Pickpocket

Those of you who know Em would know she is something of a quiet lass. But this evening, thankfully for the both of us, she was compelled to unleash another side to her usually tranquil mien.

After a very long day, during which we’d walked miles and visited four of Rome’s best churches, we found ourselves at the mercy of the city’s whimsical public transport system. Of late, the trams to Trastevere have been undergoing maintenance; this means that the eighty or more commuters for each service are jammed into infrequent, supplementary buses.

Exhausted to the point of barely being able to stand, we found ourselves packed in the sardine tin of a bus with numerous other tired and sweaty passengers, in peak hour traffic on one of the hottest spring afternoons. Amid dubious odours, we found our tiredness giving way to delirium, as it often does, and were reduced to making sarcastic remarks (eg. ‘Thank god it’s peak hour’; ‘Can someone turn on the heater?’) and bouts of sporadic laughter.

This was all well and good until we finally crossed the Tiber and came to the next fermata. Now, the bus was already so full that we were severely pressed on all sides – I kept wondering what India must be like, imagining people clambering on the roof.

We were standing smack bang in the middle of the bus. Unlike back home, one can board the buses here through any of the doors, front, middle or back; so, as the middle doors opened, about ten more people tried to get on. It was sheer madness. Again we laughed, making jokes about the lack of personal space etc.

It struck me that one particular woman who had just hopped on had her right elbow raised, and seemed to be pushing Emma in the chest, quite forcefully, as she boarded; I caught her eye, and could tell that her expression was strangely intense – but I was so exasperated at her rudeness that I didn’t even think there might be another reason for her excessive pushiness. Only later did Em and I realize that the elbow to Em’s chest was a type of ‘marking’ device for her accomplice, a smaller woman who’d managed to squash up against Em.

Em was wearing a money belt, rather conspicuously, over her shoulder. As mentioned, we were quite delirious, and had no choice really but to recommence our sarcasm, if only to make light of the truly unbelievable situation.

Barely a minute after the doors closed, I suddenly heard the usually placid Em shout with uncharacteristic aggression, and much determination. ‘Give that back!’ Silence. Em repeated herself. ‘NO, give that back’. Suddenly, Em’s purse fell to the floor of the crowded bus, and some of the contents spilled out. ‘Not me miss!’ came the reply, and a general scuffle ensued, whereupon Em somehow managed to retrieve her purse from the floor.

At the time, the feigned innocence of the thief caught Emma off guard. She genuinely thought she may have mistakenly accused the woman of pickpocketing her. Em looked at me. I was bewildered, but was ready to grab the thief by the hair if she didn’t return the purse. Suddenly, the first woman – whom we later realized, with hindsight, to be her accomplice – picked up the receipts that had fallen from the purse, and ever so sweetly returned them to Em.

An awkward silence. For the next minute – which was quite surreal, really, given the four of us were squeezed into about one square meter – I studied the older woman who had originally elbowed Em in the chest, through my sunglasses, and caught her on more than one occasion scowling at the other, rolling her eyes. I knew at once what she was saying: ‘You fool, how could you have possibly screwed that up?’ I also caught the eye a nearby passenger, and knew too what he was telling me: ‘Do you realize how lucky you are?’

The pair of women disembarked at the very next stop. When they were clear, we decided to push past the new passengers and get off the bus; we’d had enough.

Free from the crush, and still not entirely certain as to what had actually occurred, it struck me quite forcefully that the fact that the two women disembarked where they did was an important clue as to their caper: the stop was barely eighty meters from where they had hopped on, on the same street – I know from experience that it is in fact the shortest distance between any two stops on the entire route. Given the peak hour traffic, they could’ve easily walked the distance in less time than in took the bus to travel the distance. What’s more, they began walking back the way they came.

As we went over the events, our hearts racing with adrenaline, we began to piece the puzzle together, what was left of our naïveity being swept aside in the process. The two accomplices were clearly aware of the public transport situation – and were probably spending the best part of the day making a mint, getting on at one stop, pinching a purse or two, then hopping off at the next. When they saw Em standing directly in front of the door with her moneybelt, they must’ve thought they had easy pickings. It was highly probable that the purse only fell to the floor when the thief made to pass it hurriedly to her accomplice, and, thankfully, failed.

They were quick – lightning quick – but they met their match in Em. It was, she said, the sudden lack of weight in the money belt that made her realize it was gone. If it had taken her thirty more seconds to do so, the pair would’ve been off the bus with a hundred euros of Em’s, and all of her cards.

My kiwi friend James says he has seen four successful pickpocketings in Rome (and each time he has intervened). This was our first experience, and, with our new and increased awareness, hopefully our last.