It’s been
going on for so long. I still don’t know if there is a clinical definition for this
particular mental disorder... anyway, it doesn’t really matter: I call it ''
syndrome of the wrong train ''.
Mine is a
rare case, extremely serious, almost incurable. Everyday, I pay a high price for
this kind of mistake and it has often dragged me into dangerous and unpleasant
situations.
More than
once I found myself having to wander alone in dark and isolated streets in the
middle of the night. But the real problem lies in the fact that the night in
the city is not like the night in a quiet Italian village: the streets are
emptied and all the men in suits and the elegant ladies in tailleurs are sucked
into a vortex that inevitably culminates in a nice central apartment or a dirty
old hovel in zone 4.
The night
is like a filter: the figures of the day are dissolved in a smokey cloud and those who stay in
the streets are nameless and homeless people: pale and hollowed faces who bow
down at your feet for you to give them some change on your way out of Tesco
24/7.
The night in
the city is no joke. A wrong train, a disrupted bus, a blocked road: you are
alone and good luck to you.
But I don’t
want this is to be a story about my troubled relationship with trains or night
buses. But, most important, I don’t want this to be a story about me.
There are
things and people that cannot simply be part of a story: they ARE a story.
So it
begins.
After an
endless ten hours shift I left the hotel where I worked to go back home: three
trains, two changes, usual journey.
I was about
to take the third train: only one stop to my house, two minutes in all. Yes, I
could walk up to my flat, it was only ten minutes away, but I didn’t feel like
walking.
And here
comes the train: I sat down and lay my head on the window. I realized shortly
after that the train was brand new, spacious, never seen before in my journeys
to and from work. It looked more like a wagon for long trips, not a dirty and
stuffy urban train. The doors closed and the train started running: as I found
out a little later, no short-term stops were expected. After a minute I got up –
I’m almost there- I thought. The train did not show any sign of deceleration and continued to run: the lights
of my stop were like a flash, a fast click that left me perplexed and confused.
It was a fast train, and the next stop was 50
minutes away. Here we go once again. Old story, new wagon: damn syndrome of the
wrong train. I sat back, unresisting, contemplating the consequences of my
clumsiness. I unwrapped a sandwich and started eating it, quietly, careful not
to wake the woman who was sleeping next to me with her arms folded and mouth
open. I tried to collect all the mental energy to find a solution to the
problem. '' Where am I going? '' - I wondered - '' When will I get home? Am I
gonna spend the night out? ''. My anxiety, life-time companion, began devouring
me from within. Yet I knew that it was just the beginning of a long, long
night.
Almost an hour later I was in a dark and isolated station in the middle
of nowhere: there were only a few houses and a large road with narrow sidewalks
poorly lit by the lights of a few closed shops. The only employee of the station
was a black woman, focused on the closing operations. I stood outside the window
and, through the hole cut in the thick layer of glass, I asked her:
'' Excuse
me, Madam, do you know how I get back to my neighborhood? ''
'' No more
trains to London, darling. I'm sorry ''
And in that
moment I learned two extremely important facts: first, that I was no longer in
London (and I had always believed London to be virtually infinite), second,
that I was hopelessly screwed.
No trains,
no buses, only expensive taxis that I couldn’t afford. I decided to play my
last card, advise of a wise flat-mate, and call Uber, alternative taxi service
run by semi-private drivers. A stroke of luck in the worst misfortune: on the
screen of my phone a picture of a woman appeared, but I didn’t pay attention. I
read the message sent to me through the app: driver Deborah is coming to get you, she is expected in seven minutes.
I breathed a sigh of relief, and waited.
Five
minutes later I saw a black car approaching and before I had time to identify
the car brand, I noticed a woman sticking out of the window, looking for someone
or something. I waved my hand and I approached the car, getting on the back
seat: that was Deborah, a former firefighter, middle-aged woman who works as a
night driver: she smiled to me, revealing her perfect teeth.
Her face, painted
with wrinkles, looked like a bas-relief of a skilled craftsman, and I have
reason to believe that, some years ago, it must have captured the attention of
many English young boys: at first sight she looked like Jamie Lee Curtis, the
popular ‘scream queen’ of the 70s horror.
I greeted her politely, thanking her
for getting me out of that mess. She smiled at me and described the last passenger
who got in that car: a drunk guy who could barely stand up. '' I wonder how he
managed to call a taxi in those conditions '', confesses quietly and with
extreme politeness, almost as if trying not to embarrass the previous customer.
Encouraged by her positive attitude I decided to smile back and started
explaining her my misadventure from the very beginning. In the meantime she
listened with lively participation, answering my questions and asking back with
genuine interest.
I talked about
my work, my family, my friends, the passion for journalism that led me to England
and the university I am about to start. From the rearview mirror I could only
see her eyes: when she smiled she squinted them, highlighting the symmetric web
of wrinkles that surround her eyes.
She
comforted me and reassured me, by saying that I will find a better job, that a
person like me will go far in life, that my passion is real and tangible, that she
can feel it, that I am a brave young man and my parents should be proud of me.
She laughed
heartily when I told her about my total inability to drive and my hopeless clumsiness
when it comes to any type of sport or manual activity.
She compared
me to her daughter, that drives almost as terribly as I do.
Her bright
smile was slightly eclipsed when I asked her why she had to stop working as a
firewoman: she briefly mentioned an accident, stopped talking. She looks at me
and starts smiling again. She politely avoided the question, without losing her
untouchable grace.
We continued
to travel. Time flew by. And Deborah knew that I had to work two days to cover
the cost of that ride. Long before we arrived in my neighborhood, she turned off
the meter: '' That’s it from today, from now it’s on me’’.
That night had
started as a nightmare. At the end, unexpectedly, it became a daydream. In days
spent between endless silences and sterile efforts, the company of Deborah
filled me with a new energy.
Last
survivor of a long gone species, Deborah shone like a star orbiting in the dark
realm of indifference and false courtesy, greeting me with a long forgotten human
warmth that I no longer expected to find in this cold and lonely land.
She took me
home safely, and left me with the promise to always read what I write and
become my personal driver '' when I get rich and famous ''. I thanked her by
promising her the only thing I could afford to give her: a story.
This is her story.
London, August 2015
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