Okay, here we go folks. I've been working on my volcano memoir for a few weeks and I'd very much like to share the first chapter with you. If you've got the time to read it, I'd love to know what you think.
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Sirkeci Station, Istanbul, Sunday 18/4/10 2130
“Babe, I don’t think the lights are working.”
I’m sure Linda’s words didn’t quite register at first. I’d only just managed to throw our luggage off the wrong carriage and onto what we hoped was the correct one, so the fact that we might not be able to enjoy such luxuries as electricity was going to need a little longer to sink in. All that mattered at that moment – a mere thirty minutes before the scheduled departure time – was that the nine hours of queuing in the cold really had resulted in a bona fide train booking and that the train really was about to start heading in the direction of the UK, aka home.
I stood in the cabin doorway and could just about see Linda’s unmoving frame through the gloom, sitting on the bottom bunk with impressive calm. I glanced to my right. James and Edina – a couple we’d only met the day before but were about to get to know very well – were busy sorting themselves out in their cabin under the helpful glow of the fluorescent strip above their heads.
“What d’you mean they’re not working?”
“I mean I can’t turn them on. They don’t seem to be working.”
“But everyone else’s are.” I surveyed the corridor again, and sure enough, ours was the only cubicle in darkness. “Let me have a look.”
I walked in, convinced she simply hadn’t found the master switch that would solve the entire problem, and started running my hands along the walls and surfaces around me. A few moments later, my eyes adjusted to the dimness, and I found myself emitting a few chuckles.
“What’s so funny?”
“This cabin. I’m sure I’ve been in it before. Or one exactly like it.”
“Been in it before? What’re you talking about?”
On one side of our little enclosure were three bunks, the top one shorter than the other two, as though intended for a child. The walls were covered by a thin, scratched, fake-wood laminate that probably hadn’t looked half-decent since the early 80s. The radiator below the window was a battered, misshapen metal grille that wouldn’t have been out of place at a scrap yard. This was Soviet train design at its most iconic; exactly the sort of cabin in which I’d spent many childhood summers.
“They’re just like Polish trains,” I said. “Or at least like old, Communist Polish trains. I’ve been on loads of them. I remember we once had to spend the entire journey down to the south hiding our puppy from the guard because animals weren’t allowed on board.”
I think she nodded, storing away yet another detail from what she likes to think of as her husband’s exotic past.
I pointed in the direction of a small, roughly square-shaped cabinet in the corner. “If you lift the lid off that, you’ll find a sink.”
A moment later, she’d swung the cabinet cover back on its hinges to reveal two grimy taps perched over a cracked, off-white basin. “A bit like on the Indian sleepers,” she said, “except this one smells awful.” She pushed the lid back down, but didn’t quite manage to suppress the odour of rust and stagnant water.
“That could be ’cause it also makes a handy urinal.”
“Charming!” With a laugh, she sat back down on the bunk and rubbed her hands together. “Well, we were more impressed with the trains in Rajasthan, weren’t we?”
“Definitely,” I muttered, “and I don’t think...” I flicked a few more switches above the doorway, “I’m going to get these lights to work.”
“Great. The one thing we haven’t got is a torch.”
“Maybe it’s just a fuse or something. I’ll ask the guard to have a look once we’ve set off.” I sat down beside her, pulled her head close to my chest, locked my hands around her body and cast aside any concerns about the fact that my clothes were badly in need of the services of a washing machine. “We are doing the right thing, aren’t we?”
“Oh babe, come on, stop now. We’ve made a decision. No looking back.”
“I know, I know... it’s just that...” I sighed. “I mean, say we get to Belgrade and find out we can’t get an onward booking for days.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Actually, there’s a very good chance it will happen. There’s thousands of volcano people across Europe, trying to get home on the trains.”
“Then we’ll just have to sit tight in Belgrade for a while.”
“And in the mean time, the planes might start flying again.”
She pulled herself out from my arms and looked into my eyes, or at least I think she did. The gloom was deepening by the minute. “Look, we said from the very start that this may turn out to be a bad decision. But we’re making it based on the information we’ve got now, which is that the volcano may keep going for weeks. And BA have said they’ll reimburse us...”
“If that’s true...”
“Well, they’ve said it, so they’ll have a fight on their hands if they try to back-pedal. And we’ve just got to make the best of it and get home as quickly as we can.”
I managed a nod.
“And anyway, be grateful we didn’t end up in that other carriage.”
“Oh my God, I know!” Somehow – and we never did find out how – we’d managed to buy tickets for a double sleeper cabin, but we weren’t wise to this fact when we’d first got on the train. Our reading of the illogical numbering system on the tickets had suggested that we were destined to spend the next night and day of our lives sitting – I repeat: sitting, not sleeping – in a six-person compartment that looked about as comfortable as wearing a neck brace. Luckily, the passenger whose seats we’d commandeered under false pretences – a Serbian lady with a spine-chilling repertoire of frowns – shooed us out of the way and sent us in the direction of the guard who – with what we came to learn was characteristic ebullience – showed us to some bunks and blankets. “I’ll bet that woman wishes she’d never said anything.”
Lin managed another chuckle. “Well, I’m glad she did, because I’m telling you now: I think that carriage would have tested even my patience.”
We sat in silence for a few more moments and although I racked my brains to think of something optimistic to contribute to the shadows deepening around us, my mouth remained shut. In the end, as always, it was Lin who restored some sense of perspective.
“You never know,” she said, “it might be quite fun to spend a night in Budapest.”
“We’re not going to Budapest.”
“Oh.”
“We’re going to Belgrade.”
“In Hungary?”
“No, in Serbia.”
“Oh, right.” Pause. “But I thought you said this train’s going to Budapest.”
“No, I said part of it is going to split off and go to Bucharest.”
“Oh, right... When’s that going to happen?”
“No idea.”
“But we’re in the right carriage for Budapest?”
“Belgrade.”
“I meant Belgrade.”
“I certainly hope we are.” I sighed. “And by the way...”
“Yes?”
“We’ve already been to Budapest.”
“Have we?”
“Yes. It’s the capital of Hungary. You took me there for my birthday once. And although we enjoyed it, we said we wouldn’t be in a hurry to go back any time soon.”
She let the words drift between us. “I thought that was Bulgaria.”
“No. We haven’t been to Bulgaria yet. We’re going to pass through it on this train.” Little did we know at the time that “pass through” was a term to be interpreted with considerable laxity.
I stepped out into the corridor. “I’d better see the guard about these lights.” As I walked down to the end of the carriage – whose most attractive features were some strip lighting and a line of thin-framed, pull-down windows – the train lurched into life and, with a groan of pre-Glasnost gears, pulled out of Sirkeci.
“We’re off!” someone shouted with a level of enthusiasm bordering on hysteria.
The conversation with the Serbian guard was brief, but surprisingly coherent, considering the density of the vodka fog which emanated from his mouth. He spoke some basic Polish which – when coupled with the language’s similarity to Serbian – meant that communication wasn’t anywhere as difficult as it could have been. With a few elegant hand gestures and the repetition of words like
światło and
nie ma, I soon conveyed the essence of the situation, although all I got in response was a smile and a shake of the head.
Somewhere behind me, excited voices yelled. “Look, there’s the Blue Mosque. And there’s the Haghia Sophia.” But I didn’t have any time for such trivialities and was being compelled to abandon my most refined Marceau miming in favour of frantic attempts to show the guard that without lights, I wouldn’t be able to see anything – both hands across eyes; head darting left and right – that I wouldn’t be able to read – hands open before face like a book; quizzical expression – and that I might even stumble and fall – comedy trip on fictitious banana-skin.
The guard furrowed his brow, nodded and patted both my shoulders with his great paws. I think somewhere, his drink-addled mind had grasped that he was dealing with a pretty desperate inmate.
He motioned me back along the corridor – a brief glance through the windows confirmed that, yes, hallelujah, we were indeed heading out through Istanbul’s megalithic urban sprawl – and started flicking and tapping switches as soon as he entered our cabin.
“Can he fix it?” Linda asked, with a composure that suddenly made me understand that she wasn’t especially worried about the lack of lights at all: she was more concerned about the effect she knew it would have on me.
“I don’t know. He seemed pretty surprised that they’re not working. Maybe he’s got a spare bulb kit somewhere.”
The guard gave us a few frowns, a few raised eyebrows, a few shrugged shoulders. Or perhaps he didn’t. Things were now so dark, I could’ve been standing next to a polar bear, for all I knew. But I’m pretty sure he turned to face us and gave us another of his nothing’s-wrong-with-the-world smiles.
“Light,” he said.
“Yes?”
“No work.”
“I know.” Anxious glances. “You fix?”
With a wave of a hand and a guffaw that was probably heard in the upper reaches of the ash cloud, he proclaimed, “No!” and started walking away.
I scrambled to my feet. Cue: comedy banana skin. “But, wait, wait...” How to explain the enormity of this predicament? “There’s... there’s no light!”
He spread his arms open wide, gave the Cheshire cat another run for his money and boomed out one single word. “Romantica!”
Linda and I looked at each other, took a deep breath, and then, in a flash of radiance from outside, caught sight of the grimy floor. Our trip to Belgrade was going to be – in the most diplomatic sense of the word – rather interesting.
But perhaps you’d like to know how we ended up on this train the first place? Perhaps you’d prefer a more sequential, less post-modern version of a tale which includes a quest for the perfect wash-and-blow-dry in Sofia, angry exchanges with the Foreign Office and a tarot-card reader from Somerset? Perhaps you’re interested in finding out that, in spite of the blinkered way we navigate through our everyday lives, most people out there are capable of displaying tremendously moving levels of kindness and helpfulness? Well, are you? Yes? Right then, if you’re agreeable, I need to start by taking you back a few days...
© Dariush Alavi 2010
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