Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Only Hemingway can get away with a symbol like this one.
The couple in the short story are killing time between Madrid and Barcelona. They're in a dusty train depot that doesn't offer much comfort. The couple in the short story are also stuck between making a decision to get married, and making a decision to get an abortion. This middle-ground between decisions doesn't offer much comfort.
Yeah. In the hands of a lesser writer, this would have been way too obvious.
Train stations, airports, bus stations, and ports, when found in stories, give us the sense of transition, of being between worlds, between experiences. These are symbols of bodies in motion, of travel and transience. Since the man and Jig's suitcases have stickers that give a record of their travels, the luggage can be seen as a map of the journey that brought them to this point:
He did not say anything but looked at the bags against the wall of the station. There were labels on them from all the hotels where they had spent nights. (99)
The last part of the second sentence is especially important: "where they had spent nights." The stickers on the suitcases also serve as a visual reminder of where and how Jig became pregnant...which again underlines the similarities between the couple's being stranded halfway between decisions (abortion vs. marriage) and the couple's being stopped halfway between cities.