched his inseparable globe to visually represent his words. He started from the very beginning illustrating his way along the blue lines that drew a frantic criss-cross all over Europe. He only touched one or two cities in every country and, adding the time dimension, each place deserved at most two days of his attention.
But Barcelona was a big exception. He had been there for already 10 days because a mishap had occurred. I asked if he had been able to solve his problem, but he shook his head with resignation. I knew he sought to lift part of the burden off his mind when he began telling his story. “When I arrived at the bus station, …” he started, but suddenly remembered he could show me hard evidence to the facts he was about to narrate. He turned around to reveal a smear on the back of his sleeve. I instantly realised what must have happened, and he exclaimed: “Oh, you know, eh?”. The man who had purposefully splashed the dirty liquid on his clothes and had offered to help clean the stain had run away with his bag. It contained a laptop, a camera, a cherished travel diary, along with other items he listed with meticulous precision as if he was still in front of the police officer to report the theft. That sounded nightmarish, and I was surprised at his apparent oriental equanimity.
This robbery scheme is not unknown, but I wondered whether I being the victim would have had a reaction prompt enough to unmask the evildoer in time. Maybe, whether you know about the trick or not, it’s all a matter of destiny ending up being the target of a scam. And if you are a victim, chances are your mind is not cold enough to react suitably.
Half an hour later the bar tender asked her colleague who the globe left on one of the tables belonged to. I overheard and answered I knew the owner, but he was not around at the moment. Probably he deemed that bad luck was not going to trash him again, or that nobody would aim at stealing a globe. Gone the most valuable assets, at least he still had a cumbersome globe to carry around.