Friday. The moon-faced clock ticked off its minutes like centuries as I finished my reports
and anxiously pulled at my polyester uniform in the wet Italian heat. That last Friday took longer
to pass than the entirety of my three weeks at Naval Base Naples. I was more than eager to finish
my assignment and get out on my own—I was desperate.
Finally, finally, I had the Captain’s handshake, a fat paycheck, my well-worn uniforms packed
into a box to be shipped home, and I waited for the taxi that would begin my real European adventure.
“La stazione,” I said to the driver, and held on as he drove like an insane man
through colorful streets whose traffic lights worked even less often than the people. Naples. I always
felt a bit naughty when I said the name, as if I would slip and say Nipples, or as if Naples meant
nipples in Italian. I didn’t know, but the sound of the word always took my tongue by surprise.
The taxi slammed to a loose, shuddering stop at the train station. With my heart in my
throat and my passport clutched to my chest, I paid him, mumbled a “grazi,” and got out.
Free. Alone in Europe, just me, my carry-on, my passport and my Eurailpass. I felt powerful
and lusty with potential. I breathed my last of richly-scented, unwashed Naples and stepped into
the sweltering train station. Switzerland, I thought, here I come.
The train, like Naples, was shabby, threadbare and in marginal working order. I grinned,
watching the tired, mustachioed conductor deal with emotional people in their overly dramatic language.
My reserved seat was in a semi-private compartment that smelled of cigars and old socks.
I stowed my bag in the overhead rack and sat down, watching tearful, extravagant good-byes on the platform.
With a lurch, the train set out, and I grinned again as my adventure began in earnest. I
relaxed and put my feet up on the seat opposite, luxuriating in having a compartment to myself.
The wildly-colored city passed by my window with its brown children, laundry hanging between
crumbling buildings, traffic snarls and open markets. The landscape changed dramatically as we picked
up speed and entered the countryside.
I thought country was country—American, Italian, what could be different?
Everything. Even the greens were a different mix. Sheep and vineyards, stone buildings and
peasants captured the novelist in my soul. I watched in complete fascination as the background details
of my new book flowed before my eyes.
Abruptly, the dour-faced conductor opened the door to my contemplative compartment. As he
left, the clicketing of the train’s wheels filled my room and then did he—a passenger,
with his tweed valise and musky cologne.
“Bueno sera,” he said to me, his accent as bad as my own. I smiled and nodded, as he slammed
the door closed, sealing the noise outside, the pheromones inside. He put his valise onto the overhead rack,
shrugged out of his suitcoat. Dark rings showed under the arms of his blue dress shirt. He hung the jacket on
a pull-out hook, then sat down opposite me with a copy of the New York Times.
American.
I’d always fantasized about an erotic encounter on a foreign train with a mysterious stranger.
But for the first time, I realized that I could be that stranger. I could engineer someone else’s
fantasy and thereby satisfy my own.
