Berlin to Brussels
11:34 Berlin--15:57 Essen
16:00 Essen--16:50 Cologne
17:43 Cologne--19:45 Bruxelles
Dorm buddy enters the room. "Hello, it's me again," she says. "I was supposed to be out of here, but my flight was cancelled. So they put me right back in this room. Sorry in advance, though - I have to be up at 3:30am for my train to Amsterdam."
I hear her wake and gather herself at the edge of consciousness. I hear the beep of the door, thinking she may have forgotten something. Then, nothing. Until my own blasted alarm at 6am, so I can get the hell out of Berlin. I hear soft breathing. Take the ladder down from my top bunk and notice a body in the bed. When I return from the bathroom, the same dorm buddy says good morning.
"I'm surprised to see you," I say.
"Yes. All the trains out of Berlin are cancelled until 10am at the earliest." I check the departures board, remotely. There are no scheduled trains to the next 70 minutes. I climb the ladder and pull the duvet over my head.
I do eventually board a train. It's not as hectic as I imagined. At least, not yet. Later the aisles and gangways are so thronged I can't find the train guard to ask why Cologne has disappeared from the list of stops. So I decide to alight at Essen. Because I know that there will be trains to Cologne from there. I catch one, another delayed train in a mishappen day. After a little while I'm joined by a young man whose phone is dead and all his train tickets are on it. I loan him my charger, and then my station is announced. So I let him keep it. Being at saturation point with small talk and fleeting encounters, I haven't had much energy to converse, much kindness to give. The charger is a stand in for that. Almost in exchange, he reassures me that there's no such thing as too much travel. I didn't know that I wanted to hear that. But I'm grateful.
J'arrive! At a hotel in Bruxelles. I thought I'd be dog tired, but I am elated. I thought I'd feel worn down, but I am giddy. I have a bag on my front and one on my back. I have a room of my own. I will sleep naked for the first time in two weeks. I message my friend "Yahoo! Bags are set down, in a rare and welcome room to myself!
Feeling hungry and ready to head straight back out..." I ask for the loan of a phone charger. And nail clippers.
I dive into the rain, into her arms, into the deepest conversation about how our desires, visible and hidden, shape us. About readiness and reticence. We laugh and talk a hundred miles an hour.
Bruxelles, in the morning... il fait beau. It shows me things. It mirrors my own state of undoing. It proffers vast horizons in front of my face like a fan of cards.
I notice small things. The sound of the hail. A notebook supplied that makes me a happy little tinker. I swim in the peculiar sensation of being expected in this workspace that I didn't know existed a day ago. And I work like a fiend so that I can relax into another night of conversation. "Twice in one week!" Veronique says. That unabashed enthusiasm, that straight-to-it-depth. That is a pleasure.
