Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - moving on

I’ve left Spain. I guess I thought a country that launched so many ships might launch me towards a clear direction but it didn’t. I’m still unsure of what to do next, still restless after a few days in each place, unable to gain respite, answers, satisfaction. But I’m glad I came. I’m surprised to find that despite its dirt and poverty, its magnificence and unrest, the country crept inside me. It’s like the taste of bitters I had in Denmark all those years ago. Horrible at first, but the more I had the more I came to like their intensity. Spain is a country that’s seen more than its fair share of internal unrest and teenaged rulers and religious sways – Jewish, Muslim, Catholic – extreme wealth and extreme poverty. There is certainly a lot of this world to see! If only I wasn’t so tired to want to see it. Instead I seem to drift through it, as if looking for something.

France seems more comforting, but maybe it’s just because the language is more familiar, all those school conjugations rising up from the depths. Mind you, it took awhile to come back to me after speaking Spanish these last weeks and months. In the middle of the night while I was sleeping with my head on my guitar alone in the train carriage, I suddenly became aware of a man who had entered and was sitting in the seat opposite, just staring at me. My body went rigid with alarm. I continued to lay there, trying to keep my breathing regular, hoping he’d go away. He must have caught a glint in my half-opened eye because he tried to strike up a conversation I half understood. ‘Pretty lady would you like to spend the night with me?’

I ignored him, but he moved closer and put a hand on my leg. I sat up bolt upright, hoping to scare him off, but he moved in closer, persistent. He put one arm around the back of the seat I was on and the other cupped over my knee. I jumped up and away, pointed to the door, feeling my voice quaver despite all efforts to say strongly, “Bon nuit monsieur, s’il vous plait!” I felt ridiculous wishing him ‘good night, if you please’ – not at all what I had wanted to say, but it was the first thing I thought of. He smiled and I could smell his sickly breath, a mixture of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol and garlic. What a cliché.

I sat on the opposite bench and turned away from him, crossing my arms, hoping desperately he’d just go away on his own, but he moved across and put his hand back, this time down by my ankle, slowly moving it up my leg. For some absurd reason all I could think about was how long it’s been since I’ve shaved my legs and I felt my face flush with embarrassment. I pushed the disturbing need to apologize aside and stood up on jelly legs. Quivering, I opened the door to the compartment and rasped out for assistance. The man got to his feet and moved towards me. I was terrified that he’d grab the door and close it, or hit me or something, but the compartment door next to us opened and the noise made him pause. Then he shrugged and moved out of the carriage, looking down at my breasts as he pressed past me. I moved back into the compartment and crossed my arms over my chest, shut the door and sat, wide awake, shaking like a leaf the rest of the trip, keeping myself from crying by thinking of all the more clever things I could have said.