No Alarms and No Surprises

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The baby let out a sudden piercing shriek that bounced around the train’s enclosed compartment.
His father rocked him in his arms and said, “It’s okay, it’s okay—eveything’s fine.” His mother looked distressed as the shrieking continued at slightly reduced volume. She stood up and reached into the overhead rack for a contraption that looked like a torture device, but turned out to be a baby sling. Instead of slinging the baby to herself as I’d expected, she strapped him to his father, who smiled bravely and went to walk up and down the corridor of our second-class car.

The mother sat back down and flipped through a magazine, looking on the verge of tears. I wanted to tell her, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” but what do I know? Maybe it’s not. So I just smiled and she smiled back after a minute. The baby quieted down and the man settled back down in his seat, rocking the child as he sat.
I wondered how it came to be that this dark-haired young man with a British accent got together with this blonde German woman, and which set of grandparents they’d waved goodbye to at the last station. But Europe is crowded, and strangers share many small spaces: you learn to keep your questions to yourself.
The couple and the baby got off in Berlin. The man offered to pull my bag down from the overhead rack, but I said no thanks, “I’m going to Dresden, a few hours more.”

“You’ll love it there,” he said wistfully. “I did.” Then he was gone.

The compartment was now empty and silent. One too many Pilsners the night before had left my head foggy and sensitive to baby-shriek, so I hoped it would stay empty.

Just before the train pulled out, three big Slavs flung themselves into the small space and piled luggage into the overhead racks. They had loud voices, and spoke a language I couldn’t identify. Some sort of friendly dispute was going on—they pulled out sheafs of papers, logbooks, and calculators, and each argued his case. One of them looked like Bob Newhart, the second like Rocky Horror ten years on. The third man just looked like he drank a lot.

In the midst of the dispute, Rocky produced a paper bag, pulled out a loaf of brown bread, and cut an inch-thick slice with a Swiss Army knife. Then he opened a newspaper-wrapped bundle to reveal a loaf that looked (and smelled) like equal parts sardine-chunks, pulled pork, and bologna. I thought he’d cut off a slice, but instead he took a big bite, then a bite of bread, then another.

As he ate the whole thing, my stomach started to turn over. But at least once it was inside of him I couldn’t smell it anymore. For desert, he ate three fresh tomatoes. I excused myself to go to the WC at the end of the train car, and all three hustled to move their legs out of my path.

When I came back, with a bottle of mineral water from the dining car, the dispute seemed to have been settled. The books and sheets and calculators were put away, and after they made room for me to get back to my place, they all leaned back in their seats looking tired and satisfied. When I found that my water bottle cap was not a twist-off, the man who looked like he drank immediately produced a bottle opener and popped it for me.
He watched me dig an aspirin out off my purse and nodded. He’d been there, I knew.

After I guzzled the water, I dug around my purse for a hairclasp and gathered my hair up. He watched me then, too. I could see from his face, even after he politely dropped his eyes, that he’d been on the road for a while. He didn’t want me in particular—he just wanted woman.

I pulled my shawl over my shoulders and leaned back in my seat. The Slavs did the same, and silence descended on our compartment. I dozed and watched green forests and fields of wind turbines slip past. My headache began to lift.

If I’d made a similar trip in Texas, I’d have surely driven, either alone or with someone I knew well. My big comfy American car would have encapsulated me: the seat adjusted to my preference, along with the music and the temperature and the tinted windows. It would be like that Radiohead song—a quiet ride, with “no alarms and no surprises, no alarms and no surprises, please.”

At Dresden Hauptbahnhof, I had to wake the three men up rather than crawl over the wall of their big legs. Rocky jumped up to pull my bag from the overhead rack, and the one who drank too much wished me in German what sounded like a “safe journey.”

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Photos

Train
Somewhere between Binz and Dresden