Landing Read online

  The two-month delay was difficult. When you see yourself in another place, another life, it takes a lot of energy to carry on in the life you so badly want to leave behind. And around me, my family was preparing to take over the space I was going to vacate.

  “When he’s gone we’ll do this, when he’s gone we’ll do that,” my father said, day after day. It seemed that, instead of robbing them of my help on the farm, I was opening up a world of opportunities, which my brother and father would greatly enjoy.

  The girls told me not to go, they’d miss me too much. My mother kept her silence, her eyes fixed on the horizon, and Pedro didn’t say a word.

  Sometimes, my worries about leaving turned into doubts and I wanted to stay, especially when I saw Mariana. When I saw her alone, at the market, talking to the woman who sold vegetables, or with her friends, walking down the high street. I’d imagine that everything that had transpired had not, and that I should stay and take her dancing the following Saturday.

  But sometimes seeing her made me want to pack my bags and start walking to Cáceres, to wait there for whatever time was left, until the bus that would take me to the future arrived. Those were the days when I ran into her and she wasn’t alone, when I saw her walking through the village hand in hand with Pedro. That was the sight that pained me most, because it was inexorable proof that all was lost.

  Her

  “How was your trip?”

  I knew someone would ask me the question, and I had even prepared a few polite, innocuous replies, but when I heard the question all I could think was What does it matter to you?

  “Great,” I heard myself say, thinking of the dead man.

  “Nice weather in my favorite city?”

  Favorite city. It irritated me when people used such expressions. I stared at my computer screen, ready to snap back, Who cares about the weather! What do you want to hear, that the weather was good, or not?

  “Great,” I repeated.

  “Of course it was, the weather’s always nice in Barcelona.”

  From the way he said it, it was clear he’d said it many times before.

  “I bet you’re tired from the trip and everything you saw there . . . I’ll leave you alone, you can tell me about your adventures some other time.”

  I wondered why people don’t give up. Why at the beginning of the week everyone asks me how my weekend was, and what exactly they expected me to say. I could have given an honest answer, like It was a total disaster, I spent my Saturday searching, calling, and asking all around town, and I still haven’t found a thing. Or I’m dead-tired, I need another day off because I spent the weekend trying to put my life back together. Or I made a quick trip to and from Groningen for a brief, pointless meeting, and when I got home I saw I had a missed call from an unidentified number. And I’ve spent all day wondering whether or not that call was the call.

  How can you tell someone something like that? How could I really tell them what I did outside of the office? It was simply impossible.

  That morning after the trip was one of those days when I had to face the reality of office life, with its obligations of collegiality and the need for departmental harmony. That morning I told myself for the millionth time that it wasn’t their fault, they were just being sociable, and that I had to learn to put up with it. If not, I’d be back in my boss’s office for our usual conversation:

  “Your work is impeccable, excellent, but you know that for us teamwork is really important.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “You have to be a little more sociable, it’s important for the team.”

  “I’ll try.”

  And we’d both understand that everything, apart from the excellence of my work, was a lie.

  But I had to try to fit in better, I couldn’t run the risk of them getting rid of me, because I was in the perfect position, with the authorizations I needed, to be able to continue my search.

  Since I felt I was being watched that day, I didn’t search the databases. Around five in the afternoon I was tempted to type one of the names on my list into the search field, but in the end I resisted.

  I survived that day. After work I went to Karen Abrams’s bar for dinner.

  Karen Abrams was the first person I found. Two years prior I had entered her bar sweating from the long bicycle trip, my stomach cramping from nerves. But Karen Abrams turned out to be an easy one.

  She had listened to me attentively, she was behind the bar when I began talking to her and she understood that my story was important. She put her hand on my arm and said,

  “We should talk about this somewhere else.”

  Immediately, I thought she knew something. My heart jumped and my knees trembled. She noticed.

  “I don’t think I can help you,” she quickly added.“But if we can talk quietly perhaps I’ll be able to help you some day.”

  She shouted to the kitchen for someone to fill in for her behind the bar, and we climbed the stairs to her apartment, one floor up. It was lighter in her dining room, she looked younger and prettier. That’s when I realized it couldn’t have been her.

  The open kitchen was separated from the dining room by a bar counter which reminded me of the one downstairs. As if she spent the morning practicing to be the best barkeep she could be in the afternoons. She poured a cup of tea and I sat down at the table.

  When she sat down opposite me I saw she was a natural blonde, her face was drawn and fragile, like the rest of her body. Her fingers wrapped around her teacup, long and thin. She exuded kindness and peace, but when I saw she was waiting I didn’t know where to begin. I hesitated; I still hadn’t shown my list to anyone. She continued looking at me and I told myself there was nothing to fear. I took the paper out of my wallet and unfolded it. My hands were shaking. I turned the list and slid it toward her. She placed a finger carefully on each corner of the paper. She read all the names. After a few minutes’ silence she lifted her gaze toward me.

  “I’m the first,” she asked, with a touch of pride.

  “You?”

  “Me, well I don’t know, it could be me or someone else with the same name, no?”

  “It’s in alphabetical order.”

  “So I see.”

  She started to push the list back toward me, but paused.

  “What would happen if I were?”

  “If you were what?”

  “If I were that Karen Abrams.”

  “You might be.”

  “So what am I doing with all those people? What do we have in common that puts us on the list?”

  “In all likelihood it’s not you. It’s probably some other Karen Abrams it’s referring to.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Have you ever been to Someren?”

  “No.”

  “That’s what I thought. Then it can’t be you.”

  “Why Someren?”

  She was kind, but she was getting on my nerves, she was too interested in becoming part of my search.

  “Do you want to help me?” I asked her while she smoothed the page with her fingers.

  “I’d like to try.”

  “Next Saturday I’ll stop by with the addresses of all the other Karen Abramses. Maybe you can search through them.”

  That day I left wondering whether I had told her too much. In time I learned not to disclose everything to the people I found. The reason for my search would only interest the person I was looking for.

  Two years later, when I entered her bar after the trip to Barcelona, Karen Abrams still hadn’t done what I had asked her to do that day, but it no longer mattered. I had found in her a silent accomplice, someone who knew what I was trying to achieve.

  “How was your trip?” she asked when I walked in. This time I knew what she meant by her question.

  “No new news,” I said cal
mly.“But a lot happened.”

  “Tell me. Did you find Ana Mei Balau?” she asked with an empty glass in one hand, the other on the beer tap.

  “Yeah, I finally talked to her, but she’s not the one.”

  “Bummer.”The beer settled in the glass.

  “She didn’t know anything, but she said she wanted to help me. Though I don’t think she can.”

  She passed me the beer she had just poured. I wanted to tell Karen Abrams about the man who had died without telling me his name, but she didn’t give me a chance.

  “You should focus on Holland, I’m sure you won’t find anything abroad. Dead sure. And I’m saying that because I care about you, sweetie. I want you to find what you’re looking for with all my heart! So forget about planes; take your train and your bike, everything you need is here, in our little country.”

  She had no idea what she was saying. She liked to play the wise one and I let her. The bar was practically my second home.

  “Do you have time for dinner tonight? I’d like to tell you the good news from my trip.”

  She agreed. It was strange to call it good news, when it was about a dead man with no name. I just wanted to tell her about the box.

  After dinner I got on my bike and looked to see if there was anything I hadn’t seen yet playing at The Movies, but there wasn’t. I pedaled slowly and impatiently home. I still had three hours to kill before I’d feel tired enough to sleep, and I knew from experience I couldn’t spend more than two hours at home awake and alone.

  Him

  On February 5, 1963, the bus that was picking up those of us from Extremadura who had been contracted to work for Philips passed through village after village on its way to Cáceres. The bus was already half-full when it stopped on the high street; three young men boarded with me. It was a difficult good-bye. Along with my parents and the girls, Pedro and Mariana had showed up to wish me a safe trip. I gave Pedro a hug and told him I’d continue to help out, wherever I was, if not with my hands then with my money. I left with one small suitcase. I gave Mariana two final kisses, one on each cheek, and boarded the bus. I felt her cheeks against mine for hours afterwards.

  In Cáceres we boarded a train to Madrid. There were ninety of us and we were slowly getting to know one another. We spoke excitedly about what we would find and how we had come this far. I also heard lots of stories about those who had wanted to join us but stayed behind.

  I felt fortunate to be there.

  In Madrid they put us up in a hotel, which seemed beyond luxurious to us. It was like being back in my dream with the gigantic light bulbs.

  On February 6 the train for Holland left Madrid. Two coaches had been reserved for us, including a restaurant car. We felt very important; we were going to help the Dutch, who had employed us and sent a train to collect us, despite the fact they wouldn’t be able to understand a word we said. By that time many of us had already forgotten the sorrow of our departure, thinking only of the adventure awaiting us.

  We traveled through Irún and then Paris, and the train finally deposited us in Roosendaal. When we set foot on Dutch soil it wasn’t soil, but frozen water. My shoes sank into the centimeters-thick snow that lay everywhere, blanketing everything within sight.

  From Roosendaal they sent us by bus to Someren, a town twenty kilometers south of Eindhoven. On the outskirts of Someren there was a development that had been built in the thirties to house workers who were draining the marshes. The development, with its little wooden houses, not unlike the bungalows you see in campgrounds today, would be our new home. I would share a bedroom and a living room with seven other young men.

  The morning after we arrived a bus was waiting to take us to the Philips factory. I still remember clearly that feeling of entering a brand new world. I had never worked in a factory, or in any large business; I knew only the farm and the Café de los Señores. The Philips factory was different. It was a space that breathed teamwork, the organization and cooperation that made it possible for parts to enter one end and machines to come out the other, on a journey that was supervised and assisted by hundreds of conscientious hands engaged in the same mission.

  At the factory we were met by a Spaniard who worked as an interpreter. He explained that we had to pass a few tests to be able to operate the machines. After two days of evaluations, tired of so many tests, all we could think about was doing something useful, finally getting to work.

  The first day of work eventually arrived, but the longawaited moment was a disappointment for me; instead of radios or televisions, instead of cables and bulbs, they gave me a broom. A broom for sweeping. Sweeping! My job was cleaning the floors of the factories and offices! In my contract it specifically stated “specialized laborer”. How dare they set a specialized laborer to work cleaning? Where were my gigantic light bulbs? I had never swept a floor in my life. That was woman’s work. What about my devotion to building the best light bulb in the world?

  That first day I spent the morning reluctantly cleaning floors and sweeping up dust. In the afternoon I remembered that in my dream, after building the light bulb, I cleaned it, and I found a glimmer of hope in this. I calmed down a little, after all, perhaps this had been part of my dream: I was cleaning in the light bulb factory. The time to build the giant light bulb would come. I was sure of it. I just needed to be patient, and do my job well.

  But though I told myself over and over that I should wait patiently and everything would change, I felt completely out of place that first week. I missed real work, even the livestock and the hard physical labor of the farm. I had travelled two thousand kilometers just to clean floors in a sunless country.

  One night I had a nightmare in which Mariana saw me with the broom in my hands and began laughing hysterically. She laughed so hard she cried. It was awful waking up with that image in my head. That day I regretted putting my name on the union’s list.

  The only consolation was knowing I wasn’t alone in my disgrace, that I wasn’t the only one who had been handed a broom. We took as much pride in our clean floors as those who’d had better luck and were working with radios and televisions, and they didn’t make fun of us. They tried to cheer us up, telling us we’d soon have better jobs, and that their jobs weren’t as great as we thought.

  I immediately signed up for the Dutch classes they offered Saturday afternoons and poured all my energy into learning the language. I figured that if they weren’t going to let me touch the machines I’d have to develop other skills if I wanted to change jobs.

  I learned Dutch very slowly, but I learned it. Most of my compatriots went to class once and never returned. They felt no need to learn the language because the company had made interpreters available to us everywhere we went: in the camp, in the human resources department, even the department managers were required to communicate with us in Spanish. And then there was the fact we had all set out on this adventure thinking it would last one year, and you couldn’t learn a language in one year alone, or so they said. My contract was for one year, too, but I must have known even then that I would stay longer.

  The job with the broom helped me focus on learning Dutch. If I had been operating machines I would have had to focus intently on my job, but since my work was simple— basically making piles of dust—I could work with my hands while my head was busy memorizing the vocabulary from my latest Dutch class.

  Twice a week I cleaned the offices of the administrators, who were all Dutch. Unlike the first few days, when I would lower my head in shame when I entered those offices, once I began to stammer my first few words of Dutch I wanted to be among those tables, writing desks, and telephones. I’d enter an office and would surprise everyone with a well-rehearsed “jude-morge,” especially the women, who would smile at me and reply goede morgen, articulating each syllable. In the beginning I stuck to “good morning.” But then I’d try out new phrases, and each week they would reply with a few
more words. Some words I recognized, some I didn’t, and I did my best to remember them until I left the offices, when I wrote them on a piece of paper, to save them for the next Saturday’s Dutch class.

  One day, as I was passing through the offices with my broom and my rag and my newly acquired words, I ran into one of the translators. I had already seen Miguel on several occasions, when he came to the camp with the company journalist, who sometimes interviewed us for his column in the Philips Koerier. But I had never spoken to him. Miguel was surprised by my small talk with the secretaries, and from that day forward he would stop to speak with me when we saw each other in the factory or the camp, teaching me new words.

  After a few weeks the inevitable came to pass, and the Saturday Dutch classes were canceled. My compatriots preferred to play soccer on teams improvised from the camps or go to the bar in lieu of studying. But I stuck to my plans to learn the language, one way or another. So the next time I saw Miguel, without hesitating, I asked him to give me one-on-one lessons. I told him I couldn’t afford to pay him much and he said I didn’t have to pay him a thing.

  From then on we met occasionally after work; we’d walk through town and he’d speak Dutch to me. If it was really cold, or if we felt like sitting, we’d go to a bar and continue the class there. I learned many words from Miguel, and it was through him that I met Willemien.

  Looking back, it might seem that my goal in life was to be the third wheel.