The brain stimulus overload of colors and people and shining objects and buildings with restaurants along the streets of the marketplace crammed with people--it's enough to jolt anyone out of a reverie and into the present heart beat by heart beat moments of sidestepping the thousands of people all invariably going a different direction than everyone else. It's a sweet madness.
Squeaking raucously, the wandering vendors who sell various cheap products all over the city, not exclusively el Rastro by any means, make high pitched squeals with plastic toys held hidden in their palms while moving their lips so that it seems the shrieking non-syllabic gibberish is pouring from their own lips. Pleasanter sounds greet the ears as well, five man bands who smile as though the whole world is theirs when their fingers caress the strings of their bass or the buttons of their trumpet--but whom, one can tell, own little more than the instrument in their hands and the clothes on their backs. Parents comfort toddlers, teenagers poke fun at one another, lovers hold hands and point at decorations for apartments owned or dreamt of, and bargains are struck left, right, and diagonal.
Hot in the absence of the wind and with the sun bearing down beneath the buildings, funneled now as though intent, focused on our trio of brunettes winding through the streets of el Rastro, my aunt Chris finally ordered a halt. "I'm so thirsty. Where can we find a Coke?"
Pulling ourselves out of the steady stream of el Rastro would be a task equal to only the most confident race car drivers, accustomed to dealing with out of the ordinary driving maneuvers such as immediate stops, crash collisions, and no hesitation moments where you have to clutch the wheel, gun the gas, and go for all your worth. The thronging multitudes of endless people that Rastro bears witness to every Sunday morning and early afternoon present such a heart-rate-elevating challenge and, though none of the three of us have ever even followed NASCAR on television, we somehow managed to veer out of the human river onto the safety of a shaded sidewalk and find an Alimentación, or snack shop.
They're fairly common and very cheap so we all grabbed a bottle of water (me) or Coke (Chris and Annette).
Annette went into her purse for her wallet, but kept fumbling around in the giant bag pit until Chris finally took out her own wallet and asked me to dig around for the right changed. We paid and made our way back to the street, but something was wrong.
"Stop! I need to check my purse out here."
"What's wrong, Annette?"
She didn't answer, kept rummaging about her bag, zipping and unzipping pockets, rifling through goodness knows what with a growing air of panic about her. I have a purse; I understand the mysterious depths of a woman's handbag as well as any of the female sex, but I have not had the years to hide the myriad treasures that surely hide in the abyss of the vast majority of purses. I am young yet, but I'm sure there will come a time when a map with a big red 'X' to mark the spot will become necessary to find my car keys, not to mention the less commonplace items of that sacred female cache.
After conducting a thorough search and rescue however, Annette came up empty-handed. "My wallet's been stolen." She ducked her head down toward the bag again briefly, seemed to confirm some dark suspicion, and amended, "My wallet and my phone have been stolen."
"Oh . . ." Chris and I fell silent, then attempted a barrage of "I'm really sorry", "This is terrible", and "How could this even have happened?" type questions until Annette cut us off and said, "Well, nobody was hurt so it's not really a big deal."
"How much did you lose?" The million dollar question (or some other denomination between that and zero). Chris looked expectantly at her sister.
"Well, I had $550 in USD and 250 Euros." I nearly swooned. Once you do the conversion that's not too shy of $1000 in USD. For a college student such as myself, that is an incredibly high sum of money to just lose. And then to be so calm about.
"You're really handling this way better than I would be," I admitted to her.
Annette shrugged, let out a sigh, and said, "Well, when you've been in a serious, almost fatal, car accident like I was six months ago, stuff like this doesn't seem to matter as much. At least I'm alive, here, and able to lose money."
But the trail was not yet cold, at least not in the minds of we three Drewry/Markin/Webster family sleuths! (Yes, we all have a different last name; makes writing moments like this difficult). Based on the clues, we pieced the crime together . . . .
The people were beyond the counting; a shouting, chanting mass of politically charged youths, middle-agers, toddlers, grandparents, and any in between sector of society one can imagine. Almost everyone bore a red, yellow, and purple flag and waved it proudly above their heads. Others carried homemade signs strewn with slogans about the horrific cuts the government was making, about the corruption, about spreading the ideals of the PCE, the Partido Comunista de España, whose rally this was, after all.
Three of us made our way through the viscosity of that crowd, pausing at the beauty of the flowing fountain in the center of the roundabout where Calles Alcalá, Prado, and Recoletos converge: the Lady of Cibeles, glorious in her stone chariot drawn by two lions. We did not pause here long however, but instead made our way along the edges of the enormous rally that we'd found ourselves in the middle of, and over to the Banco de España metro stop. That we paused for several minutes to take videos of this chanting, massing mob as the throng bulged in front of the bank building with the clear intent of marching up Calle Alcalá despite the growing number of officers and police vans, may have made all the difference.
Our intent was el Rastro, the street market that any Madrid visitor must see, and to get there, we need only travel one stop by metro to La Latina; the market sprawls forth from there like some haphazard flower that took root in this sunny capitol and opened its petals in between the crooked turning twists of alleys and old brick buildings.
Making our way down into this older section of the metro system, we felt the heat from outside radiating into the tunnels, absorbed seemingly by the white ceramic tiling of the walls. Not long to wait now; the board overhead announced: Próximo tren llegar en 4 minutos (next train arrives in four minutes).
From a distance away in the dark tunnel, we three could hear the low rumbling thunder of the train coming up the track. It would quiet for a moment or two, then the roar would begin again, growing louder and louder, dying suddenly, then after the calm before the storm, the noise would swell throughout the darkness and two glowing orbs would appear and expand until the entirety of the white and blue train car came rushing past the platform, metal tracks shrieking as the reins were pulled in and the people began to crowd near the doors.
The cars were all packed solid and virtually no one stepped off when the doors opened, but we were determined--the three of us and all the waiting passengers on the platform. So we crammed on, holding on to the overhead bars for dear life, fighting to get a little bit of room for our lungs to expand.
Chris and I made it onto the train, but Annette stood yet on the platform, hesitant to shove and elbow the way that is necessary to board in such conditions. "Annette! Come on!" we called to her, urging her forward as the doors began to beep their warning of impending closure.
Two men also still on the platform who desperately wanted to get on began shoving and they pushed Annette in the back, forcing her onto the train. Her hand shot up and she grabbed the overhead bar for support. Chris gave her sleeve a tug to make sure that she was all the way on.
But the beeping had stopped and the train car remained where it was, stuck in some kind of inexplicable metro purgatory that has more than once stranded me at El Bercial for several minutes on end--of course only on the mornings where I'm rushing to class, as this stop is en route to the university.
The two gentlemen who'd been so desperately pushing to get on the train looked around, confused and began to consult with one another in harried, hushed Spanish that I couldn't make out over the din of the jammed car. Finally, they jumped back off, onto the platform and one pointed to the right, the other following his lead. Meanwhile, the beeping had resumed and now the doors sealed closed and began to speed us off into the darkness towards La Latina . . .
A look of dawning realization swept across Chris' features, but it was Annette who spoke first. "I had my wallet at the Prado because I bought some souvenirs in the gift shop, so I know I had it. And I called Megan with my phone--"
"Do you think it happened at the protest?" I suggested, looking to the enlightened Chris to see if my conjecture equaled her own.
"No," she shook her head, "it was on the metro. I'm positive now that I think about it. In retrospect, it's obvious." I exchanged a dubious look with Annette, but our homegrown Kenoshan sleuth continued, "Those two men who shoved Annette-- one was probably pushing her in the back to distract her, the other was reaching into her purse, which she never would have noticed with all the pushing and with how packed it was."
"And her purse--" I began.
"--was exposed because she had to hold on overhead!" (I'd been telling both of them to keep one hand on their purse at all times, just for precautionary measures). "And then the two jerks hopped off the train and got away."
"That's why they left! Not because they got on the wrong train, but because they'd just robbed Annette--"
"Exactly!" Chris was emphatic.
We had figured out the crime, but not much could be done about it. Although we returned to La Latina metro stop and inquired about a floral-print wallet and an Android that had recently gone missing, we found no leads. We were chuckled at and brushed away at La Latina, given a business card with some international hotline number at Banco de España and sent on our merry way.
Even for Chris, our private eye, the trail had gone cold. Wherever the perps are, they're probably living it up on Annette's wad of cash, despite that the phone has long been cancelled and is now only good for sale on the black market.
But as for the floral wallet, we never saw it again . . .
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