A few days ago, one of the other Slice of Life writers posted about wanting to make potatoes and eggs, remembering that their mother used to make it during Lent. It made me remember my grandfather’s salmon, rice, and eggs, and also a feta omelet with home fries I used to order at a 24-hour diner my old roommate and I would stop at on our way home at 5 am after spending the night out closing down the bar where she worked and shooting pool at a place with an excellent 70s/80s jukebox.
And both of those are great memories – belting out Cher hits in a near-empty pool hall is an experience I am quite happy to have in my anecdote arsenal – but the primary memory that was called up by the potatoes and eggs post was (who is surprised by this?) a travel memory!
At the end of a trip to Madrid, I was headed back to Paris on a train called the Iberia Express. This proved to be a cruel joke of a name. The “Express” was supposed to get me to Paris in 18 hours. Today, it’s possible to make that trip in under 10 hours, which amazes me. My story happened 40 years ago, so no super-fast trains then, and 18 hours felt like a win.
And it would have been a win if we’d actually kept to the schedule and arrived in Paris 18 hours after leaving Madrid. Instead, we arrived THIRTY-SIX HOURS LATER!! I’m serious. The express train took double its planned time.
Every possible thing that could have slowed us down slowed us down. We crawled between train stops. We pulled into stations and just sat there for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour. We left one station, stopped about 15 minutes later … and then went back. to. the. station. In one town, we were told to get off the train and board a train on the other side of the station … only to be told once we’d settled into the second train that the first train was correct after all and we needed to get back across the station and reboard.
I don’t remember there being any announcements to explain our various delays … but they would have been in Spanish, which I didn’t speak at the time, so they wouldn’t have done me much good in any case.
There were three young German men in the compartment with me early in the trip – before the dis- and re-embark hilarity. I thought they might spontaneously combust in their virulent anger at our train’s refusal to get us to Paris. Every slow lurch forward, every extra minute spent in a station, and they were spitting curses about Spanish trains, about anything and everything in any way connected to Spain.
I understand being angry. You make your plans. You buy tickets for an “express” train, and you expect to get to Paris in time for whatever it is you’re headed to Paris for. When it’s clear the train’s going to be a little late, you get annoyed. When it’s clear the train’s going to be an hour or two late, you’re more than annoyed because maybe now you’re missing whatever you were headed to Paris for. When it’s clear the train’s going to be six, or seven, or ten hours late … well, you’ve surely missed whatever you were planning to do when you arrived in Paris. When it’s clear the train’s going to be 12, 13, 15 hours late, don’t you just have to give in to fate and release your anger? Your trip has become a farce, a true comedy of errors. It’s already the next day. Whatever you were planning to do happened without you. Your anger in the situation is useless.
In the compartment with the angry German boys and me was an elderly Spanish couple. They were compact people, very small and very sturdy-looking. I was seated by the window, and the woman was opposite me with her husband beside her in the middle seat. The three of us kept glancing at the Germans every time they’d erupt into curses. After a while, I wanted to laugh, but I think the couple was more alarmed than amused. We’d look at the Germans exploding in the most comically contained way, and then look at each other. There was some quality non-verbal communication happening between us. 🙂
Several hours in, vendors rushed toward the train as we pulled to a halt at a station. They were selling drinks, sandwiches and fruit, candy and cigarettes, coffee. The Germans flew out of the compartment. A minute later, I saw them loading up on fruit and sandwiches. I thought I should do the same – I’d only packed a few snacks, and who knew how long we were going to be trapped in the wacky purgatory of that train? I started to get up and the woman leaned forward and patted my arm in a grandmotherly way. When I looked over, both she and her husband wagged their fingers at me, indicating that I shouldn’t go out. The woman pulled a shopping bag from under her seat and began unloading a meal, sharing around neatly wrapped parcels and pouring cups of rich, creamy coffee from a thermos.
In the parcel? A potato and egg sandwich! That yummy business – something that I think is called a bocadillo de tortilla – was basically a potato omelet in a hero roll. And it was so very, very delicious. The excellent coffee made a perfect accompaniment. I don’t know how they decided to adopt me into their traveling party, but I am ever grateful that they did. (It may have been the simple fact that I wasn’t tearing my hair and muttering curses like our German compartment-mates – who returned to the compartment having just bought bocadillos de tortilla out on the platform!)
After the crazy dis-and-re-embark nonsense, the Germans found seats somewhere else, but the couple and I stayed together. And our staying together continued to work in my favor. Somehow, I’d planned to be on a train for 18 hours and hadn’t packed more than some oranges and a chocolate bar. My new companions, however, had prepared for all eventualities. They had another shopping bag full of goodies and continued in their entirely lovely decision to share with me. There was more coffee. There were cheese sandwiches with some kind of caramelized apple and onion business. There were nuts. I offered up my bag of oranges and got what I have to assume was the elderly Spaniard’s equivalent of, “Bless your heart,” as they refused my offering and handed me yet another snack. It was as if they’d known exactly what kind of foolishness that Iberia Express would serve up, and they’d come fully prepared … and fully prepared to pull me into their lifeboat, too!
When we reached Paris (at last!), we said our goodbyes. The woman patted my cheek, and the man bowed. I put my hands over my heart and made a kind of gratitude bow. I am making that grateful bow at this moment, in my heart, remembering their quiet kindness.
It’s the 16th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge!
Head on over to Two Writing Teachers
and see what the rest of this year’s slicers are up to!
if you want kin, you must plant kin ... 