To suffer

I telephone – and it’s a rarity to do so – the organizer of a literary festival where I am to "participate" with other colleagues. I had lost the tickets she sent to my mobile and wanted to ask for them again. From the other side of the telephone, and of the sea, she tells me: “Don’t worry, you’ll have them right away.”

Don’t worry. An expression that I had completely buried in the stony ground of memory. I have never said it, it’s not in my basic vocabulary, but I’ve read it far and wide in Folch i Torres’ stories, where all the characters, kind and obliging, tend to say it. My grandparents said it very naturally. But this organizer seems young and I understand that the expression must be very much alive in Mallorca, where she is from. Don’t worry. It’s a “don’t be concerned”, but more intense. The expression implies that this worry you have, slight as it may be, would in any case make you anxious, would torment you. Folch i Torres uses it, for example, when one character has to give an errand to another. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell him,” he would say. He could also say “Don’t be anxious”, but that would be more active. It could be said, above all, if a character were suffering because the other has to go on a journey. “Let us know when you’ve arrived, don’t make us anxious.”

So I find myself with the youth, I try it out. When asked if I will go buy various sweets, I say: “Don’t worry, you’ll have them.” The youth doesn’t flinch. It means that the expression is understood and integrated, vibrantly, into the conversation. This expression, which I’ll keep, I don’t have to worry, because I will make it spread.