Irwin Shaw - Nightwork

“I would like to make an appointment to open an account,” I said.

“Just a moment, please,” she said. Almost immediately a man’s voice said, “Dr Hauser here. Good morning.”

So. In Switzerland men who were entrusted with money were doctors. Why not? Money was both a disease and a cure.

I gave the good doctor my name and explained once more that I wanted to open an account. He said he would expect me at ten-thirty and hung up.

There was a knock on the door and the porter came in with my bags. I apologized for not having any Swiss money for his tip, but he merely smiled and said, “Thank you,” and left. I began to feel that I was going to like Switzerland.

I twirled the three tumblers on the lever to open it. The lever did not budge. I tried once more. It still didn’t open. I tried again, with the same result. I was sure I was using the correct numbers. I picked up the small bag, which had the same combination, and twirled the tumblers and pushed at the lever. It opened smoothly.

“Damn it,” I said under my breath. The big bag had probably been handled roughly at one end of the flight or the other and the lock had jammed. I had nothing with me with which to force the lock. I didn’t want anyone else meddling with the bag, so I went down to the desk and asked for a big screwdriver. The concierge’s English vocabulary did not include the word screwdriver, but I finally got him to understand by the use of elaborate gestures what I wanted. He said something in German to an assistant and two minutes later the man reappeared with a screwdriver.

“He can go up with you,” the concierge said, “and assist you, if you want.”

“That won’t be necessary, thank you,” I said, and went back to my room.

It took five minutes of scraping and prying to force the lock, and I mourned for my handsome, brand-new bag as it broke open. I would have to get a new lock put on, if that were possible.

I lifted the lid. On the top of whatever else was in the bag there was a loud, houndstooth [8]sports jacket. I had never owned a jacket like that in my life.

I had taken the wrong bag at the airport. One that looked exactly like mine, the same size and make, the same color, dark blue with red piping. I swore softly at the chain-belt system of manufacturing and selling in America, where everybody makes and sells a million identical copies of everything.

I let the lid drop on the bag and flipped the clasps on each side of the lock shut. I didn’t want to disturb anybody else’s belongings. It was bad enough that I had broken open the lock. Then I went down to the concierge’s desk again. I gave him back the screwdriver and explained what had happened and asked him to call the airport for me to find out if one of the other travelers on my plane had reported that a mistake had been made and, if so, where and how I could pick up my own bag.

“Do you have your baggage checks?” he asked.

I searched through my pockets while the concierge looked on condescendingly. “Accidents happen. One must foresee,” he said, “When I travel, I always paste a large, colored etiquette with my initials on it on all my luggage.”

“A very good idea,” I said. “I will remember it in the future.” I didn’t have the baggage checks. I must have thrown them away when I went through customs and saw I didn’t need them. “Can you call, now, please? I don’t know any German and…”

“I shall call,” he said. He picked up the phone and asked for a number.

Five minutes later, after a good deal of agitated Swiss-German, interrupted by long waits which the concierge filled with rapid drumming of his fingertips on his desk, he hung up. “Nothing has been reported,” he said. “They will call you here when there is any news. When the passenger who has your bag gets to his hotel, he will undoubtedly discover that there has been an exchange and will make inquiries at the airport.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“For nothing.” He bowed. I did not bow back. I went up to my room.

When the passenger gets your bag to his hotel, the concierge had said. I had overheard some of the conversations on the plane. There were probably five hundred ski resorts in Europe, and from what I had heard my bag might even at that minute be on its way to Davos or Chamonix or Zermatt or Lech or … I shook my head despairingly. Whoever it was who had my bag might not try to open it until the next morning. And when he did, he probably would do exactly as I had done and break open the lock. And he might not be a fastidious as I had been about disturbing a stranger’s affairs.

I lifted the lid of the bag on the bed and stared down at the houndstooth jacket. I had a premonition that I was going to have trouble with the man who would wear a jacket like that. I knocked the lid back hard.

I picked up the telephone and gave the number of the bank. When I got an answer. I asked for Dr Hauser again. He was very polite when I told him that I found that I could not come in today. A specialist in the fever regions of international currency, he was calm in the face of ups and downs. I said I would try to call him tomorrow for an appointment. “I will be in my office all day,” he said.

After he had hung up, I sat staring at the telephone for a long time. There was nothing I could do but wait.

Accidents happen, the concierge had said. One must foresee.

He had been a little late with his advice.

In the next two days I had the concierge call the airport half a dozen times. The conversation was always the same. No one from the ski club had reported having taken a wrong bag.

Pacing up and down in the gloomy room, my nerves twanging like overtuned guitar strings, I remembered the old saw – accidents go in threes. There had been Ferris on the floor, Drusack in the hospital, now this. Should I have been more wary? I knew I was a superstitious man and I should have paid more honor to superstition. The hotel room, which had seemed at first glance to be cozy and welcoming, now only added to my depression, and I took long random walks around the city, hoping to tire myself at least enough so that I could sleep at night. The climate of Zurich in the winter is not conducive to gaiety. Under the leaden sky, even the lake looked as though it had lain in a vault for centuries.

On the second day I recognized defeat and finally unpacked the suitcase I had carried away from Kloten. There was nothing in it to identify its owner, no address books, no checkbooks, no books of any kind, with or without a name on the flyleaf, no bills or photographs, signed or unsigned, and no monograms on anything. The owner must have been inordinately healthy – in a leather shaving kit, there were no medicine bottles that might have had a name on a label – just toothpaste, toothbrush, a safety razor, a bottle of aspirin, after-shaving talcum powder, and a bottle of eau de cologne.

I began to sweat. It was room 602 all over again. Was I going to be haunted forever by ghosts who slipped into my life for a moment, changed it, and then slipped out, eternally unidentified?

Remembering detective stories I had read, I looked for tailors’ labels on the jackets of suits. While the clothes were presentable enough, they all seemed to come from big clothing manufacturers who distributed to stores all over the United States. There were laundry symbols on some of the shirts. Perhaps, given time, the FBI would have been able to track them down, but I couldn’t see myself approaching the FBI for help.

There was a pair of crimson ski pants and a lemon yellow, nylon, lightweight parka. I shook my head. What could you expect of a man who would appear on the slopes looking like the flag of a small hot country? It was in keeping with the houndstooth jacket. I would keep my eyes open for bright spots of color coming down the hill.