Luck

In the airport, at baggage claim, I watch my suitcase drop down onto the conveyer belt, and think "I have checked this bag four times in as many weeks, and nothing has been lost or stolen or broken or anything at all. I have not missed a flight or a train; the weather has been just far enough ahead of or behind me to never once seriously impact my transit. How lucky!" I consider stopping at the ATM, but pause and think about the 30 Euros I already have, more than enough to take the train into the city and find my way to my hotel. So I do not stop, I get no cash; I decide to wait. And I buy my ticket and board the train.

There are only two stops before the Central Station, and I do not want to lug my bags up or down any more stairs -- to reach the upper or lower seating areas -- so instead I stand in the wide entry area of the train car, my two bags on the ground beside me, my purse loose hanging off my shoulder, sliding down my arm. I stand there, leaning back against the wall, watching the city lights blur and streak past outside, beyond the windows, my eyes unfocusing, feeling the only-three-hours of sleep I had the night before.

And there is a man standing beside me -- or, a few steps away, really, but off to my side -- and he is talking loudly on a cell phone, in some fast language I do not understand, not Dutch, surely, but something else, something that blurs by like the lights outside the train. As the train approaches the station, its first stop, this man suddenly starts pulling at my sleeve, asking me something in a language I do not speak, repeatedly, that seems to be a question about the station because it seems like he is ending with its name, but I cannot tell for sure and anyway I have no idea what he is saying at all. I tell him, in English, that I am sorry but I do not speak...whatever language he is speaking, and as I start to turn away he yanks more insistently at the sleeve of my coat, asking his fast and incomprehensible question. And once again, and then he says, very loud and slow, the name of the station, and makes a questioning face. And I nod and tell him yes, that is this station. And he smiles and hurries off the train, and the doors close, and the second before the train begins to move again time slows down and stretches out and something clicks into place for me inside my head, and I turn and look down at my other arm, at my purse hanging there near my elbow, and I pull it open and look inside and I already know, before I have even really looked, but I still look, frantically, again and again and again, touching each item individually, as it that will make the truth less true.

But of course, my stolen wallet isn't there, no matter how many times I look again.