“Naturally, naturally,” I hasten to add.
“Well, then…”
The officers hesitate.
“Yes?” I decide to help them, “do you have any more questions? Perhaps you’d like to search my car?”
“Hey,” says the burly one, “don’t tell us how to do our job.”
The lanky one lifts his head like a tortoise seeing the sun for the first time, and grasps his partner’s arm in an attempt to calm him.
“And you, take your hands off me,” the burly one says. “Next we’ll be taking orders from this guy.”
“Not at all, officers,” I intercede. “I’m sure you could do your job blindfolded. Only…”
“Only what? What are you insinuating?”
“Nothing, officer, nothing. I was just trying to be helpful.”
“Then stop being so helpful.”
“As you say, officer.”
“That’s more like it,” the burly one approves.
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Enough, already!”
“Do whatever you think fit. I’m in no hurry, take your time.”
“We are taking our time. We always take our time.”
“Oh, of course! I would never suggest otherwise.”
The burly one glances at the lanky one. The lanky one, looking down, stays silent.
“Are you taking the mickey or what?” the burly one asks.
“Who, me, officer?”
“No. My paralysed grannie.”
“Wow, officer, I applaud your sense of humour.”
“Turn around,” the burly one brusquely orders.
“I beg your pardon, officer?”
“I said, turn around,” and then he adds, addressing the lanky one: “I don’t like this guy one little bit.”
“I assure you, officers, I understand your position,” I say, slightly anxious. “I know you’re just protecting our security.”
“Hands flat on the vehicle.”
“Yes, officer.”
“Legs wide apart.”
“Yes, officer.”
“And keep your mouth shut.”
“Yes, officer.”
Apparently enraged, the burly one knees me hard in the side. I feel a ring of fire in my ribs.
“I said keep your mouth shut, moron.”
They frisk me. Then the two officers move a few metres away. They are talking. I overhear snatches. The car roof is beginning to burn the palms of my hands. The sun is piercing, like a lance.
“What do you reckon?” I hear the burly one say. “Do we search it or not?”
I can’t hear the lanky one’s reply, but I suppose he has agreed because, out of the corner of my eye, I see the burly one opening all the doors and rummaging around. He flings my backpack on the ground. He flings my toolbox after it. Then my fluorescent sign. Then my football, which bounces off along the highway. The officers carry out their task very meticulously.
“There’s nothing here,” the burly one remarks, almost disappointed. “Shall we check the seats?”
The two men clamber into my car and start inspecting the backrests, under the mats, the glove compartment, the ashtrays. They leave everything turned upside down. I venture, for the first time, to make a timid objection:
“Excuse me, officers, do you have to be so thorough?”
The burly one climbs out of the car and hits me with his stick. For a moment I feel like I am floating. I fall to my knees.
“Have you got something else to say, huh? What have you got to say now?” the burly one yells close to my ear.
“I assure you, officer,” I stammer, “I’ve nothing to hide. Truly.”
“You haven’t?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I tell you!”
“Then don’t answer back!” the burly one screams, giving me a sharp kick in the backside. “I can smell liars like you a mile off. And I’m never wrong.”
“Officer, I swear, honest…”
“Shut up, sonofabitch!” the burly one roars again. But this time he doesn’t hit me.
Cars speed past us like the wind. In the meantime, the lanky officer is still searching my car.
“Aha!” the lanky one is suddenly excited; his voice sounds oddly shrill. “Look at this,” he adds, passing my briefcase containing the company accounts to his partner.
“Where did you find it?”
“Under the passenger seat.”
“And what is it? Open it. You can’t? Give it to me. It’s probably got a combination lock,” and then he exclaims, as he tries to force open my briefcase, “I thought as much, I thought as much, I know a liar when I see one!”
I would tell them the combination, but at that point I am too terrified to open my mouth.
“Let’s arrest him,” the lanky one says. “We can open the briefcase when we get to the station.”
The burly one slowly begins to handcuff me.
“But, officers, this is a mistake!” I make a final attempt. “I’m completely harmless.”
“We’ll see about that, lowlife,” the lanky one says.
They make me sit on the back seat and they close the doors.
They stay outside the car and call someone over their radio. My shoulders are aching. My head hurts, too. My ribs are throbbing. A nasal voice replies on the other end of the radio. I don’t like this at all. Cars keep driving right past us. I don’t know whether I should say something else. I hear my football burst.
MONOLOGUE OF THE CUSTOMS OFFICER
EVERY DAY, from eight in the morning to six in the evening, I watch Mexicans, Colombians, Chinese, Poles, Ecuadorians, Indians, Koreans file past, and they all look at me as if begging for mercy. That’s what gets to me about them, you know. Not that they’re fuckin’ Mexicans, Colombians, Chinese or Poles, but because they look at me that way. As if I, and not the law, were going to judge them. It’s simple, buddy. I’ve no idea what things may be like in your country, but that’s how it is here in Atlanta, at least. And they’re pretty fair, you know. If you haven’t done anything, if you really haven’t done anything and aren’t thinking of doing anything, if you aren’t carrying or looking for anything weird, if you don’t deal in drugs and your friends don’t either, if you’re not planning anything dangerous against something or someone in this country, then you’ve got no cause to worry. If something so logical doesn’t seem that way to somebody, let him come over here while I call a fuckin’ doctor.
Europeans are different, of course. Those bastards look you in the eye. They challenge you. They give reluctant answers to the questions I have to ask them, because it’s my fuckin’ job, not because I’m interested in their stupid lives full of landscapes, monuments and ruins. Just this morning, for example, there was a sonofabitch French guy who queried everything I was asking him. Put your finger there again, I would say. And he replied: Is it absolutely compulsory? How long are you thinking of staying in the country? I asked him. And him: Isn’t that private information? I have my rights! Things like that, you know. I was on the point of calling security. But it wasn’t worth it. If you do, the embassies draw my bosses’ attention to it, and my bosses draw my attention to it. So I sighed, stamped his passport with the fuckin’ Admitted and put a mark on his boarding card for them to open his luggage. I don’t know if over there, in his oh lá lá France they respect the law. But here at least we try.
Why do they find it so hard to understand how things work? Seriously, it’s like adding two plus two. I ask, they answer. The security personnel want to make sure their belongings aren’t dangerous, so they show them. We check they have enough money so they don’t go begging in the streets or robbing people, they confirm that they do. What the hell is so strange about that? There are three or four rules, you know. And this is a great country precisely because it has rules. It’s nothing against anyone, you know. If there’s anything suspicious, I’m sorry, buddy, but here you stay. If you’re clean, Okay, then you simply go through. On your way, and next! Seriously, just like two plus two. But no. Lots of them play the victim. Or look at you as if you knew them from somewhere. Or play the tough guys, like those sonofabitch Frenchies. But take away their passports, close their embassies, and then see where that leaves them. Not much better off than an Ecuadorian, an Indian or a Korean. And take away their clothes, credit cards and fuckin’ perfume. Then I’m not sure there’d be any difference at all, you know.