The Next Stop

by Dimitris Politis

  “Maybe not this time,” said Maeve.

  “Er, thank you.” Still holding her hands as though for dear life, he stammered, just loud enough to reach her ear, “So without genuflection, I just want to ask you if you will do me the great honour of becoming my wife?” and releasing her hands, opened the little velvet box slowly to reveal the bright contents twinkling in the reflected glow of candle and sparkler.

  She solemnly raised her eyes to his. “Keith MacFarland,” and her voice trembled just a little. “I could not ask for anything more in my life! Nothing in this world! Oh, yes!”

  To the applause and cheers of the entire little restaurant, he placed the ring on her left hand and kissed her soundly. Naturally, he then had to stand everyone a round of drinks, but he was in such a euphoric state of mind that he didn’t even think about his credit card balance.

  They sat there in silence together for a little longer, and then brimful of delight, wandered together out into the December night, feeling no cold at all. She held Keith’s hand, and the red rose. They floated past the window displays, street lights in the shapes of stars, gazing into one another’s eyes, and now and then exchanging a kiss or two. “We’ll never be apart again on Christmas,” they vowed. It would be their special holiday, a special anniversary all their lives long. Forever.

  ****

  Keith’s five day Christmas leave passed quickly. On December 28th, he flew back to Dublin, eager to hold her close in his arms once more. His big brother in Athens had heard his happy news and hugged him and given him a heartfelt blessing, and would wait impatiently for Keith to come back and bring her to visit as soon as possible. In those five long days he had not dared telephone her parents’ house, though missing her painfully every minute and longing to hear her voice.

  And when he finally summoned the courage to try with the mobile phone, it wouldn’t work in Greece. He would have to wait. How had her parents taken the news? What was their first reaction to their wedding plans? But he and Maeve had already vowed to go through with it, whatever anyone said. Nothing could stop them.

  On his return in the evening of December 28th, Keith tore out of the Arrivals Hall, his suitcase bumping along behind him, and in a fever of anticipation, went into the reception hall. The flight had been right on time. He looked around the hall filled with milling travellers, looking for the bright glow that was Maeve. She was always on time... Maybe there were traffic delays. People came through the gates, were met and embraced, went off in chattering groups and families, laughing and crying. He could not wait another second to have her beside him, crushed between his arms. In his left hand he concealed a little box with the half-open bud of a crimson velvet rose like the ones that witnessed his proposal at Il Sole. He was clenching it so tightly that it was a good thing it had no thorns, but it had been well wrapped by the third of the florists he had checked in Athens, and he’d carried it as hand luggage to keep it fresh. Maeve had kept the rose from that proposal night, promising to keep it forever, a magical talisman.

  Scanning the crowded hall for the tall slender form running to him with her wonderful smile, he suddenly perceived Brian O’Donnell, one of her close friends. He and Maeve had grown up together. What was he doing here? Nice chap, but three would be too much of a crowd on this occasion. His smile began to fade as he took in Brian’s expression. Something was wrong.

  Keith said a little hesitantly, “Hello, Brian. Happy Christmas and all that. What’s up?”

  Brian’s face remained grim. “We need to talk.”

  “Damn it, Brian, what is it? Where’s Maeve?” Even her name was like honey. “Where is she?” Looking into Brian’s drawn face, Keith was filled with a terrible dread. “Spit it out, man!”

  Brian’s hand was shaking on his arm. “How can I tell you... it’s so difficult... She won’t be coming.”

  Through his mind flashed explanations. She had changed her mind. Her parents had forbidden it. She had dumped him. He did not think he could bear that. “You mean she stayed in Dublin? Did something happen to her family...?”

  Brian got hold of himself with a great effort. He could hardly get the words out. “There was an accident... the night she came with a friend to pick up her parents at the airport... two days before Christmas. On the M50 motorway near Blanchardstown. There was a terrible accident…

  “They were both killed… instantly…” he uttered with great difficulty. “They could never have known what happened... the driver lost control of his car, they said something about speeding, and for some reason, Maeve wasn’t wearing her seat belt. They found her body four hundred yards away, still holding a red rosebud in her hand... So strange...” His voice choked off and was lost in the hubbub of the airport. Tears were flowing down his lean cheeks. “You were in Greece; nobody knew how to reach you...”

  Keith stared at him, dumb and paralysed. No. No, this could not be. His hand had fallen from Brian’s arm and his fingers felt nothing as the rose of their future dropped to the floor… Not Maeve. Not dead. There must be some mistake.

  Neither man was able to move. They stood still, disconnected, incapable of motion. Brian was the first to recover some composure, and taking his elbow, tried to coax Keith to take a step, taking a grip on the suitcase. But Keith’s knees buckled, and Brian had to hold him upright. The cheerful noise of travellers greeting one another with cries of pleasure had become a nightmare buzzing that threatened to invade his deadened mind. The surreal, otherworldly cheerful scenes unfolding before his eyes served only to enhance his anguish. He was helpless to do anything, even to feel his own grief. Not yet.

  Petals the colour of blood disintegrated under the pounding of newly arrived passengers’ heels and overloaded luggage carts. He saw from a great distance that armies of shoes and wheels crushed it one after the other without pity. Minute by minute it melted into pathetic little drops as he watched as if from another planet. The holiday crowds flowed indifferently without stopping, a roaring torrent which eventually faded into a blur of gathering tears.

  Five days before, he had left the adored centre of his life smiling and vibrant in a cloud of dreams and promises of a happy future. He had returned to find a void. Nothingness. A bottomless pit which had swallowed her lifeless body along with his soul and his future. Dreams, hopes, plans, all buried in the same grave.

  He hadn’t even been able to say a last goodbye. A bitter and macabre Christmas gift, her coffin sank into cold and inhospitable mud, and he could not even go with her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Fourth Stop: Joséphine-Charlotte – Giovanni

  This morning as every other, Keith’s eyes were fixed on the doors of the train as it pulled in to every stop, while his thoughts wandered in a thousand directions and among a thousand different worries. It was as though he were waiting for something to happen every time the doors slid open. Someone new, a new situation, a change, but in vain. And as if reacting to his hidden desire, the hydraulic mechanism operated flawlessly, sucking in each time a new mob of impatient commuters from the edge of the platform, aspiring to be his companions. With these he must be content.

  Today everyone seemed to be in a hurry, shoving and pushing their way in, higgledy- piggledy, one on top of the other. Possibly this minor panic was due to the already stuffed carriage, which represented the dreaded danger of having to wait for the next train, which would throw out their whole day. Keith could only observe the daily repetition; only the opening doors and influx of a few new faces offered variety. While the regulars dived for their regular spots, the newcomers provided a few seconds of mini-theatre with their hustling and cries, unwittingly playing their parts in the Next Stop scenario as the sliding doors opened like stage curtains on the scene.

  Keith’s attention was drawn to a sleek, thirtyish chap who burst into the first carriage at a run, just as everyone had managed to board. With a nimble wriggle, he squeezed in last, the doors hissing closed behind him like a guillotine. He caught at the low ceiling in an effor
t to keep his balance as the train lurched into motion. Keith watched him out of the corner of his eye. The bodies of the other passengers jammed into the first car were a solid wall in front of him. He was certain he had seen the same fellow before on the morning train. This new passenger towered over the others, his head visible from all corners. Keith tried to get a good look at this hustler, moved by some impulse of curiosity. Definitely young, younger than Keith anyway, and must be thought good-looking, with the dark eyes and cool haircut, over-gelled though, dressed with finesse: black coat, immaculate white shirt, discrete Hermes tie, a loose scarf of a pleasing brick colour.

  The stranger was having a hard time keeping his balance, touching the none-too-clean ceiling gingerly now and again. As the train sped up, Keith’s iPod filled his ears to the melodious voice of Duncan Townsend singing Go Go.

  ****

  Abruzzo, Italy, 1996

  “Sir! Sir!” cried Giovanni Del Colombo, waving his hand for his teacher’s attention. He had the answer to the question, and he knew it. He was sure of it. They’d had a history lesson that afternoon and the story was an old favourite, full of grand battles and bold Roman soldiers, loyal to Caesar. He often dreamed that he too was a Roman soldier fighting gloriously to defeat the enemies of the Empire, together with other fine manly fellows in shining carved armour. He was one of them, endowed with power against every enemy of the Divine Emperor.

  His teacher had asked, “Who was the last emperor of the dynasty of Antonius?” Giovanni turned round to assess the competition for his attention. Two other classmates already had their hands in the air, waving madly. “Sir! Sir!” The teacher was gazing vaguely out the window, as if he could see anything out there.

  “He always pulls this trick,” Giovanni muttered to himself, watching his teacher supposedly contemplating the spindly cypresses around the schoolyard. Bathed in the bright gold light of a spring sunset, they were intensely green. The whole class was onto this teacher’s game. His tactic inspired fear and terror; he’d ask a question and then gaze outside indifferently, ignoring the pupils clamouring to answer, then turn sharply on one of the others, usually the least able – or a girl – and say with sadistic glee, “Very well, So-and-so, answer!”

  The teacher continued to look out the window in silence. As he began to turn towards the class, a strange muffled roar began to issue from the ground beneath their feet, and at the same time the run-down schoolhouse lurched violently. At first the little students froze, riveted to their seats and looking at each other dumbly, as the walls of the old building began to crack. Dust and particles of plaster began to fall from the ceiling.

  “Terremoto! Earthquake! Under the desks, quick, everybody!” shouted the teacher with all his might and dived himself under a bench. In blind panic, the terrified children tried to obey, shoving and crowding under the desks, squealing and screaming. The old building creaked and seesawed like a feather in a gale as the hollow hammering of the supernatural force from the depths of the earth increased. The window panes shattered with a great crash as the walls waved like sheets hung out to dry in a strong wind. Giovanni, obeying his teacher, tried to insert his small self under the desk as the ceiling began to fall, piece by piece, on the children’s heads. Between the pandemonium of the roar and the terrified cries of his classmates, the child crossed his hands before his face and tried to say his prayers.

  As if this were not enough, one of the concrete roof supports snapped in two in a vast cloud of thick brown dust. It crashed with a terrible noise right beside him, dragging with it a huge piece of the roof. As it reached the floor, a corner of concrete struck little Giovanni on the side of the head. He felt a momentary pain beside his ear and before fainting, doubled over beside the chair of his desk. A bleeding wound opened on the left side of his head as a torrent of broken brick, cement and plaster poured over him, burying him under a shapeless heap. He remained there unmoving, half alive and half dead under the mass of rubble. Dust and debris were all that was left of the school which had disintegrated completely under the onslaught of the quake.

  ****

  Giovanni opened his eyes on thick darkness hours later; he could not even guess how much time had passed. All around him, the rubble had closed every possible escape route. His head ached miserably; his arms and legs were numb for there was no room for the small, weak body to move. He tried to turn his head to look around, though there was no light by which to see, and the movement sent a sharp knife through his head. He could not make the slightest movement. Just enough air was filtering through to breathe, but all he could feel was a terrible fear, a fear which choked off his voice. And the taste of dust around him filled his mouth, drawing into his nostrils with every breath. His head hurt so much. He tried to shout but the only sound he could produce was thin and eerie. He tried to listen for other noises around him; was he alone? Nothing. Absolute silence and pitch darkness everywhere.

  Time passed. He couldn’t tell if he was asleep or awake. Intermittently he felt he had lost touch with his surroundings and was sinking into a stupor. He tried to call for help, but that too was beyond him. He finally gave up when he had no voice left at all.

  “I wonder if they will find me alive, God? I can’t do this anymore in the dark,” he kept thinking anxiously. He promised himself that if he ever managed to escape alive, he would find the power to do many things in his life, to become rich and great. But with no response from anywhere, the idea of death began to take root in his child’s mind. At the tender age of nine, he had no real understanding of death. It was something that happened to old people. It didn’t even seem all that scary to him. Father Giuseppe at the Catholic religious school where he went every Sunday afternoon in the basement of Santa Maria Maggiore, had often told him and the other children that when you die, you go to heaven, which is a wonderful place, like a big playground. Like Disneyland. At least, so it had reached the childish imagination of little Giovanni. And God himself was there with thousands of angels and big and little children playing blissfully in seas of happiness.

  “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to die now,” he thought, trying to keep his eyes shut against the sharp dust and blink it away at the same time. He couldn’t rub them, his hands were trapped somewhere down by his belly by a chunk of the concrete…

  “Mammina, where are you? It’s too dark here. Please come, Mama...” He felt he was about to cry like a baby. He faded in and out, and eventually his senses slid away somewhere and he fell again into a profound slumber...

  ****

  His weary eyes struggled to open once more. But it was all different, calm and white. A white-robed figure stood beside him, smiling and touching his hand. He wondered if he had died and the smiling figure was a snow-white heavenly angel, like Father Giuseppe had promised. The dust was gone as though it had never been. “Hello!” said the angel. “Decided to open your eyes and come back to us at last? Welcome!”

  With her other hand, the young nurse was pressing the bell for the doctor; the boy had just come out of his coma. He had been under for six weeks.

  He would never forget the wonder of this resurrection. It gave him a strength that lasted all his life, gave him boundless tenacity and courage to battle for his wildest dreams, to fulfil the promises he had made to himself when he was buried under the ruined school. He returned a faint smile to the nurse. Although few of his classmates had made it through, he had somehow survived the destructive fury of the earthquake that had flattened the school, and with it, most of the small town somewhere in the rocky heart of Abruzzo.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Third Stop: Gribaumont – Kasja

  The battered old train chugged on into the dark. It rattled along its rails with an almost deafening racket, wheezing and choking as though tortured and gasping for its last breath. This was all the speed its outdated diesel engine and rickety tracks could produce.

  The delicate features of Kasja’s face were pressed against the blurred window next to her seat. She stared
abstractedly at the menacing blackness that reigned outside, a heavy impenetrable curtain. Used as she was to Polish winters, this black mass outside the train inexplicably frightened her, though the occasional feeble lights on the passing horizon gave indication of life somewhere. The carriage was nearly empty, few seats were occupied, and the temperature was bitterly cold. Not enough warm bodies were there to create heat against the winter seeping in from outside. The scattered passengers were sour and sullen from a tiring day. Nobody spoke. One or two had tilted their heads back and, surrendering to the day’s fatigue, were dozing. Now and then someone’s cough, interrupting the monotonous wheezing of the train…

  “The damn heating system must be broken again! Oh, when will this country install some decent new trains? How long do we have to endure these Soviet rattletraps?” Kasja thought, huddling into her heavy woollen coat, trying somehow to enjoy the feeling of the cold piercing through her clothes right to the bone. “What else could I do? This was the last train tonight. This is the one I had to catch.” She realised she was making excuses for her choice of transport. Her mind tiptoed back to the handsome American from IBM who had brought this choice upon her. She had only known him for a few hours. Her heart leapt joyously; he was the beautiful reason for her choice of train. If he hadn’t invited her for coffee after the seminar, she would have been on the earlier train, which was a little cleaner and heated – or should be heated – and home by now.

  And she wouldn’t have changed it for anything. “Oh, who cares? That was one of the most beautiful coffees of my life!” she argued with her unruly thoughts, which kept sliding back to the image of the American executive and his dark green eyes. “Like a fairy tale.”