Without even looking at me, the new arrival starts to moan: ‘Dio povero, how they make you run!’ He coughs and splutters. ‘But how they make you run, Dio santo, Dio povero, Dio santo!’
His accent is Veneto. He gasps, brings up some phlegm, swallows it, and now pulls a clown’s cloth handkerchief from the pocket of his voluminous trousers to wipe the sweat from his forehead. His face is red and steamy and amazingly big. The eyes are glassy. His hair sprouts unkempt from a baseball cap, his whole body exudes discomfort and stickiness. ‘Ma quanto ti fanno correre! Ma Dio santo.’ Then he stops and holds his breath, his eyes opening wider and wider until, without any attempt to cover mouth or nose, he produces a deafening sneeze, aaaah-choooo!
My victory over the PA system is a distant memory.
The sneeze is repeated. He sucks up hard through his nose, which also sprouts thick black hairs, then begins his monologue again. ‘Ma quanto ti fanno correre! Bastardi! If only you knew! Dio povero. If you knew. How they make you run!’
I go back to my book. I can sense he is looking at me now, no doubt a little disappointed that I haven’t responded. After what might be two minutes, despite all my instinctive resistance, I’m obliged to exchange glances. The width of the man’s nose is remarkable. I raise my eye-brows in polite acknowledgement of his presence, but I absolutely refuse to say anything. I must not give him an excuse for carrying on. The expression in Italian is dare corda, to give someone string, meaning to offer them the conversational opportunity to go on talking to you. Non mi dai corda, you don’t give me string, is one of the classic Italian complaints. The refusal to chatter is a breach of etiquette.
With or without my assistance the new arrival goes on talking anyway. I knew he would. He has travelled, he says, santo Dio, from Genoa. Da Genova, Dio santo! The train was late, Dio povero. He had to make this connection with the train to Trieste. OK, so the Trieste train waited for the Genoa train, as it should, no, caspita, as it must! But he had to get from platform seventeen to platform eight in just two minutes. Dio santo! With my foot in this state, Dio povero! There should be a law, he says, santo Dio. There should be damages.
I’m thinking exactly the same thing. There should be a law against intrusions like this. Again he bursts into a fit of coughing. Again, there’s something willed and theatrical about it: he’s auditioning for a freak show. Then he bends down, unzips his bag and pulls out a monstrous sandwich wrapped in the noisiest paper ever manufactured. A smell of mortadella invades the compartment. The air is swiftly saturated with spices and fats. Still spluttering, he opens a mouth in which various brown teeth are missing and takes a savage bite with those that, crooked as they are, remain, contriving at the same moment to wipe his nose with one arm and fish about in his bag with the other. For a can of beer.
He belches.
That does it. Ten years ago I would have sat and suffered, I would have listened to the story of how he broke his ankle, of why he was travelling so far, to visit his mother or auntie, no doubt; I might even have expressed sympathy. But times have changed. The repetition of similar experiences in a controlled environment like a railway compartment allows you to experiment with a variety of solutions and techniques. Very calmly I close my Bernhard, I pack it away in my bag, I slip my pen in my pocket and get to my feet. For the first time he looks at me with curiosity. He is puzzled. ‘Ma quanto ti fanno correre, Dio povero,’ he mutters. There are shreds of mortadella between his lips.
‘In the state you are in,’ I tell him, ‘signore, I fear you need a whole compartment to yourself.’ I pull open the door and step into the corridor. As I do so, I can see him straining to watch me, extreme perplexity on his face. Who is he going to moan to?
TWO COMPARTMENTS UP, I find a pale young man, alone, sitting in the seat near the door, bent forward over a book in such a way as to narrow the corridor between the seats. It is the perfect way to discourage a new arrival. He doesn’t want company. This is my sort of companion. I open the door. He sits up. I read disappointment in his eyes. ‘E’ libero?’ I ask. This is, of course, only a courtesy. He nods. He has a thin, studious face. In his hand he holds a fountain pen with which he has been writing notes on a notepad held under the book he is reading, a rather old book by the looks. I sit down by the window. Despite the rush of the train I can still hear the coughing of that terrible man two compartments away. But the earplugs will eliminate that.
We read. Sometimes I think I should have kept a list of all the books I have read on trains. Certainly most of the books that have been important to me would be there. Perhaps I just read better on rails. A book has a better chance of getting through to me, particularly when I’m in a compartment, and at night. This hiss of metal on metal, the very slight swaying of the carriage, the feeling of being securely enclosed in a comfortable, well-lighted space while the world is flung by in glossy darkness outside, all this puts me in a mood to read, as if the material
