I crave to interact with strangers but it’s always with extreme caution, if at all. I’m nervous and clumsy. And then whoever I’m trying to talk to gets nervous too. So I mind my own business. Interact nakonam sangintaram! But from time to time, it happens.
A few nights ago I was riding the night train from Venice to Budapest. I was in a cabin with six seats but there were only three of us; me and two women, one younger one older, generally looking like they’ve had a hard life.
The lights went off soon after the train left Venice around 9:30. The women had a brief conversation, I think in Hungarian, and that was it. I didn’t say a word, of course. I was reading my book (Love in the Time of Cholera, not that impressed) at my window seat.
Luckily the two other seats on my side were empty. I stretched out and went to sleep. I should have been worried about my backpack on the top rack. Last year someone walked off with my backpack — computer, phone, passport… inside — as I was sleeping on the train in southern France. But I can’t be paranoid or live in fear. I need my sleep! I’m in a cabin with two other people, not potential thieves. Go to sleep! And I did. But not for long.
I was feeling guilty, sorry for the other two . The older woman tried to lay down between her seat and the empty one next to her. She managed somehow and fell asleep. The other woman looked more uncomfortable. She was moving back and forth in her seat in a tortured state. She wasn’t awake but she certainly wasn’t asleep either. I felt terrible. There was no way I could sleep without offering them my “bed”. Or at least we could rotate and all of us could get some comfortable sleep.
I sat up and waited for one of them to open her eyes. The younger woman woke up for a second. I waved my hand and gestured that we could change seats and she could sleep more comfortably. She thought for a moment and declined. It wasn’t very convincing but I didn’t insist. I didn’t want to impose. Nemikhaay nakhaa! 🙂
A bit later the older woman woke up. I made the offer to her and she didn’t hesitate for a moment. I took her seat and she came over to the other side and stretched out. I felt so much better. I dozed off, sitting up, my head resting on the wall.
A couple of hours later, the younger woman got off somewhere — a station in Romania or Croatia? — and now I too had a whole row of seats to myself. I didn’t get much sleep though. A short time later the lights went on and a giant officer stood by the cabin door asking for “dokooment”. Passport control.
I showed him mine. He flipped a few pages and handed it back. Then he looked at the woman. She was looking for her purse. It wasn’t there. She panicked. I panicked! I looked up to see if my backpack was sill there. It was, thank god. “Dokooment!” the officer repeated. The woman looked up and down and between the cracks… She was frantic. Her purse was gone. She pleaded with the officer. I didn’t understand a word, but I could imagine.
Someone down the other end of the wagon shouted something. The woman ran out, followed by the officer. I sat thinking how lucky I was. At least I didn’t get robbed! But I did feel sorry for the woman.
After a while she came back into the cabin — with her purse. She was still very upset. Her documents were there but the money was gone. The thief had left the purse in the toilet and another passenger found it, I think. That’s what I assumed. I couldn’t understand more than one out of a hundred words, but I was pretty sure she was cursing god and everybody else — namely Romanians, who are considered low lives in this part of the world.
I tried to calm her down. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I kept saying. She was beside herself. She said she had a few hundred euros and some Hungarian forints too. All stolen with her credit card. “Telephone…? Family…?” I said, hoping some relative could help her out. But she suggested that there was no one she could call. I think she said the battery was dead or running out. No one could help her at that point.
I took out my wallet and gave her a few thousand forints. Around 30 dollars. She took it and looked at it. She was thankful. But she didn’t stop moaning. She walked over to the next cabin and downloaded on them. At least they spoke the same language. They could console her, to some extent.
I stretched out to sleep again. This time I used my backpack as a pillow. Didn’t want to take any chances. I wanted it next to me.
Every once in a while I would wake up and see two staring eyes. She couldn’t sleep. She would lay down on the opposite seats and stare at me. I couldn’t take it. I had to get out of there. It would be better for her to leave the scene of the crime too, for a little while.
“Kaffe?” I asked and gestured towards the restaurant. She said okay and came along.
As soon as we sat at a table, she told the whole story to the waitress, who wasn’t too surprised or sympathetic; she had heard the same from a million other unfortunate passengers.
“Two cappuccinos please!” and I looked at the menu. There were lots of omelets to choose from.
“Omelet?”
“No, no…” she replied.
I ordered for her anyway. “One ham omelet and one mushroom omelet,” I told the waiter.
She talked and talked. I listened. She re-traced the last few hours wondering how the thief could grab her purse without being noticed. “Romania… Romania!” she kept repeating with disgust. I said it was okay.
The food arrived and she was very thankful. “Eat! Enjoy!” She ate, said thank you and left before I finished. I paid the bill and went back to the cabin, stretched out and slept well until we reached Budapest.
When the train stopped I brought down the woman’s bag, which was the size of two suitcases, and carried it outside for her. I had the impression that no one was going to pick her up. I thought she would need to make a phone call and explain what had happened to her. Or use the money I gave her to get a taxi to go to wherever she had to go.
When we got off the train, I continued to carry her bag. I was going to drop it off in front of the station and leave. Then a young woman showed up and they hugged. Looked like it was her granddaughter, perhaps. I still insisted on carrying the bag until a tall young man greeted them. Was this the girl’s husband? Brother? Whoever he was, it was obvious they were all related.
So the poor woman who got robbed was not in such a desperate state as I had feared. She knew she was going to meet her family once she got off the train. There was no emergency. She didn’t need any money. But okay. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Not the end of the world. I was trying to be nice.
Then after a day, I thought… nakoneh saram kola gozaasht? nemidoonam.
A couple of weeks earlier in Rome I was standing outside the main train station. It was two in the morning and the doors opened at four. I was hanging around near a group of people, mostly tourists with their backpacks, by the main entrance. I sat for a while and read some Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholrea, and kept thinking, “get on with it! stop stretching this story like a chewing gum!”.
The smell of dried pee became unbearable so I stood against the taxi sign for a while and continued reading. Then I started pacing back and forth. My backpack was not the heaviest it has ever been, but it was heavy. The straps have been ripped off in three different places. So I’m real careful with it now — the way I should have been in the first place.
I started to smoke a cigarette. A guy came over and asked for one. He spoke Italian. A short, stocky guy with a funny smile, in a good way. Playful bordering on tokhmeh sag. I nodded, and gave him a cigarette. Within about half an hour, we smoked most of a full pack.
I was having a good time. I didn’t get much of what he was saying and he didn’t know much English either. But he was so animated — every word seemed to trigger a movement in his hand, face, body or all three. It was so much fun to listen and watch all the drama and excitement.
After an hour, this is what I was able to pick up: he worked in construction on the outskirts of Rome, he had a wife and two kids, came from Romania many years ago, hated Rome and Italy in general because he believed it’s beautiful on the outside but ugly underneath. And he loved America.
He said let’s go have a beer. A beer, three in the morning? But everything was closed around there. He pointed at a newspaper stand across the street. We walked over and sure enough there was beer. I bought a bottle for myself and another for, what was his name?
Anyway… We stood and drank near another corner of the train station where there were fewer people. The guy talked non-stop. Every few minutes he would ask if I understood and every time I would say no, and we would both burst out laughing.
Meanwhile, three young guys walked over. One of them asked for a cigarette. My new Italian friend said something to turn them away. I think he said go away, we don’t have any. But I didn’t mind. I said sure, here you go. Two of them helped themselves. More smoking and talking, this time with a few more English words. The boys had picked up some English at school.
They said they had just come from “boom boom” and one of them threw his groin back and forth. Oh how nice, good for you. How much? I was curious. He wrote it on the palm of his hand: 25 euros. That can’t be right? $35 for a hooker in Rome? That’s dangerously cheap.
My Italian friend winked and suggested we should follow these guys and get some action too. No, no, no. I’m not going to any whorehouse, thank you. I laughed it off, but I was dead serious. He joked about it a little more and I was not falling for it at all. He eventually dropped it.
The station opened finally and we went inside. I had an hour and a half to kill before catching the train. I invited my Italian friend for some coffee. I got two cappuccinos and a cream-filled croissant to share. We sat down. I took a bite from the croissant and passed it over. To my amazement, as he went on talking, he slowly ate the whole croissant AND licked his fingers. I was crushed! But I thought, okay, whatever! Havaasesh nabood, goshnash bood…
It was time for me to get on my train. My Italian friend was still tagging along. Didn’t he have a train to catch to go to his job in the outskirts of Rome? The platform was far away. He went on and on and I kept nodding my head and laughing whenever he laughed or made funny movements.
We reached the platform and the guy said he wanted to buy me cigarettes. I said okay and gave him five euros. Then he said he wanted to get two packs, one for me and one for himself. I said no, one pack is enough. He looked at me and said okay.
My train wasn’t leaving for another half an hour. I waited. But I knew he would never come back. And I was okay with it. It was a fun ride.
