It is quite a journey from Stockholm to Rome, but I felt confident that I could cover it in the forty-eight hours available. I felt happy and with good reason. I had arranged to meet up with my partner, Deb, in Berlin. Deb is a seasoned traveller and had agreed to join me for some of my madness. I looked forward to her sweet smile and some much needed sympathy.
I have developed sciatica. I know it as something Deb once had, common to overworked bodies made to sit for too long, say in trains, for example. It is an affliction of the nervous system, not especially dangerous, but extremely hard to shake and with an armoury designed for one thing: the infliction of pain. Sciatica garrisons in the back, which is where it likes to launch its most frequent attacks. However, the garrison is extremely mobile and moves effortlessly to the hip, thigh and calves and, in the culmination of creativity, under the foot. The pain is sudden and sharp, like being stuck with a knife.
Mediterranean muggers, do your worst.
I have found myself growling and muttering in the manner of a madman as I fight my way from the latest A to the new B (which always so soon and so cruelly becomes an A in itself). Fortunately, I am equipped with an unusually high pain threshold, an evolutionary necessity for the hopelessly clumsy, especially the slightly manic and bald headed kind. I am the king dope of dopamine, even finding the dentist chair quite relaxing, a perverted result of my folks teaching me to meditate to handle my extractions (which now number eleven). Still, even a masochist requires a little affection, even if just to sharpen the rediscovery of pain, and it was with excited anticipation that I cleaned myself up to meet Deb.
“You look like shit!”
“That’s not even the half of it! Here, take a whiff!”
We boarded our train from Berlin to Munich, a service so popular one has to fight for their seats. Deb was forced to sit next to me.
“C’mon, its really not that bad.”
“For once, I’m just glad to be sitting in the smoking section. That’s all I’m saying.”
Yes, things were going well until we hit a little place called Bemberg. We heard announcements in German and half of the carriage gathered up their things and left. Deb and I, still intoxicated with each others’ presence and scents, ambled about in asking for help and fell for the trap of taking “Yes” to mean “Yes” instead of “I’m sorry I don’t understand English, would you please piss off”. It took quite some time before we discovered that our train had broken down and we had to run for another if we were to make our connection in Munich. Shoes in our hands, backpacks smacking innocent heads, we bolted out of the train and into another, itself due to leave.
Puffing and sweating, we took our seats and recounted our luck as I studied my timetable to check our connections. Then, I shocked even myself.
“We need to get off this train! NOW!”
We forced our way back the through the isle laden with old ladies and made the door just in time to hear the conductor’s whistle.
“Are you sure??!”
I was not! I stood fumbling through my thick book of timetables, all in font six. I felt the train rumbling to life. I needed more time. More time!
Then, in a master stroke of idiotic genius, I stood, one foot on the platform (where my sciatica took refuge) and one foot on the train, the door shutting through my chest, the conductor screaming and running towards me. Deb stood behind me aghast until I made my call, grabbed her hand and threw us both to the platform. The train pulled away and we both sat in stunned silence for quite a long time. Shaking, near crying. It was the most frightening moment of our lives together.
“See, isn’t this fun?” I said trying to make light.
“Are you hurt?”
“A little.”
“Good.”
We would never have made it to Italy on that train. As it turned out, we struggled on the one that followed. Rome was now out of the question. We set a new target: Verona, the city of lovers. Deb could be Juliet and I her Romeo, though more likely to kill each other instead of ourselves.
Saint Christopher must have taken some leave, as more trouble started as soon as we crossed the border. We wore endless abuse from Italian train conductors, for what we never really found out. Perhaps our tickets, from Germany, were a little too clear or accurate or perfectly printed, but we received bouts of sarcasm so practiced we grew to feel every part of the ‘stupido Americanos’ we had become. We became the bane of the train and were doubtlessly held to blame for all of the stops and delays that saw us in Verona a mere half an hour away from the game.
Normally, half an hour would be fine, but our schedule demanded that we book onward tickets before watching the football. I was determined not to screw up Italy again, but we needed those tickets. We went at it with fire and with more than twenty minutes to go we were looking very good. Deb had checked our bags, located a local bus to the main Piazza and secured open train tickets. All that remained was for me to check the scheduled departure time. A simple question requiring a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. But a simple answer to a simple question was just too much to ask.
I sat at ‘Informazioni’ pleading for some. I queued again and again, dealt with English speakers and non, watched a database I had seen all over the continent sit idle while half photocopied pieces of paper were thrust at me in anger. I prayed to God for help, but he was probably settling in for the football, not watching me pointing to a train in the timetable, begging to know whether it would appear on the tracks later that day. I watched the minutes tick past to herald in my worst nightmare. My plans foiled and a game to be watched in a station. My bitterness seethed and there passed but a moment at kick off when I hoped South Korea would win. A complete loss of perspective to wish that a whole nation should suffer for the petty inconveniences of one little man.
I sat outside the fishbowl of a waiting room observing the group within. The glass contained all the sound, but I had the crowd’s generous gesticulations to keep me alive to the game. There was some early aggression and the room’s extra silent silence marked a South Korean penalty, missed to the quiet delight of those near the screen.
This was crap! I swore things could not get worse, but one must never tempt such a fate. I still did not know whether our train was to leave and so moved away from the game to start quizzing again.
This time I blew it! My desperation showed as frustration and, to the muffled sound of a goal being celebrated in the distance, I was thrown out of the office, deprived of the ‘informazioni’ that was not really there.
This left only one choice. Deb and I had to ditch the game and the station to connect with another train which we knew to exist. We left at half time with Italy leading one-nil.
I admit it sounds pretty hopeless, but there is always an option and I had prepared one for such an instance as this. A radio.
I stood at the platform trying to tune in to a commentary in a language I could not understand. I could only judge the game by others’ reactions and slowly they gathered around this fool with a radio wasted on his ears, but not in his hands.
We boarded in first class. I felt like the Pied Piper and revelled in taking the game through the carriages back to where we lower classes sit. As we moved down the train, along came a goal. South Korea had scored, or so I reasoned watching an old gentleman slamming his head on a door.
We sat down and a small group of locals huddled around, hanging off every scratchy word and sound. Others pretended to read or just stare out the window, squirming all the while with the play of the game. Conductors lingered with faces of fear as if awaiting a train they thought may never appear.
Full time, or primo time, came with the scores still tied, or so I was informed. Perspiration abounded. People shuffled in seats. The smokers smoked double time. Those trying to look cool most certainly did not. I desperately tried to keep a decent reception as we moved along on our train.
Extra time started and by the look of things, things were not sounding good. There were annoyed bursts of ‘pssssssst!’ and sharp waving of hands. All of a sudden, I did not like being the messenger of what was looking to be bad news. And it was such very bad news.
I knew South Korea had scored by all the sounds of disgust and storming away. Everyone was in shock. No World Cup for Italy. No more chances at Italy for me. It ended for us all in that hot airless place. We were caged in like animals on such a rarely moving train with far too much time to pace the isles and contemplate what did not lie ahead.
The incessant delays ensured that Deb and I never made our next train or the one after that, if it ever existed. But I will tell you something amazing… the day of ‘disasters’ meant we were able to share a night in a bed and side step a train strike which we later learned would have most certainly frustrated my journey to my next destination: Spain…