There will always be someone in the
train that will be talking loudly without any stop. He will be narrating events
that marked his life, he may be
narrating what happened during his
present busy day, he may also be stating
outright and straightly how he hates deeply certain racial groups or how much
he gets irritated by a mosquito drowning in his cup of coffee. His face will be
colored by the matchful, each time, expressions, he will also be coloring his
voice tone with the right percentage of detest or with the right amount of enthusiasm.
He will be interrupting the other person
talking with him and he will make sure that
his voice can be heard even into the next compartment.
Every time that I was travelling with
such a co-passenger, I used to become indignant, to grimace secretly and look
at his face profile, over my glasses. I observed how he was sitting and crossing
his legs and I used to wish the sudden
and sweeping opening of a huge hole on the train roof, a hole over his head
that would literally suck him out. Him and only him, selectively,
like a giant vacuum cleaner. But I was too naïve. And as a naïve, I couldn’t
realise the fact of his necessary presence in my compartment..Ah..yes..right
now, a man dressed in beige clothes entered the compartment just now, having a
handbag across his chest. He is standing next to me, in the aisle,
among the rows of seats, indecisive to where he should sit, which seat is more
comfortable for him, which window can blow the air more affectionately on his
face. I never trusted
people in beige clothes. I know that this is completely irrational and that
this irrational detest cannot be based on any logic. It’s just a stupid detest,
but I cannot resist to this inner impulse which, every time a person dressed
totally in beige comes into my sight, yells in my ear : “look, a stupid, a
stupid, a stupid!”
But I am getting too far from what I
want to say. So..I was saying that being a naïve person made me turn a blind
eye on the importance of such a passenger. Or it might have never crossed my
mind. How indispensable he was, how comforting his babbling was, how melodic his
rudely loud voice used to be, as we, the other passengers, were sitting inside
the tummy of the giant serpent, half-sleeping, in a state of flight between the
borders of normal breathing rhythm and
the rhythm of a long sleep. Our head was touching the window glass hesitantly
every time the train was entering the tunnels whistling, we were getting blind
from the multiple reflections of ourselves on the glass panes, listening to the
deep dull singing of the engine drive, but without daring to speak about this
singing. Each one of us was sure that he was the only one who could hear that
singing and that no one else could hear it. It’s a thought that makes the skin shiver
wildly. I was clutching my bag tightly onto my stomach, pretending that I hadn’t
understood anything, I was looking at my watch, the same watch that I had looked at, five minutes ago, or I was observing
insistently the distant faces of the passengers sitting opposite to me, trying
to detect on them the same silent agony I was feeling.. For that song…A song tangled
with the rails, coming from the scratching metal sound, mixed with the timid sounds
of a resonant male voice which seemed to have been dwelling inside those
tunnels since ever.
A voice that through its melancholy was twisting around
my neck like a spider web, knitting slowly and elegantly its nets and squeezing
me softly as if it was the lullaby of an imminent death, a death trying to meet
me in every shaking bent of the rails, in every loud whistle of the engine, but
it kept staying behind, like a delayed passenger who runs breathless on the
platform with his validated ticket, buried in his pocket.
image: International Surrealist Exhibition in London, attended by Miro (11 June 1936). In image: Diana Brinton-Lee, Salvador Dalà (in diving suit), Rupert Lee, Paul Éluard, Nusch Éluard, ELT Mesens
