The contract

The telephone slipped out of my sweaty palms falling on our white and brown duvet. I soon followed my worn-out Nokia as I laid myself down on the bed whilst my feet remained firmly planted on the floor. I was contemplating the words of the woman who I had just spoken to. Although she had spoken rapidly in a soft Aragon accent I had understood everything. “You don’t have enough experience for a job in our office,” I mimicked to myself, “and an internship is out of the question because we have signed agreements with Universities of whom you do not belong.” I was hardly surprised. I had been in contact with over ten consultancies who had answered the same. The message was loud and clear: Thomas Reeve, you cannot start your Spanish career here. Although this time it had been a woman I estimated that the gender equation of the people I had spoken to was about 50-50. As I stared at our pale yellow ceiling I wondered: who are these anonymous voices I am talking to? What do these people look like?

Exactly 4 hours and 23 minutes later these questions came back to me as I entered the southbound dark-blue metro line in Cuzco station. I had just taught a class on Calle Orense and had decided for no apparent reason to take the dark-blue line instead of the light-blue line at Tetuán which would have made more sense. I sat myself down on the second seat to the right-hand side of the sliding doors. The metro was pretty empty but I did as I always did, I scanned the faces of the people surrounding me, unconsciously looking for those unnamed people I had been speaking to over the telephone. On my left there were two attractive – but very young – school girls giggling their way through a magazine. The man opposite to them was annoyed by this and was angrily trying to crunch his ‘El Mundo’ newspaper so that the girls would stop. It was useless; the girls were also listening to music and paid no attention to the old man. A tired-looking Latin woman was looking at of the window whilst rocking a pram with – presumably – a baby inside it although I couldn’t see if there actually was.

As I turned my head to the right I saw him. Directly opposite to me sat a middle-aged man with a smart, tightly fitted dark-blue suit with chalk lines – matching light brown belt and shoes – confirming his style. He had his eyes firmly fixed on mine. His strong facial features made him remind me of Gordon Gecko – as played by Micheal Douglas in the Hollywood movie Wallstreet – although this man was definitely younger and slightly taller than Gecko. I tried to avoid his fanatical eyes by glancing down to his lap where I could see three neatly held together sheets of paper. It seemed that all the lights in the metro had been switched off and that the only source of light - deep under the surface of Madrid - was this package of paper. Their attraction even made me forget the stare of its owner.

As a professional metro passenger I could easily make out what the papers were (spying on other people’s papers and books is a common underground pastime). They were a contract. Assistant project-manager, in-house training in designing, evaluating and implementing social projects through-out Europe, 1725 Euros per month (which is a lot in Madrid), situation will be reviewed after one year with a possible extension of two at the end of this term, job starting on the 1st of November 2007. “This should be my contract,” I thought to myself. “After trying so many consultancies it can’t be a coincidence that this man – who was still staring at me without changing the expression on his face – is sitting opposite to me”. All of a sudden I understood. This was my contract. As I slowly raised my head my eyes finally met his obsessive stare. The automatic voice had announced the station Nuevos Ministerios twenty seconds earlier as the metro came to a halt. The race was on.

As soon as the doors had slid open, Gecko had put the contract in his brown leather briefcase and within in a second walked through onto the platform. Although I was quick to respond my exit was hampered by the old man reading ‘El Mundo’. On the platform I looked left and right and spotted a lean figure in blue turning right heading for the stairs. I started to run towards the exit he was taking. As I turned the corner I met a flight of stairs – no more than 15 – which he had already scaled. I jumped two at a time passing a group of Italians who were making their way to the airport. I entered the open space of Nuevos Ministerios station which was familiar to me, scanning the crowd for Gecko. Just as I thought I had lost him I saw him passing the exit gates to the left-hand side.

A quick glance to one of the three green exit signs confirmed what I already knew. He was heading towards the buses. I have to admit that at that moment Gecko was lucky. With his long legs he could easily make pace without attracting attention. After effortlessly climbing the three sets of stairs leading to the above ground Madrid street-life he had no trouble negotiating his way through the two pedestrian crossings which stood between him and a range of buses heading back north. The luck for him was that just as he arrived on the other side he managed to catch bus 14. At this instant I was still crossing the road but could already see that another bus – 27 – was approaching which I knew would follow the escapee. I entered the 27 without any problems closely following my target.

I remained standing next to the bus driver to ensure a rapid exit when necessary. At each bus stop I was checking who was leaving the proceeding bus 14. I was causing quite an upset amongst the entering passengers who I was clearly obstructing and the bus driver asked me more than once to move to the back of the bus. I managed to persuade him that it was ‘just one more stop’. He grumpily agreed. As bus 14 pulled over alongside the Santiago de Bernabeu stadium I could see the tall figure of my fugitive exiting on the street. Ten seconds past until my bus finally caught up and I jumped out through the front door accidentally bumping into the shoulder of a young man dressed in a pink shirt.

The next sight I had of Gecko was of him crossing the street, well not just any street – it was La Castallana – Madrid’s busiest avenue. He was crossing the road illegally with cars – quite rightly and for once with a good excuse – honking their horns in anger. This was simply too dangerous and I stood helpless waiting for the light to turn green. I followed him as I saw him walk – in not one moment did he accelerate to running – onto a little bridge which led him into the Azca compound – a medium-sized shopping centre surrounded by two of Madrid’s highest office towers: Torre Picasso and Torre de Europa.

As soon as the aorta of cars had come to a halt I dashed towards the Azca compound, crossing the bridge where Gecko had walked only 30 seconds earlier. As I passed through a small passageway I could see I that I needed to make a choice. A flight of stairs to my left would take me upwards onto an open square between the two high towers and two electric doors would lead me into the shopping centre. I could not reason which one Gecko had chosen as I didn’t known the man. I instinctively chose the electric doors because this is what I would have done.

I was in luck. Upon entering the shopping-centre I could see him on an escalator taking him to the first floor of the open planned space. There were however at least 40 meters between him and me. I took a gamble. I ran back outside, took the stairs – now to the right – again jumping two at a time, making my way to the big open square. I was now on the same level as Gecko although he was still inside. Five very long seconds followed and then I saw that my gamble had paid off. The man who I had seen for the first time only 16 minutes earlier was now – also for the first time – fully in my sight, but I was also in his. Like that first gaze he fixed his eyes on me and then – if I was not mistaken – smiled. I didn’t expect this so when he started moving towards the larger of the two towers – Torre Picasso – I hesitated in following him. He had reached the main entrance of the tall white tower before I started walking towards him.

I gathered pace and when I followed Gecko into the Torre Picasso something happened what I had dreaded all along. I passed the portero without problems. The elderly man had just returned from lunch and was in no hurry to stop young looking people like myself enter into his territory, instead he turned to his newspaper 'Marca' where he could read that Real Madrid had won against Getafe by one goal to zero although they had – once again – failed to convince.

I am afraid that I also failed to convince that Monday afternoon. As I saw Gecko entering the elevator I thought I had him – and the contract. Through the numbers I could make out which floor he would exit and then it would be just a matter of time. As the doors closed I patiently waited for the next. I noticed my error after two slight seconds. Gecko had used a key to enter the lift as all employees of the building did. I was distraught, I had lost.

The strange pursuit through the northern-centre of Madrid had simultaneously exited and surprised me. I had been uncharacteristically instinctive in deciding to start this mad goose-chase and it just demonstrated how badly I wanted that contract. Whilst I looked around the reception area – where everybody was oblivious to the fact that I had just chased an unknown man for nearly twenty minutes – I spotted a name card on the floor, just in front of the elevator Gecko had used. I picked it up and made no sense of what was printed on it. Unknown company, unknown name. Without thinking I turned it around and in dark-black ink the mysterious business man had written a message.

It read:

Try harder.