Conmen

Kebab, kebab, kebab, kebab. Mustafa is word-enthusiastic and literal. It's kebab he's selling. We met him already the first night we were there; he said something in Portuguese, which naturally none of us understood. And then the only word we took notice too — kebab. Kebab, kebab, kebab, kebab. Then the ringing his bell again. He begins early in the morning and if one is to step out on the balcony at late night one can still hear him call. His bell ringing. If he had had a tape recorder he'd been able to freak on his advertisement campaign 24/7. Luckily he doesn't.
    But deeper into the city there are more covetous salesmen. Covetous and hypocritical. Looking just as ordinary as anybody else. That's what's so hypocritical about them.
    "Have you gotten these tickets?" wonders a Swiss guy in a fairly good English and dressed in a green baseball cap with a matching pair of city shorts. He looks excited, this overexcited. I'm at the time not sure why, but as we shake our heads we receive three lottery tickets, quickly distributed among us.
    With a vigorous and loudmouthed excitement he explains he's an employee at a nearby hotel, here in Algarve. They'd love to get some more guest for the next season, so we understand this lottery tickets are some kind of lobby campaign, for raising the guest total. And by the way, where are we from? Sweden? That's terrific! What do we like the city? Would we consider coming back next season, but then to their hotel? We haven't even seen the thing yet, but sure, we would consider returning here sometime we, smile back at this enthusiastic performer.
    But c'mon, scratch the ticket now, he obliges us. You can really win things. Metal coins hit the tickets.
    His Danish companion approaches and it shows he speaks Swedish. But it's easier to understand his English than his Swedish so after a few uh?:s, pardon?:s and what?:s (Swedish substitute for pardon) we switch back to the English tongue.
    As the tickets are scratched and are lying there in the palm of someone's hand, all naked and beautiful, the Swiss half is jumping high while the Dane keeps his coolness, but manages to force a smile to his lips.
    This is a bottle of Champagne, and this..." Swiss eyes flash in an international crowd. "This has never happened before. It's the highest prize. A free trip to a resort in Portugal or Spain, frees of choice. "He's overjoyed. "aren't you happy?" Before anyone of us has the chance to grab it and answer: "Was that really the ticket you got from me? This has never happened before." He's all sunshine.
    But there's a catch. Not money they both assure us, but some of us must come with them to spend 90 minutes at the hotel, similarly fetching out prize. That's all there is to it. If the question would have concerned money, everything would have been so much easier — but now everything looked different. They didn't want any money.
    And you're bound to get suspicious when a business claims it's not about those green bills, because business is as green as nature itself. And one and a half hour is a long time for just sitting around at a hotel waiting to get out of there.
    Charles asks them for their calling cards, but sorry, they don't have any. They're both speeding up in their talking — the Swiss making it FFW by now. And now they're in a hurry, so couldn't we come to collect our prize the day thereafter.
    "Where is this hotel?" Dad wonders.
    "Just meet me here tomorrow morning at 10 am. I'll drive you up personally in my own car. But not all of you, no more than four. We have to go now. Tomorrow..." And they're gone. Literary.
    As we turn our heads two police officers walks past us. Some of us go "uh-huh" inside, others perhaps only "huh?"...
    We met the Swiss once more later. On the same street, and I couldn't tell what he was doing just walking around on the same street again. He didn't have the lottery tickets this time. "Hello Sweden!" He cheered. The response was hostile. "How are you?"
    "Fine," I reply.
    "You're ready to go up to the hotel now?"
    "No, not now," I shake my head speaking.
    "Perhaps some other time then?"
    "Yeah... some other time."