He seems to be asking me to attribute a metaphysical significance to the statement.
‘They give us nothing,’ he repeats. ‘We’re not in a position to work with dignity. Una vergogna!’
Disturbed by the negative energy I have stirred up, I pay quickly and head for a table, where I’m struck by the fact that it boasts a carnation. I touch it. Yes, it’s a real flower! Where the table meets the wall under the window there’s an elaborately designed squiggle of chromed steel, which serves as a flower holder. Every table has one, and every holder holds a flower. It suggests an interesting hierarchy of values in the purchasing department at Trenitalia headquarters. Jug or no jug, the Eurostar must maintain a pretence to elegance.
BUT ASSUMING IT FITS in with your timetable, the best trains to travel on, for comfort and atmosphere, are the old Intercities, with compartments. In Milan it’s wise to walk to the very front of the train, which will be emptier, since most people are just too lazy to go so far. You climb up the steps (I like this old-fashioned business of climbing up three or four steps; it gives you the impression you really are boarding the Leonardo da Vinci), and walk along the corridor in search of the perfect seat.
The compartments have glass screens and doors. You move along looking for an empty one. People who don’t want you to intrude on their privacy tend to sit right by the door to the compartment, as if blocking the way. These people are practised travellers. They are thinking about the psychology of the person choosing his compartment, his desire to see emptiness and a way in, not a guardian at the door, as it were. German backpackers, on the other hand, need only push up all the armrests, take off their shoes and lie across the three seats with their stinking socks on display. Who would dream of joining them?
Many Italian families find themselves overwhelmed by pangs of hunger as soon as they are safely ensconced in a compartment and immediately start a picnic. There will be the noise of crackling paper and the heavy smells of prosciutto and Gorgonzola. If it is a southern family they will try to press the food on you too and seem mildly offended if you don’t accept something. In these circumstances it is almost impossible to feel at ease.
Sometimes you’ll find that the ochre curtains have been drawn across the glass door so that you can’t see inside the compartment from the corridor. All the compartments have these curtains, a strangely civilised touch in our stripped-down, utilitarian world, but irritating when you’re out in the corridor and all the other compartments are occupied, or even packed. Why are the curtains drawn? you wonder. There’s no low sunshine to irritate anyone. It’s hardly an hour for sleeping.
In the past I didn’t have the courage to open a door covered by curtains. I had too much respect. Now I hardly think twice. I push through the curtains and more often than not find a teenager, alone, with his Discman in his ears and his feet up on the seat, or a middle-aged businessman studying his financial newspaper. The teenager will pull himself together a little shamefacedly, as if caught masturbating. The businessman is annoyed that you’ve had the impertinence to catch him hogging the place to himself.
But on more than one occasion I have stepped through the curtains to find couples in various states of undress, in which case it’s my turn to apologise. The desire for intimacy does seem the only good reason for drawing the curtains. I’ve often thought the railways could earn some useful extra money by selling special supplements that would allow people to have a locked compartment where they could make love during their journey. Recently a ticket inspector of the pignolo variety, finding a couple having sex behind drawn curtains, reported them to the on-board police for acts of indecency in a public place. This was particularly unkind because they were married, but not to each other. There have been other stories, however, of ticket inspectors of the furbo variety supplying travellers with prostitutes and guarding their privacy for the duration of the service. It’s hard to decide which kind of behaviour is more regrettable.
One person who never has any qualms about opening those ochre curtains is the minibar man, though he is not as dangerous to lovers as the ticket inspector because his arrival will be announced from afar by nasal yells of ‘Minibaar! MINIBAAAAAR!’ and the tinkling of a little bell of the kind you use on bicycles. For in the end the pompously announced servizio di minibar a bordo is nothing more than a clunkily old-fashioned refreshments cart squeaking along on big wheels with metal spokes and solid white tyres. At the front there’s a foot that the cart rests on when stationary. The base is bright red, then there are transparent plastic sides allowing you to see a small collection of snacks and drinks, including beers. On top is a steaming metal urn with a little tap at the bottom.
It’s always unwise to buy food from the minibar. The sandwiches in particular are as near to tasting of polystyrene as bread and cheese ever can or will. It’s unwise to buy the coffee, too. But from time to time, without really knowing why, I do. A mood catches me. He slides back the compartment door, still yelling ‘Minibar!’ I nod my head to tell him he has a customer.
‘Espresso?’
The young man pulls a tiny plastic cup from a long polyethylene bag. It’s the kind of cup they use to bring you pills in hospital. He rips open a packet, pours in a powder and opens the tap of his hot-water urn. Obviously he has repeated these movements
