I came to on the platform of a subway station and wondered what time it was. I had a faint drunken memory of leaving Aleksandr on the train and getting out at what I thought was my stop, but apparently I’d gotten lost. Confused, and as the hours crept by into morning, I must have submitted to my exhaustion and sat down on the platform again and closed my eyes.
I was awoken by the prodding of two policemen who picked me up and escorted me out to the street and then to a bright public square.
“I’m so sorry,” I kept saying. “I’m so sorry, I just want to go home . . .”
They kept assuring me that it was fine, that I wasn’t in trouble, that they just wanted to get me out of there so I wouldn’t get robbed, or worse. That it was safer on the street, in the dim morning light, than it was in the tunnelling underground of the U-Bahn. I thanked them, rubbed my eyes a little, tried to channel the dark recesses of my unconscious sober brain, and somehow made my way back to Exene’s apartment.
When I woke again that afternoon, Aleksandr was upright in bed, his hand over his eyes in shame and fear. His work kept calling, wondering where he was. Exene had her hand on his shoulder, and his shirt was off.
“What happened last night?” I asked.
“Someone stole my wallet and my phone,” he said. “I had them in a bag, under my shirt, under my jacket. Someone unzipped my coat, lifted up my shirt, opened my bag, and saw my wallet—and a phone that cost me three hundred euros. They took them both, and I was so drunk I didn’t notice.”
I moved my tongue around in my mouth, pressing it against the spot where my teeth used to be. What, I thought, I would’ve given to have woken up that morning, years ago, missing only a wallet and a phone.
The room went silent for a second. “Jesus,” I said to him. “I’m so fucking sorry, man.”
As the day went on, I killed more time, went to flea markets, kicked my hangover in the ass, drank water, and avoided the bar. The next day I flew home to Toronto, thinking of how Berlin defeats even the most hardened Berliners. It is beautiful, but it can also break you, I remembered Exene saying.
On the plane home, I had another dream. For once it wasn’t the one where I bit out my own teeth. It was a much quieter, better dream.
I was on a train, alone, under a vast and overcast sky at dusk. The night was beginning to wrap itself across the horizon like a giant blanket, and the train tracks were cutting through an enormous field. In the distance I could see tiny, unlit buildings, maybe farmhouses, like little black shoeboxes. I had no idea how I got there. I didn’t even know what my last memory was. I didn’t know where I was going, and I had the feeling that it might not necessarily be somewhere good. I was just going where the rails were heading.
Someone had to be conducting the train. Someone had to be sitting at the controls, guiding it to where it’s supposed to go. But I was never going to meet the person taking me on this journey, because they were four or five train cars away, and the cockpit door was closed.
When I awoke, I landed at Pearson Airport, and I took the bus home.
About the Author
With over 300 songs written and recorded, album of the year credits, multiple continent-spanning tours, Eamon McGrath has developed a body of work that could rival that of any artist 15 years his senior. This is the house that punk rock built: a fierce DIY attitude and constantly changing style has guided McGrath across the globe on countless tours, stories from which were cultivated in innumerable journal entries and song lyrics, eventually becoming the evocative and emotional journey that forms the backbone of Berlin-Warszawa Express. He is based in Toronto, Ontario, and can be found online at eamonmcgrath.ca.
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Copyright © Eamon McGrath, 2017
Published by ECW Press
665 Gerrard Street East
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4M 1Y2
416-694-3348 / [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Editor for the press: Michael Holmes / a misFit book
Cover design: Natalie Olsen / kisscut design
Author photo: Peter Dreimanis
Cover photo: © Image Source / Getty Images International
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
McGrath, Eamon, author
Berlin-Warszawa express / Eamon McGrath.
I. Title.
PS8625.G72B47 2017 C813’.6 C2016-906407-7 C2016-906408-5
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77041-328-3 (paperback)
Also issued as: 978-1-77305-027-0 (PDF)
978-1-77305-026-3 (ePub)
The publication of Berlin-Warszawa Express has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and by the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays. Ce livre est financé en partie par le gouvernement du Canada. We also acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,737 individual artists and 1,095 organizations in 223 communities across Ontario for a total of $52.1 million, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
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