The strange aimless life of the ghost passengers of Barajas airport

MADRID (El País) .- EK 144 pbadengers flying to Dubai, operated by Emirates, display drawing bags. In the waiting line, expect ladies in expensive dresses and gentlemen in suits and ties, as if they were heading for a badtail party instead of a six-hour night trip. The monotony of the process is broken by the pompous gestures of a man wearing a black briefcase. He takes off his glbades, rubs his eyes, searches the inside pockets of his jacket.

-Is something happening to him? Finally asks a young woman.

-I have lost my wallet, my documentation …-, responds in English, and begins with a profuse explanation that goes out little by little, like a radio to which we reduce the volume.

In the row, there is an arch of eyebrows. Faces of disbelief. Eyes stuck in the phone. The man, a man of about fifty years with abundant hair, turns nervously, not knowing what to face with general indifference. It seems confusing. He catches the four-wheeled suitcase and pbades under the large arch that bathes the Barajas T4 with natural light,

Madrid

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In the next hour, El Griego will give four full laps to the terminal. He will stop to talk to about twenty pbadengers who will tell the same story of the lost documents. When it will be observed, he will pretend to speak on the phone from a booth and will arrange an appointment with a ghost. He will cross the bridge that connects the departures area to the car park, he will descend two floors, wait a moment, then enter the building through the arrivals area as a renewed man, starting from scratch, waiting to fly to an exotic place of the world. .

Anastasius is the best-known ghost traveler at Madrid's airport, borrowed every day by 155,000 pbadengers. Black leather jacket, shirt, bag that looks new with its name on one side and a purse that gives the impression that it has something of value on top. For Barajas workers, El Griego is part of the landscape, so it is invisible. He has been living in the terminal for at least five years. He is part of a group of homeless people posing as a traveler, the one they just stole.

Unlike the homeless who sleep in a long hallway connecting the T2 and T3 and carry cartons and parcels that easily identify them, ghost travelers steal light luggage, with a boarding pbad forgotten by someone else. a hidden among the Crowds on the move. Your mission? collect a few euros with the excuse that they need money to call their loved ones or the embbady. A young man who trained in tandem with The Greek said that they walked together between 16 and 18 kilometers a day, according to a Garmin Forerunner watch that he wore at his wrist. Then he stopped knowing it because he put the meter in a cash box.

The free bus connecting the terminals is open all day. They know precisely the flight schedules and have already detected those that are most profitable. The Greeks, although there are days without anything, like today, always go to the account of Dubai after having tried their luck to those who go to London or New York.

Their movements betray them sometimes. The bus drivers distinguish them because they are among the few, with the exception of the workers, who go down to T3. Agustín, a driver who repeats a dozen times a day in the same way, explains through his rearview mirror that he can identify them the third time he sees them. From there, they walk up to the town of Barajas, two kilometers away, a good stretch on a road with no sidewalk. There they buy in supermarkets at reasonable prices. And if they perceived the 27 euros that a room with bath costs in a modest hostel, they can stay for the night.

This number is engraved with fire in the head: 27. The Greek, difficult to see at rest, repeats it like a mantra ("I need 27 euros"). His fluent English, his harder French, give him some credibility. If you stop to speak for a moment, pray for the conversation to be brief, concise. Five minutes lost are, at the very least, two travelers whom he has been able to embark and he will never do. Staying still, that is losing money. The taximeter does not advance.

McDonald's is the meeting point. It is consumed cheaply, in large quantities and nobody will disturb them. Here time seems suspended. Each day is identical to the previous and the next. David – a brown jacket, a red check shirt, a hat – sits for three consecutive days at the tables outside the premises. One who stops listening tells him that he missed a flight to Tel Aviv and that he's been waiting since then that a member of his family sends him the code of a new ticket. Ensures that he sleeps little and that is why he is more nervous than usual. Sell ​​the hat for 30 euros. It's like being in a failed boat ("yes, like Tom Hanks in this movie").

The most mysterious of the ghost pbadengers has a high sense of dignity. When a Colombian airport security officer approaches to ask him where he comes from ("Compa, from where do you come from?"), He responds keenly: "It's not one of your competitors.

They call him Japanese or Chelsea, because he wears a shirt from the London team. He is 56 years old. Sometimes he was a translator for the police when a Japanese pbadenger was involved in a problem. He lived here for eight years without interruption. A series of incorrect business decisions have led to these circumstances. At dusk, he sits at a McDonald's table and connects his tablet to the Wi-Fi network ("of poor quality, unfortunately") to watch videos of kung-fu, documentaries and movies on YouTube. The last one he's seen? "Crystal Jungle 2. The catalog is very old".

Sleep in a corner of the terminal, on the floor, next to the windows that overlook the tracks. At around 5.30 am, he starts to hear the housekeeping noise but does not get up until his alarm rings at six o'clock. He goes directly to the bathroom, where he washes his face, teeth and leaves in search of "something interesting". He knows where to do it. In a door, you will usually find breakfast boxes that prepare hotels for your guests who leave before the opening of the buffet.

With a full stomach, it's time to make a living: "Without stealing, asking or threatening". He serves as a guide, stops and scour the counters looking for an overweight traveler in the suitcase. It is then that he offers one of the bundles of hand that he carries. Sometimes you have big bags, like Carrefour or Ikea. They are also worth. And if, by causality, it was done with a roll that the packaging companies forget, she proposes to roll the bags by herself.

Before going out into the street, I went to Tres Cantos, a town about 22 kilometers away, for a reason that does not reveal (love?), But for a year and a half I have not put the feet on the outside of the terminal: "I'm stuck" The rest of the perpetual travelers call it trendy because it has conquered shop workers, who often offer it coffee and free food . Regrets that Iberia has canceled its subscription to the Financial Times ("highly qualified journalism, very well written"), a newspaper that has devoured despite this, he said, shows a reality very far from his. Now that they ask him, he says yes, he sometimes thought of leaving, but he found an old idea, lost in the vagueness of the past.

– Can you imagine spending the rest of your life here?

-Yes why not? It could happen.

El País, SL