Stupefaction

“I knew who I was this morning but I’ve changed a few times since then.”  

                  From “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll

  
                            Stupefaction

                                         

The train, resembling a long earthworm, was slowly making its way through the dense darkness of Eastern Europe, until it finally reached the border between the two parts of divided Berlin. After a careful inspection, (accompanied by some orders shouted in German), the train - escorted by the hostile gazes of the East German guards, menacing in appearance, and all too reminiscent of Nazi soldiers, and by the ferocious barking of the German Shepherds (what else) - entered West Berlin, and the scenery changed dramatically: the city, whose presence one could only guess at from the other side of the border, suddenly became evident: it manifested itself through bright streets, huge neon signs, illuminated billboards on high buildings, and animated traffic. The view made the young Eastern European newcomer’s head spin; so this was the country that had lost the war?  She could not believe her eyes. 

     But her stupefaction did not last long: soon the train was crawling again through the dimmed villages of East Germany - which had a calming effect on her, so she leaned against the back of the seat and closed her eyes, oblivious to the fact that the train was about to enter West Germany and the view might change. She woke up in the early morning of the next day in completely different surroundings, as the train was rushing now at great speed through the Netherlands. Rows of small colorful houses, seemingly busy admiring their own reflections in the canals, glided before her eyes. The houses looked almost like toys, or decorations in a folk play; she almost expected to see people walking in folk costumes; Holland was too adorable to be real. “The Dutch sure are happy people,” she murmured to herself. 

     Soon - too soon for her liking - the train arrived at its final station: Hoek van Holland Haven. For the next leg of the journey the passengers were to embark on a ferry which would take them across the North Sea to Harwich in England. To the young newcomer from Eastern Europe, who knew only the small ferries used to transport people and cows as well as the occasional car across a river, the huge ship did not look like a ferry at all, but like a transatlantic vessel. The prospect of a real sea voyage got her excited and proud; “I’m becoming a true adventurer,” she smiled to herself. Unfortunately, her first real sea voyage did not turn out well: as soon as the passengers had finished their small meal, the North Sea had become stormy; the big waves began to rock the ship, then to shake it, then to toss it. Almost every passenger on board became seasick. Our sea travel newbie felt so miserable that she wanted to die on the spot. When she had got rid of the entire contents of her stomach with the addition of some bile, somebody from the crew helped her to get out on the deck to breathe in the cold air. Holding on to the railing and looking down at the raging waves from the height of what seemed to her to be ten floors, she seriously contemplated suicide. Luckily, the sea suddenly decided to calm down, so she abandoned the terrible thought and went back inside to freshen up and prepare for the last leg of the journey, that from Harwich to London. 

      She had been thinking about England continually for the last few months. It had all started with the visit of Grandma who brought “The Woman and Life” - one of the women’s magazines her mother would never buy. The magazine contained gossip, beauty tips, recipes and sensational little stories, copied from similar French or English magazines. While waiting for Grandma to finish unpacking, so the life of their small apartment could return to normal, Dad was leafing through the magazine; suddenly he stopped: one story had actually caught his attention. It was about a French boy who worked in England as an “au-pair”. “A boy helping with housework is unheard of,” wrote the journalist, “yet he does not complain and seems to be coping well with the dusting and ironing, and looking after the kids”. To prove it, the story included a picture of a smiling young boy.  An “au pair” was a new notion to Dad. Mum explained that it meant living abroad as part of a family and helping with chores; a young person could learn or master a foreign language that way. That evening was conceived the bold idea of Emma going to England and working as an au pair. Of course, putting it into practice required a lot of ingenuity and effort: Eastern Europeans did not travel freely outside the Iron Curtain. Her family had to find a distant cousin in England and ask him/her for an invitation and the train ticket which cost Emma would repay from her pocket money from the au pair job. Having an invitation and a ticket was a prerequisite to be able to apply for a passport. With the invitation, the ticket and the passport, one could finally apply for the necessary visas. If one were traveling by train one needed several transit visas. Without the help of the distant cousin who lived in Oxford, she would never have been on that train - not 1969, anyway. 

          

     Quite astonishingly, Emma did not notice anything as interesting or unusual about her first encounter with England. The brutality of the sea crossing had left her tired and apathetic. The train from Harwich arrived in London in the late afternoon; she felt neither joy nor relief that this journey, the longest one in her life thus far, had finally come to an end. A huge crowd awaited the bewildered newcomers from Eastern Europe on the platform. Most of her fellow passengers were quickly found by their families and friends. Standing on the platform, she examined ‪the remaining people in search for her unknown aunt. After few minutes of her nervously looking around, it became painfully clear to Emma that her aunt was simply not there. She panicked. All she knew about her aunt was that she had grey hair, lived in Oxford, and taught mathematics at the local grammar school. The family of a passenger from the same compartment, whom she had befriended during the trip, kindly offered to give her a lift to Redding, which was halfway between London and Oxford. And then what? she wondered, feeling completely at a loss. 

      Fortunately, just when the nice people from Reading had decided to leave her in the care of someone else there, a young woman pushed through the crowd, hugged her, and apologized for being late. She explained that since it was snowing, her mother had decided against driving to London. When they got outside the big railway station, it was still lightly snowing; the snow melted as soon as it touched the ground. The wet, well-lit London streets were shining magically in the dusk. The cousin hailed a taxi - one of those iconic London cavernous black cabs - and asked the driver to take them to Paddington Station. 

 

      Her journey was not over yet: she was now to take a train to Oxford. And - alone! She almost fainted with fear. To calm her nerves, the cousin assured her that the train was a fast one that would stop only once between London and Oxford. She also told her at what time the train would arrive in Oxford. The train, however, turned out to be a slow one, and it stopped what seemed like every few minutes. What was worse, her watch did not show the right time. The only other passenger in her compartment was a long-haired young man, who at first did not win her trust (even though he smiled at her and had kind eyes).  Emma began to worry that she might miss her station; so when the train slowed down preparing for the next stop, she would look at her fellow passenger and ask: “Oxford? Yes?” “No, not Oxford”, he reassured her and, before returning to his book, said something which she did not understand, as her knowledge of English was at this point less even than rudimentary. Every time the train slowed down, she would look questioningly at her fellow passenger. “No,” he would shake his head in response. She now trusted the long-haired man. When the train finally did arrive at Oxford, he smiled and nodded his head, took her heavy leather suitcase off the rack, and carried it down to the platform; apparently he was traveling further. A really kind hippie, she mused. As she stepped down to the platform and looked around in search of another cousin who was supposed to meet her there, a strange thought struck her: she did not know anymore who she was; a parallel with an erased blackboard came to her mind.