Forty phone calls and a phone book from 1998

Previously: Amelia Sanchís, a retired schoolteacher, admitted to Olalla that in 1998 she crossed her name off the signature sheet. Olalla was nine.

Five nights left. The 803 does not leave until 23:40, so at seven in the evening on the 26th the Ribadeña office had both lights and the stove on, and three things on the table: the green 1998 folder, a county phone book from the same year, and a squared notebook still unused.

"Eighty-seven signatures and not one phone number," said Casilda Trigo, stationmaster of Ribadeña. "In 1998 nobody wrote a phone number on a signature sheet. They all knew each other."

"And the book is by surname," said Olalla Berruezo, conductor on the 803. "There are fourteen Berruezos."

"Thirteen. One is a bar."

The third chair was taken by Puri Berruezo, a retired seamstress and signature number four on the sheet, who had arrived with her sewing glasses and a bar of August nougat because there was nothing else in the house.

"I'll tell you who's who," said Puri. "Start at A and don't argue."

The system worked itself out by the third call. Puri read the name, gave the village and the trade — "Adoración Ganuza, from Sotoclaro, the one who sewed for the company store" — Casilda found the surname in the book and called out the number, and Olalla dialled on the office phone, which has big keys and a short cord, so you have to talk standing up.

The first four were quick and none of them was any use.

"This one gives a fax tone."

"That was the co-op. Cross it out."

"This one doesn't exist."

"Cross it out."

"A veterinary clinic in Puente Alcor picks this one up."

"Don't cross it out, write 'vet'," said Casilda. "The grandson may still be in the village."

At twenty past eight the first real answer came. His name was Aniceto Zubelzu, a retired baker from Corrales, and it took him four minutes to believe he was not being sold anything.

"The train woman?" he said. "Listen, madam, twelve times a month somebody rings me about switching my electricity."

"I'm not calling about your electricity. I'm calling about a sheet you signed in the council chamber on 14 November 1998."

Zubelzu said nothing for three long seconds.

"Are you still there?"

"I'm here. It's that you said the whole date."

Olalla told him nothing more. She asked whether the number was still his and whether she could call again. Zubelzu said yes to both, and then asked a third thing nobody had asked him:

"How many of us are left?"

"That's exactly what I'm counting," said Olalla.

Number nine was a man who said he had never signed anything in his life and hung up. Puri crossed him out, stared at the line for a while, and uncrossed him.

"He signed," she said. "What happened is he signed for his wife, and his wife died in 2019. Leave him under 'answers' and we'll see."

Number twelve was picked up by an answering machine with the voice of a boy who by now must be thirty. Fifteen was the Berruezo bar, which was no Berruezo at all but knew where four of them lived. None of them asked why they were being called. That came later, or it did not come.

At nine Casilda went down to the canteen and came back with three coffees and the news that Fermín Aizpún, driver of the 803, had offered to ring the four from Villaseca de la Vía himself, because he had known them all his life. He was back in twenty minutes with two yeses, one dead line and a message: the daughter of one of them wanted to know who had handed out her father's details and on what grounds.

"I told her the train," said Fermín from the doorway, without coming in.

"And what did she say?"

"That it's quite a reason. But she wrote down the departure time."

By half past ten they had made thirty-one calls and the notebook had three columns: answers, no answer, no longer exists. Puri made the crosses, because she said Olalla made them crooked. At a quarter to eleven the nougat ran out.

Number thirty-three answered in Galician and it took them two minutes to understand each other. It was Modesto Ferreiro, crossing keeper at the Sotoclaro level crossing until they automated it, and he said "I was on duty that day" three times before admitting he had gone down to sign during his break.

"Write down the ones who ask about the price, too," said Casilda. "Anyone who asks what the ticket costs is thinking about getting on."

"Nine have asked."

"Nine, then."

"And write down what time they answer," said Puri. "The ones who pick up in the morning are the ones who end up coming."

Number thirty-seven was Herminia Otazu, a dressmaker from Ermua del Río, who said that at her age she was not getting on any night train, and that if they wanted her to come they should say so in advance and in daylight. Thirty-nine was a call shop. Forty was picked up by a woman who said "he's asleep" and hung up before anyone could ask who.

"Forty," said Olalla, and sat down for the first time in four hours.

Casilda closed the phone book with her finger inside, the way you close a book you are going to open again, and started checking the remaining forty-seven against this year's directory, surname by surname and village by village. It took her nineteen minutes. Olalla watched her from the chair with her coat already on.

"Come here," said Casilda.

Puri came over too, her glasses in her hand.

"Of the eighty-seven numbers from 1998, twenty-six no longer exist," said Casilda. "Not with the new area code, not reassigned, not cancelled and reissued. Twenty-six lines that lead nowhere."

She turned the notebook so both could see it. In the right-hand column there were twenty-six names in Puri's handwriting and, beside each one, the village. Puri put her glasses on and read them from top to bottom without a word. When she looked up, down on the platform the 803 had just switched on its interior lights.

"Eight of them I know," she said. "And eight is not twenty-six. The other eighteen — who looks for them?"