I was nervous as I dialed the number for the gas company. The transaction had all the elements of impending disaster. One, it was required. We needed gas turned on in the apartment and couldn’t abandon this task as we had, for example, getting a cell phone that didn’t cost fifty-nine cents a minute. Two, it could cost, well, anything. As far as we knew, there’s only one gas company here. Come to think of it, I can’t remember whether we had a choice of gas companies at home. But utilities have a way of charging for odd steps in the process here – recall the rental of the water meter – and you are required to pay for the previous tenant’s overdue bills if he or she has been smart enough to leave you any. Three, it required a phone call. I mentioned the wildly expensive cell phone plan we used for about two weeks before we found an English-speaking cell phone salesman who, in about four seconds, changed our plan to one that allowed us to make cheaper calls after four in the afternoon. Pay phones are even more ridiculous. They cost about thirty cents a minute – more if you call mobile phones, which makes no sense to me, since the largest cell phone vendor happens to be Telefonica, who also owns all the payphones. They also seem to switch pricing plans about three minutes into any call, when a small stopwatch appears on the phone’s digital screen, showing that you have twenty seconds left. At that point, you’re left to throw coins into the phone as fast as possible. After about seventy-five cents worth, the stopwatch goes back to twenty…and starts again. Given how long someone could be on hold waiting for the gas monopoly to pick up the phone, it could cost more to set up the account than to pay for gas itself.
“Hola,” said the woman on the other end of the line. “Blllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll. Thrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Sí?”
I knew exactly how to answer that one. “Is there anyone there who speaks English?” I asked her in Spanish.
“No,” she said.
“Ok, ok,” I said, continuing, as I would for the entire conversation, in Spanish. “I want to open the bill for the gas for my flat.”
“Sí.”
“Do I need to have the new meter, or can I change the ancient name on the bill to my name?”
“Blllllllllllllllllllllllll. Thrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Pllllllllllllllll.”
“I have the number of my passport.” Passports tend to cover everything. At first we were shocked at how often people wanted a passport number – in the bank, buying phones, putting a deposit on an apartment – but now we were used to using them as driver’s licenses. In this case, though, she explained to me that my passport would not be sufficient. I needed a residence card or a national financial identification number. She also told me some other things, but I have no idea what they were. For all we understand of most transactions, she could have said, “Or, you could just come down here to the office, which happens to be two blocks from where you are standing, and enter a sweepstakes, and then we’ll set the whole thing up for free. Plus we’ll give you a massage.”
But I just said, “I have the number for my contract of to rent the apartment.” She clearly didn’t want that either. Then she asked for my passport, I think.
“Yes passport or no passport?” I said. “Number of passport? I want the number of my passport? You want my passport? To have my passport. Yes?”
“No,” she said.
“I have the number of my bill in the bank La Caixa,” I said. “Is that good? I don’t need the number of the card of residence or the card of financial. Not to have that cards. This cards. I have the bank. The number. Twenty numbers.” Of all that I said, “twenty numbers” was probably the most meaningful. As far as we can gather, Spain’s unbelievably great social security system – it seems that everyone has a pension, no matter where they have worked during their careers – means that anyone who wants to make sure you will pay your various bills wants to get the number attached to that pension. For those who don’t have pensions – say, unemployed, illiterate, illegal aliens like the two of us – a passport is all well and good, but what they really want is your bank account, since Barcelona has long endured foreign visitors who hang around, drink a lot of cheap beer, and then scamper home without paying the rent or the gas company. And that account number, like the national financial number that is attached to pensions, has twenty digits.
“Sí,” she said, finally. “El numero, por favor.” I read her the number in Spanish, a necessary step, but one that slows it down, since I have to think before reading every digit. Especially sixes and sevens, for some reason. Somehow, with all the thinking and translating, I read her twenty-four numbers. She wasn’t pleased.
“Blllllllllllllllllllllllllll. Thrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Pppppththththththt,” she said.
“Pardon,” I said. “ I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry a lot.” I read the number again, faster for having rehearsed. “And I change the name?” I said.
“Sí.”
“I can change the bill from the ancient name to the new name?”
“Su nombre?” I spelled it carefully in Spanish.
“Ba Bacon?” she said. I spelled it again. This time it worked.
“No more?” I said. “Is it good? Please, is it good? Nothing more to change? I am…complete?”
“Sí,” she said. “Es bueno. Blllllllllllll. Thrrrrrrrrrrr.” Immediately after I hung up, I realized that she hadn’t asked when we were moving in. We wondered if we would be charged for the extra days. Then we wondered what sorts of charges the old tenant might have left us. Panic. We had to find out, somehow. And then...we had a sense, first, of having an enormous task in front of us, and then a sense like we had realized that that task was to change the weather – so impossible that it wasn’t even something anyone could worry about. The stress lifted, at least until we remembered that we hadn’t dealt with the power company yet. But for now, we had a successful morning under our collective belt. Satisfied, we headed off to a celebratory lunch of pig, cured in various ways.