feelings down to jet lag, but wonder if the atrophy of lesser emotions is a further symptom of my affliction.
‘If only you had realised immediately,’ the man tells me regretfully, a touch of Jamaica in his tone. Nevertheless he will make some calls. Can I come back in an hour. Not a question. I sit down for a while near his desk, then decide I can simply report the cheques stolen and arrange to have them replaced. My cards and other papers can be dealt with at another time.
I speak to the young woman at the Thomas Cook counter who assures me the cheques can be replaced quickly so long as I have their numbers, which are supposed to be kept separately. I explain that I have inadvertently packed the list in my baggage, which is checked through to my final destination and might even have gone on ahead.
‘That is against regulations,’ she tells me primly. ‘The bags must travel with the clients. Always.’
I say nothing, knowing as she does that bags sometimes travel without their people, just as shadows sometimes travel alone. It isn’t meant to happen, but it can. The announcement for my flight to board comes over the air.
‘I will get the cheques once I arrive,’ I tell her.
‘You can’t mean to go there without money,’ she exclaims. The genuine concern in her tone reminds me of the mysterious nature of my trip, and it comes to me that this mishap is a sign that I am failing to understand.
The young woman mistakes the confusion in my eyes and leans over her smooth counter to explain. ‘In a country like that, you must have money. Everything is for sale. Everything costs and you are safe as long as you can afford the price. Safety has a price, just like comfort or food or coffee.’
I sense that under these words she is telling me something important, but I cannot seem to understand. My mind feels numb. I insist that I have decided to go on. Surely this is the most unreasoned response to what has happened, and therefore the most apposite. Maybe it is even a kind of test. At my request, she writes the address of their office, saying there is a cheap bus to the centre. Upon arrival, I can walk to the office from the stop. Alternatively, I could take a courtesy bus to one of the bigger hotels – the Hilton, for instance – where they would quite likely sort out the lost cheques for me.
She is kind, but I have no desire to stay in a hotel like the Hilton. I will get a bus to the centre of the city after changing the little remaining cash I have, and walk about until daybreak. Then I will get the cheques replaced and find some suitable accommodation.
I check back with the airline attendant who reiterates that no one has handed in the wallet, then give him my landlady’s number in case it should appear. I dislike doing this, but I have no forwarding address to give and no one else’s name to offer other than my previous employer’s, and he is not the sort to maintain warm connections. Indeed, he made it abundantly clear that the severance payment was generous to ensure that I would not expect anything more from him.
Boarding the small plane that will carry me on the last leg of my journey, I wonder what my boss would think if he knew I was on my way, without money, to a city full of shadows and danger, where everything has a price.
On the plane I eat the small club sandwich offered, and drink as many cups of coffee as I can manage during the short flight, for I am beginning to feel very empty and it will be some hours before I can eat. The coffee makes my head spin and the sense of disorientation assailing me increases.
The face of the customs official at the airport is flat and severe, but his eyes are the same soulful brown as the man in the television room of my apartment house. As he takes my passport, I wonder absurdly if they could be related.
‘Reason for visit?’ he asks. His thick finger taps a blank space in the form I filled out. He slides a pen through the small window separating his official niche from me. I take it up and notice my fingers are trembling. I try to focus my thoughts. It is