London to Hendaye
08:31 London St Pancras--11:52 Paris Gare du Nord
12:52 Paris Gare de Montparnasse--17:33 Hendaye
The windows of the TGV were filthy. That may have contributed to the idea that it was an overcast day. Or it was an overcast day. But neither the clouds nor seven hours on trains felt wearisome. Ben and I arrived in Hendaye to some spectacular clouds in a darkening day, which gave way to a sliver of a crescent moon.
I'm getting ahead. Electronic gates at St Pancras, ticket machines that require not even a bare spread of French, competent wifi, space to work, and fully equipped 'bars' on both trains made the hardest thing about the experience of our first day of travel the weight of our packs.
Hendaye is a French border town - it sits on the Atlantic Ocean, on the border with Spain, in the Pays Basque. It has a port, many train tracks, an industrial feel. It also has a ferocious ocean and incredible mountains on many sides. Signs display two languages, one that I don't know. It's abundance of Ks suggest something easterly, some greek connection.
The presence of the border, the predominance of trains - I'm reminded of reading about La Bestia, an altogether different train. One that Mexican children ride to enter the U. S. to escape the conditions of the towns in which they are growing up. The train is not safe. Crossing the border is not safe. And yet, as Valeria Luiselli tells us, these children think this is their passport to a life further from poverty and fear. They have scant idea of what awaits them in the judiciary system, that their fate will be decided by more than their courage and luck in making the passage.
We have little idea what awaits us in Lisbon, Zermatt or Budapest. But we can be fairly sure that we will be safe, that we will feed more than our stomachs. For that, I am intensely grateful. This moment is a gift. As Ben quoted, from an Ilya Kaminsky poem:
... we (forgive us).
lived happily during the war.