What happened to Alex

I saw William, the property manager, Friday afternoon and asked him what happened to Alex. He didn’t know. “He didn’t even say he was leaving,” he said. So now it’s Robert who’s opening the gate and cleaning the apartment.

I found out that evening why Alex left. He’d stolen $500 from me. I lost my key a couple of weeks ago and he offered to make a copy of the spare from the guest house for me. I suspect he made an extra for himself.

For some reason, I thought to look in my money belt that I keep in my suitcase in my bedroom and it was completely cleaned out—-dollars, Euros, completely empty. I didn’t have any shillings left in it, which was in a way fortunate and in another way too bad because he stole all that money for nothing. These were $100 bills that were printed before 2000 and were useless here, as I found when I first tried to change them.

It would be one thing if he’d taken all that money and it made a huge difference in his life, but he took it for nothing. He now has no job, no housing, and no money. And for me, $500 is not an amount to sneeze at. It just makes me very sad; it seems quite tragic in a way. And there’s a part of me that’s hoping he’ll bring it back since it won’t do him any good anyway. I know that’s a ridiculous notion, but I’m hoping it anyway.

I told my landlady about this because I want the lock changed. When I told her what happened, she alternated between saying, "Oh, my God!" and "I'm so very sorry." When she came over this afternoon, her husband took my hand and said, "We'll track him down." I hope they don't. I would hate for Alex to be sent to prison for stealing what was worthless to him. I doubt the police will get involved or find him. But it’s just so distressing, it makes me want to cry.