Il portafoglio smarrito

Nico realizes his wallet is missing the moment he touches his back pocket and feels nothing. It is not the small worry of “maybe it is at home”. It is that sharp drop in the stomach that means: it was here, and now it is gone. He checks all the usual places: on the kitchen table, on the sink, and on the small shelf near the entrance. But there is no trace of the wallet.

“Ok,” Nico says softly. “Think.” He rewinds the day in his mind. First stop: the supermarket. He paid by card, put the receipt somewhere, and went to the car. Second stop: the gym. He checked in on his phone, used a locker, worked out, took a shower, and left. Now he is here with the groceries but without his wallet. He forces himself to stay calm. First he goes back to the supermarket. It is the closest, and he remembers the checkout well.

Inside the supermarket, the air smells of warm bread and cold fruit and vegetables. Nico goes to customer service and tries to keep his voice steady. “Hello,” he says. “I think I have lost my wallet.” The employee nods as if it happened every day. “When did you lose it?” “Earlier today, I think around ten,” Nico says. “Can you describe it?” the employee asks. Nico swallows. “Black, leather. Medium-sized. It folds. There is a small scratch on the corner. Inside there is my ID card.” The employee opens a drawer and checks quickly. Nico looks, pretending nothing. The employee shakes his head. “Nothing matches that description, and certainly no wallet with your ID.”

“Could it be at the checkouts?” Nico asks. “Which checkout did you use?” the employee replies. Nico thinks hard about it. “Checkout six, near the self-checkouts.” “Wait here,” the employee says. Nico waits, listening to the beeps, the footsteps, and people talking about dinner. The employee comes back. “No wallet handed in at checkout six.” Nico nods, and his chest feels tight. “All right. Thank you.” Maybe I left it at the gym, he thinks to himself. Maybe I left it by mistake in one of the lockers. Surely many people forget wallets in lockers, he tells himself. Nico tries to smile. “Thank you for your time,” he says.

At the gym the reception desk is busy. A staff member looks up when Nico comes closer. “Hi,” Nico says. “I think I lost my wallet today. I was here before.” “What time were you here?” she asks. “About two hours ago,” Nico says. “Can you describe it?” Nico repeats the description: black, leather, foldable, a small scratch, an ID inside. The staff member nods, types something, and goes to check the lost and found. She comes back with a clear plastic box full of random items—earbuds, a glove, a water bottle. No wallet. “It isn’t here,” she says. “Have you checked your locker?” “I emptied it,” Nico says. “I am sure.”

“Sometimes things slip behind a bench,” she says. “We can check.” Nico nods and they walk into the changing room. They check around his locker and the bench, under the bench, behind it, and near the showers—nothing. Nico feels panic start to rise, hot and unreasonable. He still leaves her his number. “If someone hands it in, call me,” he says, and she writes it down. When Nico returns to the car, he sits in the driver’s seat without starting the engine and tries to understand where the wallet could have ended up. He thinks that maybe he will have to call the police to report the loss.

He asks himself a simple question: when does he remember touching the wallet for the last time? At the supermarket, he remembers taking it out to pay. At the gym, he does not remember touching it at all, because he checked in with an app. So the last moment he remembers it in his hand is at the supermarket checkout. After that, did he put it back in his pocket as usual?

Nico remembers something small and annoying. In the supermarket car park he sat in the car for a moment. He was too hot, so he took off his jacket and adjusted his jeans, because the wallet in his back pocket was bothering him while he was driving. His eyes open wide. He looks between the seat and the centre console. Nothing. Then he looks in the narrow gap by the door, the dark space that collects coins and lost time. He reaches out his hand slowly, and his fingers touch leather.

Nico freezes, then he pulls his hand back. The wallet comes out like a guilty secret—black, folded, familiar, with the small scratch on the corner. He stares at it for a second, as if it could be a joke, then he laughs, half relief and half anger. “It slipped out,” he thinks to himself. “It slipped out of the pocket, next to the seat.” He opens it right away. Cards, ID, everything.

Nico leans back against the backrest and holds the wallet with both hands, letting the fear leave him. He does not want to tell anyone how close he came: cancel all the cards and redo every document. He just puts the wallet in the front pocket—where it should have been from the beginning—starts the car and goes home feeling lighter, not because the wallet was heavy, but because the panic has disappeared. While he drives, the wallet bothers him and he decides to adjust his trousers...