The Lost Origin Read Free

Station that was at this very moment above our heads since, according to her, it went perfectly with our activities in the “100 series.” Jabba, following an undeniable impulse born of his past as a graffiti artist, had painted over the actor’s monumental forehead the word “Bufanúvols 3 ,” and had remained perfectly calm while he had listened to the telling off that Proxi had given him.
    Right at the fork of the tunnel, almost touching the ticket booth of Paseig de Gràcia Station, was a dignified passenger carriage that had been abandoned when that line of Metropolitan Rail had closed. The day we discovered it had been our lucky day. Stranded on its rails for at least forty years, the “100 series”—as proclaimed the metallic plates of its sides—had spent decade after decade falling into ruin without anyone remembering its existence. Made entirely of wood, with numerous oval windows, a white interior which still housed the lengthwise seats and lit by small incandescent bulbs that still hung from the ceiling, it would have deserved to be in any museum of trains in the world, but, lucky for us, some incompetent functionary had left it to sleep the sleep of the just, changing with the years into a refuge for rats, mice and all kinds of other vermin.
    We had spent a long time removing the grime, sanding, varnishing and polishing the wood, reinforcing the supports and joints, burnishing the metal; and when it was blindingly shiny and sturdy as a rock we filled it with cords, computers, monitors, printers, scanners, and all kinds of radio and television equipment. We lit that part of the tunnel and the inside of the carriage and we filled a small refrigerator with snacks and drinks. Several years had passed since then in which we had added new comforts and more modern equipment.
    Right after we went inside, before I had time to take my backpack off, the telephone to which I’d forwarded calls from my cell started to ring.
    “What time is it?” Proxi asked Jabba, who was just barging into the carriage.
    “Almost nine,” he replied, looking anxiously at the lit computer screens. He had left a program running which was trying to break, by brute force (trying millions of possible alphanumeric combinations from data bases), the passwords to some system architecture files.
    The telephone screen told me it was my brother who was calling. I took off the turtle-neck black sweater, pulling it over my head as fast as I could, and answered while I put my hair back up in the elastic band.
    “What’s up, Daniel?”
    “Arnau?” That feminine voice was not my brother’s, it was my sister-in-law Mariona’s.
    “It’s me, Ona, what’s up?” Proxi put an open can of juice in my hand.
    “I’ve been trying to find you for hours!” she exclaimed in a sharp voice. “We’re at the hospital. Daniel has gotten sick.”
    “The boy or my brother?” Mariona and Daniel had a one-year-old son, my only nephew, who had the same name as his father.
    “Your brother!” she yelled impatiently. And, as if my confusion were an incomprehensible stupidity, she clarified: “Daniel!”
    For a moment I was paralyzed, unable to react. My brother had an iron constitution; he never even caught a cold when everyone else was going around with a tissue in one hand andseveral degrees of fever so I couldn’t get the idea through my head that he could be in the hospital. So…An accident. With the car.
    “We were at home,” Mariona started to explain, “and suddenly he seemed confused, not there…. He would only talk nonsense. I got really scared and called the doctor and he, after examining him for a while, called an ambulance to take him to the hospital. We got to the ER around seven at night. Why weren’t you answering your phone? I’ve called you at home, at the office…. I’ve called your secretary, Lola and Marc, your mother….”
    “You’ve… called London?” I was so astonished I couldn’t find words.
    “Yes, but your