In Annailo's mind…
It’s freezing cold on the platform. The train is shortly ready, and the passengers hesitate the last minutes before departure. Some are taking the last sips of a cigarette, others are in conversations with friends and family they are about to say goodbye to. Between them, lonely snowflakes are falling down to the bricks on the ground. It is an emotional atmosphere, as it always is before departure.
We are sitting on the bench, Hermann and I. It has been a while since last time we met. After the railway café closed down, he said he didn’t want to visit me at work anymore, that it wasn’t suitable. Today he came after all.
- There is always something falling from the sky when you are here, I smile.
Always, rain or snow. One time it was hailing heavy bullets above our heads, but we didn’t mind. Still, I feel there is something special today. Maybe it’s because it’s my birthday, but I’ve never cared much about birthdays. Or maybe it’s because of the atmosphere out there, that Easter is soon upon us and it’s finally snowing.
- Smile for me, I tease, and punch him with my elbow. It’s been so long, and I take the time to study this face I’ll never figure out. The winter wind is sticking through, and we’re embracing ourselves to cover.
- Why are we sitting here?, he asks me.
- I dreamt this once, I say. – That we were sitting here on the bench and it was snowing.
- How did the dream end?
I study a snowflake that has landed on wrinkled skin, before it melts and is only a drop left. It runs slowly down his cheek like a tear.
- You were the railway manager and sent the train off.
- I’m no railway manager, he sadly confesses. – Never been either.
He turns to me, and there is something different in those grey-blue eyes of his.
- You are so young, he whispers. – You are young and I am old.
- Don’t say that, I insist. – If you’ve first said it, you’ll be old in a heartbeat!
Once again I push my elbow careful into him, but there is no reaction. All of him is different.
- Tell me again, he says. – Why is it that you love the trains so much?
My eyes land on the long red in track one.
- Because it takes you where you want to go, and then back again.
- Usually it does, he says. – But when I leave now, I am never coming back.
I nod quietly, and let my eyes wander along the platform. A young couple is embracing each other right beside us. The girl is holding on to her boyfriend’s shirt, as to hold him back. From the uniform he’s wearing, it seems like an impossible task. He’s holding her face between young, inexperienced hands and kisses her forehead.
- Trains make people understand how much they mean to each other, I add and take my eyes away from the young couple.
- That’s why I’m here, he says. – To tell you how much you mean to me.
I lean my head on his shoulder, feel the odor of alcohol reaching my nose.
- You don’t have to tell me that, I already know.
He rests his head on mine, and we sit like this for a while.
- I’ve been walking many rounds with myself, he says. – I’ve said it out loud many times that “enough is enough, Hermann, this time you’ve gone too far”. Sitting there and feeling sorry for myself and thinking about you. I don’t know anything about you, girl. Nothing! You never tell me anything.
- It’s just who I am, I assure him. – I listen rather than talk.
- Maybe it’s for the best, because it’s not right to want more from you.
- Maybe not… But tell me, did I make you smile?
I can’t see him, but feel his smile anyway.
- Yes, he says. – I’ve smiled.
- Then it can’t possibly be anything but right, I say.
He moves, as to read something important in me.
- Look, he says and nods down to a worn out papernote. – Do you remember this?
I take it out of his hands, unfold it. “When you need a hug, call me.”
- I remember.
- When I call you in the middle of the night, do you regret this note?
I shake my head honestly.
- But you cannot call me anymore, I add. – I can’t give you what you need.
I turn my face up to the sky, and feel cold snowflakes land. The months have been long, so much has happened. For a while he came in every day. Then he was gone, didn’t want to come close to the station anymore. I missed him, just seeing him there in the doorway, hear him asking for me. His timing was always perfect.
With the sleeve of my sweater I wipe snow off my face, and study the wet spot on the green material. He rises and takes a walk on the platform. Once he said he wished he was my father, so he could follow me and be proud of what I accomplished. I said he could, be a replacement when my own father was so far away. It didn’t last long. I see him balance on the bricks and understand that despite age, he is the child of the two of us.
He comes back to the bench, but won’t sit.
- I’m sorry, he mumbles.
I look up, but he refuses to meet me.
- For last time, when I said I couldn’t be your father after all.
- It’s okay, I say. – We work better as friends.
- But I’m sorry anyway for… you know…
I’m thinking back on our last meeting. A philosophic walk in the forest ended up in a wet evening at a small pub. For three hours I was holding on to a cup of coffee, while he was yelling his lounges out. “It’s your fault I’m drinking, your fault! Damn you, woman, I curse the day I met you!”
- I wanted to take care of you, he continues. – From the first time I saw you I wanted to look after you and see you smile, make sure you were okay. Instead it turned into you taking care of me.
- Well, I say. – You´re always telling me that no one can take better care of me than I do myself. I assume the same goes for you…?
- But that’s the whole point, he nearly yells. – You’re not taking care of yourself!
- Sure I do, I protest.
- You can’t live down here, ain’t no railway manager you either.
- I know…, I laugh carefully. Childish I lean my head back and look up the high wall of the building.
- In the old days, the railway manager lived upstairs here. Then he never had to leave, the station was his home.
- That’s what you’ve done, he says. – Claimed the station as your home.
The platform is starting to empty, people have become passengers behind windows. Once we sat by a quiet lake and watched the train on the other side of the winter darkness. He asked me to remember that moment when life was tough, remember how the trees had been reflecting in the water and the train had been whistling towards a station we could not see. I remember that now when the train is ready for departure, and is being called up for the last time by a familiar voice. Hermann turns to see the young station manager that comes out to send the train off.
- Some are leaving, others are coming back, Hermann says sadly while the train is starting to move out of track one. Together we watch it pass and disappear. Two brown eyes on the other side of the platform are drawing mine to his, and a silent conversation is taking place with Hermann as the only witness.
- Tell me, does he make you smile?, he interrupts.
I nod silently, and hear Hermann sighing beside me.
- Despite the heartache, then it can’t possibly be anything but right.
I smile to both of them, feel that I’m a part of a secret moment I will remember till the end of my days.
Hermann is ready to leave, but doesn’t want to. Feels like he has to say something just to stay another while.
- Why do you forgive me when I make it so impossible to love me?
The wind is playing in my hair, and sticking through my clothes into the skin. All the times I never showed up as promised, and he was waiting somewhere hopeful. He said he would be there for me if the railway manager returned. When the day came, I turned my back on them, even if I heard them both calling for me from behind. Afterwards, Hermann came back with a flower and a card, while I had been apologizing. The card said: “Never turn your back on the love of your life, girl.” The flower had slowly been dying in my window cell, because I was never home to water it.
- All this time you’ve thought we’ve been friends because I was doing it out of charity, I explain. – But to be honest, I think I’ve gotten more out of this friendship than you.
He opens his arms for me, invites me to a hug. I accept, and hold him tight and long.
- I’m sorry, I whisper into a beige jacket. – I’m sorry I can’t heal the pain I’m causing you.
We end the embrace, and for the last time I’m looking into to grey-blue mirrors. The tears that are running are no longer melted crystals.
- Now I’m going against my own words and turning my back to the love of my life, he says.
The snowflakes around us are getting heavier, and an almost invisible carpet is covering the world where we first met.
- There is always something falling from the sky when you are here, I repeat to his back. – I only had one wish for my birthday, and that was snow.
He’s brushing white dust off his jacket, and puts his hands in warm pockets. With determent steps he leaves me, and I know it’s for the last time. I photograph the image of him, want to remember it for as long as I can.
Silence is resting over a lonely platform; only dark footsteps are evidence of something that once was.
(c) annailo.net – Do not copy my work in whole or in parts in any form. Thank you.
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