On a train

Over seven years ago I sat on a night train going between Munich and Milan. As soon as I sat down a tall, dark Italian came into the same cabin. We talked for a while. He was from Sicily. He seemed quite strange, right from the start. Every time someone got into the cabin to check our passports (at the border of Austria) or tickets, the guy disappeared. I hang on to my bag with both hands.

Trying to get some sleep while hanging on to a bag is not easy. You kind of are awake, kind of falling asleep every second. I had just fallen asleep again, when a couple marches in to the cabin. We are just arriving to the Austrian border. It's an older man and a younger woman. They speak in English to each other, and still you can hear it isn't either's mother tongue.

They had met on the train. And she carried a gun in her purse.

That's what they said, at least, until letting us two fellow passengers in on a secret: It was a lie they'd made up. They had come up with a game to scare other passengers. They thought it was really funny. I took an even steadier grip of my bag and tried to sleep.

We are stopping in Bolzano. I wake up and hear a terrible yelling and screaming. It sounds like 1 000 chicken boarding the train. Suddenly the door to the cabin is opened from the outside. The Italian and the other, older man stand up in a split second. They both try to close the door. Tens of dark skinned hands push their way between the door and the cabin wall, pushing their way in. "We need to close this door, this is a private cabin", my fellow passengers inform the herd of dark women trying to get in. "We can't let them inside", the Italian says, turned to me, "Puzzano - they smell, and they will take up the whole cabin, there will be no room for us!". "They are hookers", he explains further, while trying to close the door with all his force. No use - suddenly the grip gets pulled of the cabin door, and soon inside our cosy cabin of four, ten dark, skinny women with heals high as mountains and skirts of the size of a belt are stretching out. I can't get no more sleep, as my face is pushed up against the window, where it stays until the train stops in Verona.

The ten chocolate skinned fellow passengers of the cabin get out. Finally I can get some sleep, I think. I close my eyes just to open them again a moment later. I hear someone call my name and a "What are you doing here??". Two of my friends, who I met that same summer at the Garda Lake, are looking inside the cabin with eyes big as satellites. "What are YOU doing here?" is my question. And it soon comes out, they are on their way to Florence, but apparently got on to the wrong train. I can happily inform them, that the train to Florence leaves from another track. It's the wrong track. Binario sbagliato.

From Verona to Milan I sleep like a baby.