It’s very modern, said the man.
Yes, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. It was built when we were trying to get the Olympics here. That was a pipe dream! Or a boondoggle, depending upon who you were. Some made a very tidy profit off others’ dreams. But of course that’s just the way of the world, isn’t it? That’s capitalism.
I suppose, said the man. He looked around the station. One track was empty; on the other track a train of about six carriages stood spewing clouds of steam from its engine. There appeared to be a ticket office, a newsstand, and a café, but they were all presently closed, and closed in a way that suggested it had been a long time since they had been open.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima saw him looking around and said, You have your ticket, don’t you? Because you can’t get one here.
Yes, said the man. He reached inside his parka and extracted two tickets and his passport from the inner pocket.
I have two tickets, he said, holding them for Livia Pinheiro-Rima to see.
Ah, yes, she said. One for her.
Yes, said the man. One for her.
Give that one to me, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. She shifted the child so that she held him with one arm and held out the other. Give it here, she said. I may have to escape from here someday and it will come in handy.
The man wondered if he should keep the ticket. He had saved, in a silver Asprey humidor his grandmother had given to him as a wedding present (she was hopelessly behind the times), a number of tickets and other sentimental ephemera that chronicled his courtship and marriage, and he thought that this return ticket might be the perfect item to conclude the collection. To rest on top of all the other sourvenirs, beginning with the Tales of Hoffmann ticket stubs, which were covered with the place cards from benefit dinners with their names written calligraphically, the matchbooks from restaurants where they had celebrated birthdays and anniversaries, their dog Lally’s license tag, the first sonogram of fetuses lost . . .
But before he could make a decision Livia Pinheiro-Rima had snatched one of the tickets out of his hand.
Do I need a ticket for him? the man asked, nodding at the child in her arms.
No, she said. Children travel for free in this country. Come—it’s freezing in here. Let’s get you settled in your carriage.
She looked at the ticket she was holding and began to walk down the platform, carrying the baby. The man followed her, rolling the suitcase behind him. He had slung the other bags around his shoulders and felt rather like a Sherpa.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima stopped at the second carriage, opened the door, and climbed inside. The man climbed in behind her, leaving the suitcase on the platform. He hoisted the bags from his shoulders and put them down on one of the seats. The carriage was exactly the same as the one in which he and his wife had arrived in: a door on either side and two cushioned banquettes divided into four seats facing each other, separated by a narrow aisle. This one had speckled yellow linoleum on the floor; the man was fairly certain the carriage they had arrived in had a wooden floor. He stepped back down onto the platform and lifted his suitcase up into the carriage. It seemed heavier than he remembered it being on the journey out. Or perhaps he had grown weaker. He certainly had exercised very little in the time since he had left New York City. When he reentered the carriage he saw that Livia Pinheiro-Rima sat in a seat in the far corner of the carriage, jouncing the baby upon her lap and making some sort of animal sound. He hoisted the bags up onto the rack but left the suitcase on the floor. Then he sat down across from Livia Pinheiro-Rima and held out his arms.
Oh, let me keep him, she said. We’re having a very jolly time. It appears as though he and I have an especial rapport.
The man heard a whistle blow and looked out the window and saw a conductor standing on the platform, waving his arms above his head.
Is it time? Are we leaving already? The man stood up quickly and banged his head upon the luggage rack above the seat. For a moment he felt he might lose consciousness and so he sat back down. Everything was happening too quickly; it was all being played at the wrong frenetic speed and he could not keep up. But he had to—he had to stay in control and make sure nothing terrible happened. He reached up and touched the back of his head because he felt it was bleeding, but it wasn’t.
Calm down, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. We’ve plenty of time still. Take a deep breath.
I don’t think I can do this, said the man.
Do what? Calm down or breathe deep?
All of it, said the man. Anything. He touched the back of his head again but it still wasn’t bleeding. He wanted the emergency, the excuse, of blood. Surely he would be forgiven if he were bleeding.
Am I wrong to take him? he asked.
Wrong? Whatever do you mean?
Perhaps he should stay here, with you. Who am I to take him so far away?
His father, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima.
But I’m not. I can only pretend, imagine, and that’s not good enough.
Good enough for what? For whom? You or him?
Both.
You’re wrong about that. Perhaps not for you, but for him it’s enough. It’s more than enough. You’re being selfish now. He needs you more than you need him.
But I don’t want to fail him.
So you’ll leave him here? Isn’t that failing him?
Yes, said the man. But at least I won’t have harmed him.
Oh, yes, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. You would. Simon’s been harmed enough. Of course we all have, but we can bear it. He can’t. He needs you.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima hoisted the baby from her lap and held him out to the man. He dangled in the air between them, kicking his snowsuited legs.
Take him, she said. He’s yours.
The man reached out and took the child from her. He lowered him onto his lap. He bent down and kissed the top of the child’s head, but since his hood was still up it meant nothing. So he bent lower and kissed the boy’s cheek.
The child began to cry, and wriggled, and reached out his arms toward Livia Pinheiro-Rima.
How I wish I had my Kodak with me, she said. I was a dunce not to bring it. I’d take a photo of you holding him like that, so I could remember my two bonny boys.
She had begun to cry and wiped at her eyes with her hand, which was still holding the extra ticket.
Come with us, the man said. Please. Please come with us.
Come with you?
Yes, said the man. He was talking quickly but surely. It had suddenly all become clear to him, what needed to happen, he was absolutely certain, and he had so little time. Don’t you think you’re meant to? I need you. And so does Simon. And maybe, perhaps, you need us? And you have the ticket. He nodded at the ticket in her hand. Please don’t leave us. I know I shall make a terrible mess of it alone. I’m not—I’m not big enough, or strong enough, to do it alone.
What do you mean? Come with you as far as the ferry? Or Schiphol? Heathrow?
No, said the man. Come home with us. To New York.
Ah, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Come home with you.
The conductor’s whistle blew again from farther down the platform. The train jerked backward, as if it were bracing itself for departure. Livia Pinheiro-Rima stood up and looked out the window at the dirty snow-covered glass dome of the railway station. A few birds flew back and forth between the steel girders that supported the glass ceiling, swooping down toward the platform and then arcing back up into the air. The man realized he had not seen any birds at all in this place, and wondered if the railroad station was where the few who did not migrate spent the winter.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima turned away from the window and looked at the man. It’s dear of you, she said, very dear indeed, to invite me to come along with you. But I know that you know that I can’t.
I don’t, said the man. Why can’t you?
Oh, there isn’t anything as consequential as a reason. It’s just something we know, don’t we? I can’t leave here. I’ve learned this the hard way. I bar
ely make any sense here, and anywhere else, especially New York—well, I’d be a gorgon, wouldn’t I? A freak. People would run screaming down the streets.
You’re wrong! People would love you in New York. You could act, and you could sing. You could perform. And not just for somnambulistic businessmen and oil riggers.
Oh, it isn’t as bad as all that. They wake up from time to time. And besides, sleeping people hear things more profoundly than the woken.
Then just come for a little while, just to help me get settled. Until I learn everything I need to know.
Everything you need to know! You’ll never learn that. Especially from me.
The platform began to slowly slide past outside the window, and the man realized that the train was moving.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima opened the carriage door. Let’s not say goodbye, she said. It’s why I’ve waited till this last moment. I couldn’t bear to say goodbye to you. Say nothing. Nothing! Nothing!
She stepped out of the carriage but lost her balance on the step, stumbled to the platform, and fell forward onto her hands and knees. When she stood up and turned around the carriage with the man and his child had passed by. The carriage she looked into was empty, and so were all the ones that followed. Both of her gloves had ripped neatly across the palm.
The man tried to get out of the carriage along with Livia Pinheiro-Rima, but he was unable to open the carriage door that the forward motion of the train had swung shut, and then the train was moving too quickly. He opened the window and stuck his head out into the rushing air to see her and call out, but the train had curved out of the station and she was gone.
He closed the window. Beyond the glass dome it was snowing. The child in his arms seemed transfixed by the sound and motion of the train and stared hypnotically out the window at the falling snow. The man felt similarly stunned and also watched the snow, which fell thickly and slowly.
Perhaps she will realize that she is meant to come with us, he thought. She will take a taxi and meet us at the way station.
They passed through an ugly, modern part of the city that the man had never seen before. It seemed a different place entirely. What else had he missed; what else had he failed to see?
After a moment the man returned to his seat and held the child up to the window so he could watch the falling snow. There was very little else to see, for they had passed through the city and were now traversing the wide-open spaces of the countryside. The man thought about everything that was buried beneath the snow and realized that a year is like a day here—half of it in darkness and half of it in light, and so the winter is really nothing more than a single night. A long night followed by a long day. Perhaps that was a better pace for life, and his own ceaseless and inescapable revolution of days and nights, being yanked from the depths of sleep and slammed into a new day every twenty-four hours, was all wrong. It was certainly brutal and exhausting.
The train ran faster as it traveled from the city, as if liberated and eager to get as far as it could from the constraints of communal life. The child seemed to delight in the speed, and beat his muffled fists against the window in time with the clacking of the wheels beneath them. He had an excellent sense of rhythm, the man thought, and maybe even an instinctual knowledge of syncopation, for now and then he would tap the window with two quickly successive beats instead of the one steady beat, as if to vary the rhythm. But gradually, as the train’s speed plateaued and remained steady, the clacking sound monotonously disappeared. The child stopped tapping the window and closed his eyes. The man felt the child waver on his lap as he lost consciousness, and he gently pulled the child against him, and the child let himself fall against the man and sleep.
The man leaned back against the seat. He closed his eyes and was surprised to feel himself sinking quickly into sleep and he realized, suddenly, how exhausted he was. But he did not trust himself to sleep while holding the baby in his arms and so he picked him up and reinserted him into the contraption he still wore atop his parka. He placed the baby so that he was facing inward, the front of him pressed against the front of the man, and held him close and tight against his belly and chest, as if to staunch a wound.
The slowing of the train woke the man. Its speed gradually diminished until it was moving very slowly, almost as if it were trying to advance without exhibiting any forward motion.
And then it stopped, with that familiar backward recoil. The stillness caused the child to stir, but he did not wake; he only fitted himself more snugly against the man, mashing his face into the padding of the man’s parka and mouthing the satiny material. Was he teething already?
Could they already have arrived at the way station? He had hoped it would take longer, so that Livia Pinheiro-Rima would have time to travel there. He knew it was foolish to hope for this but that did not prevent him from hoping it.
Nothing could be seen outside the window, except that it was snowing harder now, the snow crowding the sky and rising as much as falling.
The man shifted across the cushioned banquette so that he was sitting beside the opposite window of the carriage. His breath fogged the glass and so he carefully lifted one of his hands away from his son and rubbed a clearing on the window. He saw once again the small wooden building and the lamppost on the platform, which was covered with snow. And, much to his amazement, he saw a figure sitting on the bench beneath the painted letters BORGARFJAROASYSLA. It was a woman wearing a black bear coat. She sat perfectly upright upon the bench, but her head was bowed and so he could not see her face. She made no acknowledgment of the arriving train. But it had to be Livia Pinheiro-Rima; no one else had a coat like that. Had she fallen asleep?
He opened the door and called her name, but she did not look up. He stepped down onto the platform, leaving the door open behind him, thinking irrationally that if the door was open the train would not depart.
And then the woman slowly raised her head and gazed at him, and he saw that the woman sitting on the bench wearing the black bear coat was his wife. She sat on the bench, staring forward, but she did not seem to see the man. Her arms were braced, one hand upon each of her fur-covered knees, and he saw that she was not wearing gloves; the hands on her knees were bare, and this, more than anything else, made him rush forward.
He knelt and put his own warm hands on top his wife’s hands, which were, as he had expected, freezing. He tried to pick one up and warm it between his hands, but it seemed to be solidly attached to the coat.
What are you doing here? he asked.
She looked around for a moment, up and down the snow-covered platform, and then, once again, past him, as if to locate herself.
Waiting, she said.
Waiting? For what?
Oh, not for anything, she said. Just waiting.
Aren’t you cold? Freezing?
Oh, no, she said. No.
But your hands are freezing, he said. Where are your gloves?
I’ve lost them, I think. Somewhere along the way.
Take mine, he said. He stood up and pulled his gloves out of his jacket pockets. By yanking them out he dislodged the pilfered franzbrötchen. They fell into the snow.
Are you hungry? Would you like some pastries?
No, no, she said.
He picked them up out of the snow and placed them on the bench beside her. They’re here, he said. Eat them. They’re delicious.
I don’t want them, she said.
Should I stay here with you? he asked.
Oh no, she said. Go.
Can you come with us?
Where?
Home, he said.
No, she said. I’m staying here. You should go. Look—it’s moving.
The man turned to see that the train had begun to crawl forward. He stood up.
Will you put on the gloves?
Yes, she said. Later. It will give me something to do.
And eat the pastries. They’re there, right beside you.
Go, she said. Hurry.
He stood
for a moment, wondering what he could or should do, but he could think of nothing. He got back on the train.
Soon the train had resumed its speed and the palely dark snow-world rushed by outside the window. Simon started crying. The man fished a glass jar of baby food out of one of the bags and fed it to him, and he ate it hungrily. Then he gave him one of the three bottles he had prepared for the day’s journey, and the baby drank half of it before he fell asleep.
A change in speed once again woke the man. The train was moving slowly through the dark forest, and the thick-trunked pine trees crowded close to the track on either side of the train.
The baby was still sleeping. Simon. A tiny bubble of snot delicately inflated and deflated itself in one of his nostrils, like the puffing throat of a tropical frog. His eyelids fluttered and the man wondered what he was dreaming.
The train began to accelerate and the trees lost their individuality and became a rushing mass. And then the train suddenly emerged from the woods and was racing across fields of snow.
The man realized that while he and the baby had been sleeping the train had traveled south, not so very far, but far enough so that the sun was visible here, a bright orange disk crammed against the horizon, spreading a warm golden light across the surface of the white fields, which reflected it up into the windows of the train and illuminated the carriage like a torch.
The man woke Simon and held him up against the window. He wanted him to see the sun before it disappeared.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to express his gratitude to Andrew Cameron, James Harms, Victoria Kohn, Craig Lucas, Leigh Newman, Anna Stein, Edward Swift, the Corporation of Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony.
PETER CAMERON is the author of seven novels (including Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You and Coral Glynn) and three collections of stories. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Rolling Stone, and many other literary journals. He lives in New York City and Sandgate, Vermont.
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