The Passenger
Daniel Navarro


Petite, slim and attractive Sarah waited on the platform ticket in hand preparing to board an almost empty bus.
Inside, seeing that most of the aisle seats were taken she shrugged and headed straight towards the noisy rear bench.
Almost immediately the engine behind her stopped growling and briefly roared as they got underway while a few minutes later the feature movie flashed on the aisle monitors.

“Boring,” she thought getting up to open the overhead bin searching for something to read, anything, a forgotten newspaper, a magazine.

All she found was a wrinkled piece of paper, a note asking for help written in red ink.
It said that the woman with dyed red hair and sunglasses sitting three rows from the back was in trouble but please don't come near and asked the reader to be extremely discrete because she was being kidnapped.
At the bottom appeared the hastily scrawled initials "A.I.".

The young girl didn't know what to do, she read the note again and sat down.
Three rows ahead a red haired woman was sitting perfectly still in her seat.
Desperately now she reread the note over and over refusing to believe the reality of her situation.

The author explained she was a leftist writer being taken by force to somewhere unknown.
Looking up again Sarah was puzzled, there was no one near the woman who looked like the police or even slightly sinister, certainly no one that looked like a kidnapper. 

The situation began to obsess her chasing away all other thoughts as she worried about the fate of this mysterious woman with dark glasses.
Beams of light shone through cracks in the curtains puncturing the bus’ twilight.
The woman did not show any signs of nervousness or fear, and as she walked by going to the bathroom Sarah thought that her face looked calm, almost serene.
An unlit cigarette dangled from her heavily rouged lips.
Their eyes met and they exchanged brief smiles.


Minutes passed as Sarah’s thoughts ran amuck and their bus barreled down the winding road.
She peeked over the top of the seats and observed that the woman's companion never looked towards the bathroom.
Nothing seemed amiss.
Half an hour passed and Sarah began to worry.
The movie feature continued, the plot developed and still no one came out of the bathroom.

More minutes went by.
Looking up again she noticed that the woman's companion was sound asleep and snoring lightly.
Not knowing what to do she rose and fighting desperately to stay calm pretended to look for something under the seats slowly making her way towards the sleeping kidnapper.
He was dressed plainly with a brown sweater over a green shirt and khaki pants, she couldn't see if he wore boots or shoes.
His salt and pepper hair was cheaply cut and his features were rough, nothing about him suggested a government agent.

Returning to her seat Sarah knocked lightly on the bathroom door to make sure the woman was all right.
No response.
Her anxiety climbed even further a few minutes later as a little girl tried to enter the bathroom.

Sarah was just about to tell her it was occupied when the child pushed the door open and went in.

The cubicle was empty.

Now she was really confused, unable to understand what was happening.
A note written by an unknown woman describing herself and asking for help had been left where there was little probability of anyone finding it.

Why had the note been written in the first place?
Now there was a woman on the bus matching that description down to the clothes and hair color.
This same woman then disappeared from the bathroom of a moving bus.

"I don't believe, this can't be happening", she thought.

Thinking it had been a dream Sarah went to the bathroom several times during the rest of the trip and confirmed no one else was there.

The bus came to a stop and Sarah’s boyfriend was standing on the sidewalk waving at her through the window.
On her way out she glanced at the empty seat where the woman had been and assumed that the sleeping figure beside it was continuing to Guadalajara.

Immediately Sarah told her boyfriend about the strange events on the bus and they discussed several possibilities in an attempt to rationalize the events.
Not knowing what to think they eventually agreed however that it definitely was not a dream or nightmare or a case of mistaken identity.

That night she surfed the Internet until very late investigating a nagging doubt, finally becoming convinced that her experience was a deja vu.

If this were true - she thought - then these events were about to be repeated, this time for real. But how? Was it going to happen on a bus? Is there really such a writer or was she the incarnation of another woman?

Sarah began researching and reading electronic articles published by female writers with revolutionary writings or ideals.

Next day, she and her by now skeptic boyfriend continued their investigation on the Web trying to locate possible victims.
Three days later their efforts produced an article about the kidnapping of well-known radical writer named Miriam Careyes.
It was published in La Jornada’s on-line version and the story left them no doubt about what was going to happen now: the description of the kidnapped woman matched that of Sarah's vision on the bus.

Careful to use only public telephones Sarah called the editorial department of several newspapers and non-governmental agencies in the state of Jalisco, and although no one took her deja vu very seriously, reporters and investigators quietly began calling their own contacts asking questions.

That night at the city bus depot a woman with dyed red hair and heavily crimsoned lips was quietly and quickly whisked off a bus with her companion who wore a green shirt and brown sweater.
They were surrounded by three other men.
There was no fuss and no one appeared worried or threatened.
From her seat in the waiting area Sarah witnessed the scene with incredulous eyes knowing exactly what was happening.
The events seemed to take place in slow motion yet from somewhere her numbed brain now flashed those red letters spelling the initials "A.I.".

Jumping up suddenly Sarah grabbed her frightened boyfriend by the arm and ran to a pay phone where she nervously dialed the number hoping desperately someone would answer.

"Amnesty International, Mexico City office. How can I help you?" said a voice on the other end.


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Louis Claveria, transl.