Lost in Transit

I'm happy here; Coach 22 Bed 12 on the D10 from Warsaw to Moscow. I have switched off my phone and I am alone in the carriage. I open the window and lean out into the sharp black night. A strange sense of great strength flows over me and I think of Louise Glück's poem 'The Wild Iris'
You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure sea water

The chill of the wind hits my nostrils and screams in my ears 'I am Anna! I am here! I am alone! I am free! I am alive!'.

The sound of a train on a track is international. Closing my eyes I feel the rythmic rocking, bouncing ker-klunk (ker-chink) ker-klunk (ker-chink) and an undertone of shuss shuss shuss shuss from the engines. It sounds just like the 13.14 from Harrogate to Leeds.

The restaurant car has just closed but the lady in the kiosk offers to make a coffee. I watch her light the gas burner of the free-standing stove in the galley and place a blue whistling kettle over the flame before returning with two jars of coffee to choose from. One jar is large; one small. I take the lids off and smell them...she's shaking her head. Perhaps one is decaffinated... I scan the label for clues, but none jump out at me. It's a 50/50 chance so I go for the one I like the smell of. She makes it so thick that the plastic stirer stands up in the gloop of granules at the bottom.

At Terespol, the Polish border, we stop and I open the window to look out. Border guards in khai olive uniform get on the train to search for stowaways and to check passports. They speak to me in Polish and I stare back blankly. I am getting good at blank stares.

Outside it is dark and the station is quiet. Tired iron railings separate platforms; weeds grow between railway lines and in cracks of paving.

Miaoux

I look down from the window. A tabby cat looks up.

Miaoux

I break off a piece of biscuit and throw it down. The cat sniffs it and looks back at me.

Miaoux

I throw another piece. It isn't interested and walks away. To my right on the platform I see a backpacker on the platform talking to the guards and my mind fills with questions and stories. Where are they going? Where have they been? Are they in trouble? The backpacker walks away from me further up the train and gets on. The cat is back looking up at me.

Miaoux

I throw it a cream cheese and chive crisp and it looks at me as if to say

You must be joking

The next border crossing is into Belarus. Border guards come on and take my passport. They speak to me in something, Russian perhaps, and I use the blank stare I have been perfecting. It seems a long time before one of them returns. A young man, early twenties at the most, thin with a large nose and shaved hair. The uniform is forest green.

'Ahna Grinvud' he looks at me and speaks Russian.

Blank stare

He walks away and comes back with someone who speaks English.

'There eez a problem wiz your visa'

Blank stare (I'm getting good at this)

'You do not have transit visa for Belarus'

He's right, I don't. Dammit. It had not even occurred to me that I would need one.

'He sayz he must talks to heez senior officer.'

Great

'You must go wiz heem now, leave the train.'

Not so great. To cut a long story a little bit shorter I follow this guard off the train onto a dark and empty platform with all my belongings. Through all this my mind is equal parts blank and racing. I notice an old woman wrapped up against the cold walking uncomfortably infront of me. We walk on to customs. A strange serenity washes over me and I look around me at the detail while I wait in the railway waiting room. This is just how I imagined Eastern Europe. No billboards, no coke machines, no piped music, no kiosks. Clean, clinical, white walls, stone floor, wooden desks, plastic chairs. Practical. There are a dozen or so people in the bright waiting room doing nothing more than just, well, waiting. Beyond the windows is blackness. I turn to my left and a lady with the largest glasses I've seen since the 80's and a calamity of blue eye shadow is staring at me. I stare back.

My blank look comes naturally now; I'm not even trying.

She holds my stare for what feels like and eternity, and eventually looks away. I look down, then up at the rest of the people in the room.

They are all staring at me.

I look away and study the stone floor in great detail. My hands are starting to shake.

Three Belarus guards approach. One speaks a little English, the other two talk to me in Russian. The one who speaks English tells me I must return to Poland, to Warsaw, and get a transit visa. A cacaphony of thoughts fill my mind - can I bribe them? pay them? there must be a way...? Then I remember the Serentiy Prayer

Grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

This is a situation to accept.

So I am escorted to a train about to leave for Warsaw. It is the middle of the night and I am tired. The border guard explains to the two train guards in the doorway of the carriage and then there is a confusion of four bodies and one rucksack trying to manouver around this singularly tiny opening.

The train guard is Polish, round and balding. He explains in Polish what is happening and I patiently watch his body language to try and understand. He throws in a few words of English but I am not really sure. He's asking for $30, for the train fare I think, but I changed all my money to roubles before I left Warsaw. I have 1500 roubles I don't know if it is enough.

He leaves me and returns later with bedding to make the bed for me.

He asks for $30 again and I tell him I have only roubles. He works it out as 900 roubles, and I pay him two of my three 500 rouble notes. Suddenly I think about transport to the hostel in Warsaw and the very small collection of small Polish zloty coins (about 20 pence) in my purse. I'll park that thought at the bottom of my 'To Worry About' list for now.

'Please, er, sit down, er, stand up'

I look at him and hover half way between the two.

'er, stand up. Please'

I stand up and move so that he can make the bed. His attention to detail is meticulous and every movement is done with precision and care.

'I love Liverpool'

I look at him from the doorway.

'I love Liverpool. Beatles'

The pillow is put neatly into the pillow case.

'Paul McCartney. George Harrison. John Lennon. Rrringo Starr'

I love the way he rolls his r's in Rrringo Starr. And quite unexpectedly he bursts into song with a medley of McCartney songs in wonderful English.

'Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away'

I burst out laughing; I just can't help it. How true those words are. How true.

The list of singers' names is endless, and his repertoir wide and varied this evening. I am standing in the doorway of a sleeper cabin on a train from Belarus watching a Polish guard sing to me in English, and all over my face is the most enormous smile imaginable. 'Shy' is not a word I would use to describe him.

Before leaving he shows me how to lock the door.

'Polish bandits' he warns me, pointing up and down the carriage passageway.

I stare at him blankly and my mouth mouths, quite matter of factly 'Right then' and he is gone.

I lock my door, get into my beautifully made bed, but I can't sleep. Maybe it is the adrenaline, or the Polish bandits, or maybe the gloopy coffee had been full strength caffeine after all.

<many many thanks to John and Magda in Warsaw who through all this were in constant contact with me by phone to find information on embassies and accommodation>