To be honest the only things I knew about Sweden before booking passage here were the big things: Ingrid Bergman, Ikea, Meatballs, royalty, Dragon Tattoos, that sort of thing. I know they are famous for a cozy minimalist pine wood sense of design and are famously one of the happiest nations in the world. The immigration line was three people long since almost everyone else was an EU national and went through another tiny kiosk, patting their passports down like train tickets. The woman at my counter for foreign nationals was smiling and kind, and I was through in a few minutes. A few signs directed me to a bullet train which got me to Stockholm central station in under twenty minutes. Other than my lack of sleep, the day was going great! The sky was blue, the clouds were puffy and I took out my phone so I could listen to the Amelie soundtrack to get into a Euro mood. So we went, Amelie and I, skipping and bounding in Swedish joy towards my hotel.
The guy at the hotel was sweet, and gave me a bunch of flowers and peach nectar as a welcome. “Nice suitcase,” he said. “You’re too kind,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll love Stockholm,” he told me. “I already do,” I smiled. That’s when he asked me for my credit card and I distractedly put my hand on my back pocket.
Like any good desi, I have a fairly robust relationship with superstition in my life
Empty.
I got that awful, sinking feeling you get when you touch your jeans to feel your phone and it’s not there. There is a mini-second of pure, white panic as your heart leapfrogs into your pounding skull, but then, of course, you find it and chide yourself for not remembering it was in the other pocket all along. Except it wasn’t. I looked through my front pockets, back pockets, even my jacket. I took out my backpack, and rummaged through the folds and books and notepads and the jumble of wires. Nowhere.
“Anything wrong?” he asked me. I looked up, bereaved. My brain was moving like a bullet train, sweeping through passing scenarios of what would happen if I have no credit card, no money, no way to get any, no ID and am stuck in a foreign country where I don’t even have internet access.
Like any good desi, I have a fairly robust relationship with superstition in my life. I’m not sure when we learned to throw spilt salt behind the shoulder for good luck or give sadka to charity to ward off bad karma, but we do. These lessons are there, immutable and true. Like the idea that I have to wear turquoise because it suits me and avoid Sapphires because they don’t. Also, wear silver for luck but avoid too much. Call people if you dream about them. Always say ‘thank you’ to the universe if something comes out right because gratitude is a nicer state to live in than regret. If someone is envious of you, say prayer to warn off their nazar.
The man at the counter suggested I retrace my steps, and I nodded in a haze but I had gone in a loop around a busy, bustling train station on my walk here, skipping with Amelie. The small leather wallet could be anywhere. I could have dropped it in the train. It could be on the tracks. In a sewer, in the river, on an escalator. I closed my eyes and as one does in these moments. I asked for help. Please, I said.
I took a deep breath and walked back outside, furiously scanning the pavement for any sign of my life. How could I be so stupid! I didn’t even take out money from an ATM yet. What did I think was going to happen? Where will I sleep? I made a quick mental note of all my friends in Stockholm, so there’s that. I came up with game plans for tonight and tomorrow, but I’ll be traveling for the next two weeks in four different cities, and this was not the way I wanted my vacation to start. How could I go from Amelie to Amescrewed so very quickly? This is exactly how Dilwale starts except I’m not a teen on a Euro rail and I don’t want to spend the night in a barn. How could I be so careless!
Wading through this thick fog of despair I walked up to the info counter at the station. I told the man my story, how I had lost my wallet and with it my sense of self, and whether he knew where I can go to look for a lost and found. He shook his head, and said it was unlikely. I’d have to file a police report, he said, and while telling me where to go, he asked what kind of wallet it was. “Turquoise,” I said, “with my name on it in gold letters. Turquoise suits me.”
Before I left, I wrote down my name on a piece of paper and gave it to him just in case. He went to put it at the back for his colleagues and a few moments later emerged, grinning widely. “Here,” he said handing the wallet to me. “Someone just turned it in a few minutes ago apparently.”
Inside were my cards and ID, all there, all intact. I closed my eyes and nearly cried. He came out of the booth and hugged me, laughing. “Stockholm is a nice city,” he said, “but try not to lose it again.”
“Thank you,” I said, to him, the city, the universe. Thank you!
This city has welcomed me more warmly than it will ever know. I have Stockholm syndrome, and thank God for it.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com