climbed onto the train and the guard shut the door behind him, Corso remembered the scene: the girl sitting at one end of the table at the gathering of Boris Balkan and his circle in the cafe.
He walked along the corridor to his compartment. The station lights streamed past with increasing speed outside the windows, and the train clattered rhythmically. Moving around the cramped compartment with difficulty, he hung up his coat and jacket before sitting down on the bunk, his canvas bag beside him. In it, together with
He lit a cigarette. Occasionally, when lights from the window strobed across his face, he would glance out before returning to the tale of Napoleon’s slow agony and the wiliness of his „ English jailer, Sir Hudson Lowe. He frowned as he read, and adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. From time to time he stopped and stared for a moment at his own reflection in the window, and he made a face. Even now, he felt indignant at the way the victors had condemned the fallen titan to a miserable end, having him cling to a rock in the middle of the Atlantic. Strange, going over the historical events and his earlier feelings about them from his present, clearheaded perspective. How far away he seemed, that other Lucas Corso who reverently admired the Waterloo veteran’s saber; the boy absorbing the family myths with aggressive enthusiasm, the precocious Bonapartist and avid reader of books with engravings of the glorious campaigns, names that echoed like drumrolls for a charge: Wagram, Jena, Smolensk, Marengo... The boy wide-eyed with wonder had long ceased to exist; a hazy ghost of him sometimes appeared in Corso’s memory, between the pages of a book, in a smell or a sound, or through a dark window with the rain from another country beating against it, outside in the night.
The conductor passed the door, ringing his bell. Half an hour till the restaurant car closed. Corso shut the book. He put on his jacket, slung the canvas bag over his shoulder, and left the compartment. At the end of the corridor, from the door, a cold draft blew through the passageway leading to the next sleeper. He felt the thundering beneath his feet as he crossed into the section of first-class carriages. He let a couple of passengers go by and then looked into the nearest compartment, which was only half full. The girl was there, by the door, wearing a sweater and jeans, her bare feet resting on the seat opposite. As Corso passed, she looked up from her book and their eyes met. He was about to nod briefly in her direction, but when she showed no sign of recognition, he stopped himself. She must have sensed something, because she looked at him with curiosity. But by then he was continuing down the corridor.
He ate his dinner, rocked by the swaying of the train, and had time for a coffee and a gin before they closed for the evening. The moon, in shades of raw silk, was rising. Telephone poles rushed past in the darkened plain, fleeting frames for a sequence of stills from a badly adjusted movie projector.
He was on his way back to his compartment when he saw the girl in the corridor of the first-class carriage. She had opened the window, and the cold night air was blowing against her face. As he came up to her, he turned sideways so he could get past. She turned toward him. “I know you,” she said.
Close up, her green eyes seemed even lighter, like liquid crystal, and luminous against her suntanned skin. It was only March, and with her hair parted like a boy’s, her tan made her look unusual, sporty, pleasantly ambiguous. She was tall, slim, and supple. And very young.
“Yes,” said Corso, pausing a moment. “A few days ago, at the cafe.”
She smiled. Another contrast, this time of white teeth against brown skin. Her mouth was big and well defined. A pretty girl, Flavio La Ponte would have said, stroking his curly beard.
“You were the one asking about d’Artagnan.” The cold air from the window blew her hair. She was still barefoot. Her white sneakers were on the floor by her empty seat. He instinctively glanced at the book lying there:
“You’ll catch cold,” he said.
Still smiling, the girl shook her head, but she turned the handle and shut the window. Corso, about to go on his way, paused to find a cigarette. He did it as he always did, taking one directly from his pocket and putting it in his mouth, when he realized she was watching him.
“Do you smoke?” he asked hesitantly, stopping his hand halfway.
“Sometimes.”
He put the cigarette in his mouth and took out another one. It was dark tobacco, without a filter, and as crushed as all the packs he usually carried with him. The girl took it. She looked to see the brand. Then she leaned over for Corso to light it, after his own, with the last match in the box.
“It’s strong,” she said, breathing out her first mouthful of smoke, but then made none of the fuss he expected. She held the cigarette in an unusual way, between forefinger and thumb, with the ember outward. “Are you in this carriage?” “No, in the next one.”
“You’re lucky to have a sleeper.” She tapped her jeans pocket, indicating a nonexistent wallet. “I wish I could. Luckily the compartment’s half empty.” “Are you a student?” “Sort of.”
The train thundered into a tunnel. The girl turned then, as if the darkness outside drew her attention. Tense and alert, she leaned against her own reflection in the window. She seemed to be expecting something in the noisy rush of air. Then, when the train emerged into the open and small lights again punctuated the night like brush strokes as the train passed, she smiled, distant.
“I like trains,” she said.
“Me too.”
The girl was still facing the window, touching it with the fingertips of one hand. “Imagine,” she said. She was smiling nostalgically, obviously remembering something. “Leaving Paris in the evening to wake up on the lagoon in Venice, en route to Istanbul...”
Corso made a face. How old could she be? Eighteen, twenty at most.
“Playing poker,” he suggested, “between Calais and Brindisi.”
She looked at him more attentively.
“Not bad.” She thought a moment. “How about a champagne breakfast between Vienna and Nice?”
“Interesting. Like spying on Basil Zaharoff.”
“Or getting drunk with Nijinsky.”
“Stealing Coco Chanel’s pearls.”
“Flirting with Paul Morand... Or Mr. Barnabooth.”
They both laughed, Corso under his breath, she openly, resting her forehead on the cold glass. Her laugh was loud, frank, and boyish, matching her hair and her luminous green eyes.
“Trains aren’t like that anymore,” he said.
“I know.”
The lights of a signal post passed like a flash of lightning. Then a dimly lit, deserted platform, with a sign made illegible by their speed. The moon was rising and now and then clarified the confused outline of trees and roofs. It seemed to be flying alongside the train in a mad, purposeless race.
“What’s your name?”
“Corso. And yours?”
“Irene Adler.”
He looked at her intently, and she held his gaze calmly.
“That’s not a proper name.”
“Neither is Corso.”
“You’re wrong. I am Corso. The man who runs.”
“You don’t look like a man who runs anywhere. You seem
the quiet type.”
He bowed his head slightly, looking at the girl’s bare feet on the floor of the corridor. He could tell she was staring at him, examining him. It made him feel uncomfortable. That was unusual. She was too young, he told himself. And too attractive. He automatically adjusted his crooked glasses and moved to go on his way.
“Have a good journey.”
“Thanks.”
He took a few steps, knowing that she was watching him.
“Maybe we’ll see each other around,” she said, behind him.
