Sitting on my chair, in the cool of the cathedral, following the unmanned stations of the cross, pursuing analogies between church and railway, with the column dedicated to Lecce’s patron saint, Sant’Oronzo, fresh in my memory, I was reminded of an article I’d recently read that went something like this: ‘The Ferrovie dello Stato are in dire need of a patron saint in these hard times and hence will be happy to hear that the Pope has canonised Paolo Pio Perazzo, a railwayman who died in 1911 after a lifetime’s abnegation; Paolo could have married and instead he dedicated his energies to the development of the railway workers’ union, giving away his meagre salary to the poor boys selling matches outside the train stations of the south.’
I had thought until I read this article that St Christopher would be the patron saint of railwaymen, though I had also discovered that in Catanzaro the local Trenitalia employees celebrate Sant’Antonio of Padua. On 22 August 1943, three years after the inauguration of that fountain in Brindisi celebrating Fascism’s renewal of Italy, Allied bombers destroyed a complex of railway workshops and depots outside the station of Catanzaro Lido. With no time to take cover, the workers jumped over a low wall and dived into an orchard, but not before someone had cried for help to a small statue of Sant’Antonio standing in the yard of the depot. Up to that point, it seems, this statue had been a bone of contention between Christian workers and Communists, leading to all kinds of quarrels. However, the railwaymen survived, and when they got to their feet they found that the whole industrial complex behind them had been flattened but for that statue of Sant’Antonio. Seventy years on, the day is still celebrated, and the same statue, now housed in the railwaymen’s social club, enjoys an annual tour of the station and even a ride in a locomotive. The miracle – for what else could it have been? – was instrumental, apparently, in the conversion of a number of Communists.
SMILING MY SCEPTICISM, I left the cathedral. The automatic rosary was getting on my nerves. But then on return to the station, again regretting that this was the end of the line and that after my walk round Lecce le Ferrovie dello Stato had nothing to offer me but the long journey home, I experienced a little miracle of my own. I looked up at the departures board and saw the word Otranto. How could that be? A vision? I hurried to consult the Trenitalia departures timetable, a printed yellow poster on the wall, but nothing. The departure wasn’t there. Nothing went south of Lecce. I thought of going out to the platforms to see if the train was really there, but I didn’t have a ticket, and it was late in the day to be travelling to Otranto, since I still had my hotel in Brindisi, an hour to the north. On the other hand, why not look at it at least, this ghost train that couldn’t be? A mystery worthy of Walpole’s Gothic novel.
In the underpass beneath the platforms a large German shepherd dog was stretched out on the tiles, taking refuge from the sun. The stairs climbed to a last track; then you had to cross the rails to another, the very last, where a single ancient one-carriage train was pouring out diesel fumes. Was it the train to Otranto? I asked, mystified. Not exactly, I was told. First you changed at Zollino for Maglie, then at Maglie for Otranto.
‘But one can get to Otranto?’
‘Yes.’
I hurried back to the ticket hall and waited my turn. The problem was that tomorrow I had planned to take fairly leisurely trains from Brindisi all the way back to Milan, since the morning after that, a Friday, I was due to preside, alas, over a thesis commission at 9 a.m. And thesis commissions, as I always have to remind myself, are appointments that cannot be missed, on pain of legal sanctions. On the other hand, if there was a train to the end of the land, I should take it.
Struck by a bright idea, I broke away from the ticket queue, consulted the yellow timetable again, and saw that there was, as I suspected, a night train that ran up the Adriatic coast, then across to Bologna, arriving in Milan at 7.10. Assuming it arrived punctually, that would give me all the time in the world to make it to the university and be sitting up on the dais, albeit a little dishevelled, when the students arrived for their great day.
It was a risk: over six hundred miles by train and a margin for possible lateness of just one hour.
Do it.
‘Can I have a ticket to Otranto, please, for tomorrow? Early in the morning, preferably.’
The journey was about thirty miles.
A tired young man looked at me with a mixture of irritation and pity; apparently I had committed a grave faux pas.
‘Trenitalia does not have a train to Otranto.’
‘But I saw Otranto on the departures board.’
‘That is not Trenitalia.’
‘So?’
He hesitated. ‘That service, signore, is run by’ – he sighed deeply – ‘le Ferrovie del Sud Est.’
‘And how can I get a ticket?’
His expression suggested I was pushing my luck.
‘Platform one,’ he muttered.
I WENT TO PLATFORM one, looked up and down, but saw nothing, no sign, no special timetable. As in most stations, platform one
