Margen
Ona and I have shared a flat in Girona since second year, and in three years she has never once texted me in Spanish. Not drunk. Not with her mum standing next to her. I reply in Catalan, obviously.
On Saturdays she works as a waitress in a bar on Plaça de la Independència and walks home. I was in with my Criminology notes. This is what I’ve got on my phone:
Ona · 0:58 surto ara. m'he deixat les claus al bar i ja han tancat 🙄 (leaving now. left my keys in the bar and they’ve closed)
Me · 0:58 un altre cop jajaja. t'obro jo, soc desperta (again lol. I’ll buzz you in, I’m up)
Ona · 1:31 estoy abajo. cual era el codigo del portal? (i’m downstairs. what was the door code?)
I sat there staring at the screen. Ona writes “sóc a baix”, with her accent on the o, and she never uses question marks. Why was she texting me in Spanish?
I figured her keyboard had switched, or she was with a girl from the bar who isn’t from round here. I answered.
Me · 1:32 4417. però si t'obro jo des de dalt (4417. but I can buzz you in from up here)
Ona · 1:32 no no deja no te levantes (no no leave it don’t get up)
Ona · 1:33 oye estás sola? (hey are you on your own?)
Me · 1:33 sí, en Marc és a Lleida fins dilluns. per? (yeah, Marc’s in Lleida till Monday. why?)
Ona · 1:34 por nada. para no hacer ruido (no reason. so i don’t make noise)
I went to the kitchen to boil water for two cups of tea. From the kitchen window you can see the front door of the building. There was nobody in the street. Not one car.
Me · 1:37 on ets? no et veig (where are you? I can’t see you)
No answer. The two ticks stayed grey.
At 1:41 I got a message from a number I didn’t have saved.
+34 6·· ·· ·· · 1:41 Laia sóc l'Ona!! m'han robat el mòbil al Pont de Pedra. t'escric amb el d'una noia. NO contestis res del meu número. vaig als mossos (Laia it’s Ona!! my phone got stolen on the Pont de Pedra. writing from some girl’s phone. DON’T answer anything from my number. going to the police)
Someone had snatched her phone out of her hand on the bridge, unlocked, while she was listening to a voice note.
I read “estás sola?” again. Then “no te levantes”.
Whoever had Ona’s phone didn’t know Catalan, or didn’t stop to look at how we text each other. My last message was enough, plus the address her maps app has saved as “Home”. I gave them the code myself.
At 1:44 I heard the street door open. Nobody had rung the buzzer.
I turned off the kitchen light, double-locked the flat door from the inside and called 112 sitting on the hallway floor. While I was giving the address, the lift stopped on the third floor, ours. The doors opened. They closed. It went back down.
The Mossos patrol got there at 1:53 and found nobody on the stairs. On Monday the building changed the door code. We don’t have the new one written in any chat.