The Honourable Thieves

 

THE HONOURABLE THIEVES

[This story isn’t just about a stolen wallet. It’s about what we keep, what we lose or choose to forget and about the strange decency and perception that sometimes reveals itself in unexpected places]

 

         A short trip from our hotel in Zurich took us to the town’s airport-terminal. When the attendant  put my luggage on the scale, I  wanted to get out my wallet with my credit  cards so as to pay a surcharge. To my dismay it was gone: I had been pickpocketed.

             Fortunately, Pat had her ‘supplementary’ credit card ready. We paid the extra for excess luggage and then I went over to the police department. To my dismay, the somewhat sleepy officer-in-charge was not sympathetic or, in the very least, supportive. Explaining that incidents of this sort were common, he took my details and encouraged me to proceed to the airport.

             In London, where we stayed with my brother-in-law’s family, Alvin wanted to know how it had happened.

             “Some people pushed against me and  somebody punched my ribs. I punched back!”

             “I suspect that one member of the gang pinched your wallet at that very moment. This happens when you lose your cool,” pointed out Alvin.

             “Can be,” I conceded. “What would you have done?”

             “I usually have a zipper on my pocket. It makes pickpocketing more difficult.”

             All in all, the loss was bearable. Naturally, I had to ring up my bank – the issuers of my credit cards. As expected, they took the matter in their stride. The loss of a card was routine.

 

             Alvin lent me some money. We were able to go out for luncheons and dinners. One day, Alvin and Kerstin drove us to Hampton Court. I had visited it before, but was glad to have a second go. Just as before, the paintings hanging on the walls were fascinating. Later, we spent some time on the grounds and, like many others, got lost in the famed maze. We had to wait patiently until one of the attendants guided us out.

             It was a pleasant break. Nonetheless, I kept fretting about my wallet. Kerstin, who noted my depressed mood, could not resist asking me: “Peter, you didn’t really lose much money and the problems arising from the theft of the cards have been sorted out. Well, what is the matter?”

             “Just chagrin,” I tried to sound placid. Pat, my wife, stepped to my aid. In an attempt  to allay Kerstin’s misgiving, she observed: “Peter is like that. He’ll fret until it is all sorted out.” Kerstin smiled. But her shrewd eyes indicated she was not convinced.

             She was right. Pat had remained with her family in Singapore for seven weeks before joining me in Hamburg. During that period, I mixed with fellows from other countries, who came to the famed Institute of Comparative Law to further their own projects. One of them – fair Liselot – worked in a discipline akin to mine. Further, like me, she was versed in German literature, music and culture in general. One evening we intend to go, together with some other visitors, to a show of Kleist performed in a well-known theatre. When these others dropped out, we went on our own.

             After the show, we had a late supper in an eatery. I was charmed by her vivid critique of the performance and decided to see more of her. During the next few weeks, we went together to some avant-garde performances at secondary theatres, to the famed modern opera house, which showed a piece by Brecht and Weil, and eventually to the philharmonic orchestra.

             Liselot savoured Brahms’ violin concerto. I, too, was roused by its third movement: the lively rondo. When we arrived back at the Institute (where both of us had studio apartments) after a pleasant stroll, she invited me for a nightcap.

             We saw a great deal of one another during her remaining weeks in Hamburg. She told me all about her marriage, which would have been dehydrated but for her two children, who were good glue. I – in turn – opened about my own sterile and predominantly unhappy marriage.

             “What keeps you together?” she wanted to know. “You don’t have children and your European milieu must be as alien to her just as her stern Chinese outlook is to you.”

             “Yes, in many ways we have remained strangers. What keep us together is the fear of loneliness. That too is a glue.”

             “I understand,” she observed gently.

 

             I went with Liselot to the airport, from which she took a direct flight back to her hometown. Just before we parted, she handed me an envelope. The sparse note in it read: “Au Revoir?” I had kept this note in one of the empty compartments of my wallet. Its loss grieved me far more than the stolen money.

             For some four weeks we stayed with my in-laws. We then took a brief trip to Cambridge, where I got from its library photocopies of materials not available at the Institute. From there we went straight to Heathrow, where we boarded a direct flight to Hamburg.

             A pile of letters was waiting for me. One included a replacement credit card. A separate letter, posted by my bank in Singapore two days after the dispatch of the card, was a standard form, advising me how to activate the token when overseas. Obviously, the highly efficient bank had developed a strategy seeking to ensure that the replacement would not be activated by an imposter.

             I then turned to the third envelope.  It had been posted in Zurich by an individual  unknown to me. As I tore it open, I was surprised to see that it contained the wallet that had been pinched in the air-terminal. The thief must have gleaned my address from the library card placed in the wallet. Apart from the bank notes – which were missing – the contents had not been disturbed. But the sender had perused it. In a bold handwriting he had added, beneath  Liselot’s dedication, four German words, which, when translated into English, read: “hopefully, before you forget.”

             For a few minutes, I sat thunderstruck. I then realised that, in his own way, the thief was an honest human being. True, he broke the law when he stole my wallet. If caught, he might have been sentenced to a few weeks in prison. But then, pilfering was his current profession. He might have been driven to it, if he had been retrenched or forced to resign a job. Unemployment was rampant all over Europe.

             On further reflection, I asked myself whether the thief’s act was more acrimonious than the lapse that a married man, like me, might yield to when tempted? Undoubtedly, the law rendered the thief’s act criminal. But, from a purely moral point of view, wasn’t his act of returning the wallet an indication that he was – in a manner of speaking – an honest person?

             For a while I kept musing. It would really have been nice to make that fellow’s acquaintance. The sentiment expressed by him was clear and realistic. To my own surprise, I tore the scrap of paper to pieces and discarded them. My eye then caught an internal memorandum, sent to me by the Institute’s librarian. It drew my attention to a few books and articles pertaining to my research project that I had overlooked up to that time.

             I spent the next few weeks on these new materials. When I finished their perusal, it was time to return to my post in Melbourne. We spent the last few days in Hamburg with Alvin and Kerstin, who built in a stopover in this ancient Hanseatic town, on their way to a break in Sweden.

             Both were pleased – quite surprised – to hear that the wallet had been returned by the culprit, who stole the money.

             “And, Peter,” grinned Kerstin during our pleasant meal in a seafood restaurant, “did that scoundrel leave everything else untouched?”

             “He did, rather,” I assured her. “But I thought it best to destroy things I no longer needed.”

             “What an excellent idea,” she summed up, looking slightly amused.

             “I am glad to hear you say this,” Pat stepped in unexpectedly. “You know, Peter tends to hoard things, even after they are no longer needed.”