2010 Tartu-Odessa-Tbilisi, Part5 - Suwalki – Warsaw train station

Text: Me
Photos and other stuff: We


Suwalki – Warsaw train station


In this train, while I was awake, everybody seemed far away, including myself. I slept, and I was awake, if not to say I was in between. I was sleeping, and yet not, like a plumule in fall and not. When the train stopped, I woke up, looked around, somewhat registered people relaying, moving. I was tired, I was grumpy, I wished to be somewhere else, even if not quite certain where exactly. This place probably included fresh towels, warmth, possibly a sauna with naked people, free drinks on demand and no time limit for all that.
People moved around like gray shadows. Or like unaccented lives in reality - unnoticed, insignificant, incomplete; individual, but not pronounced as such.
I can remember experiencing the presence of powerful women once, in a train, from Tartu to Tallinn. Vituperate me, feminists, but those ladies walked by me, just went by the aisle, and it wasn’t even a question whether they were travelling in the first class or not, it was the fact that all the males watched them as they passed. I just had to. Maybe they where famous, I wouldn’t know, I’m way too ignorant, but they were something, very much pronounced something. I had to look, this presence was powerful. Sheer force what made me feel small and boyish, insignificant in comparison. Women. They were Women. Impressive, how some people Are and some cope with being. And yet they looked so ordinary.
In this train to Bialystok, dowsing in and out, everything was yon, off. I was absent from the environment. I wanted to have a cigarette. And dozed off again.
There was a stop, and I saw a red train from the window, parked on parallel tracks. Beautiful old train, with round lights and round corners. Pungent in this petulant morningness. I was thinking of taking a picture. And I was thinking that the train is too far. She woke up, seemingly, as She told me “take a picture!”, I said I can’t, it is too far. But I took the picture. Grumpy. I wanted a cigarette.
It was a surprisingly long train ride, this first one. I’ve seen those places on the roadmap of Europe, Suwalki and Bialystok, I’ve been to both, been in between them, going from one to another and vice versa, even slept in Bialystok somewhere in the mid nineties, when bus excursions where still very popular in this part of the world (“three star” hotel at the outskirts, with security guys armed with machine guns guarding the entrance). All that, and still I’ve managed to be thoughtless enough to be surprised by the amount of time it took for the train to reach to Bialystok.
I was weary. I can’t recall what was the case with the tickets - did we buy Bialystok-Warsaw already from Suwalki or what, or did we somehow know that we could buy tickets on the train, or was there, in the reality which didn’t include me anyway, an option nr 3.
But when we got out of the train, and I was silent as I contemplated all the best possible ways to have this long awaited cigarette and ways to let Bialystok – a new place – embrace me, He saw a train on the opposite tracks, and he knew something about time and schedule, and He claimed it to be our train, he claimed it to leave in any second. She agreed. I don’t like to rush. Especially if I want to smoke.
We ran. Only few words about that. Imagine - me running with my impedimenta. Or let’s cut it down to one word: fuck.
It was our train, yes. And they were right to run. We sat there, She, He and Me, a stump by the time. Now I have been a smoker for a while, but this was the first really serious case of a hunger for a cigarette. For the whole ride I had thoughts in my head about smoking, and about how my mother told me that it is hard to quit. And how, now, I myself had reached to understanding it to be true, an understanding elegantly plain and self evident. I wasn’t quite myself. I was narrow. My capacity was narrow. And I blamed cigarettes. Kids! Never start smoking! Or, maybe, only pipe. Or cigars.
This second one was a polite train, polite in everything. Rather new, spruce, quite comfortable, carrying a full load of polite, neatly dressed people to work. Polite smile or two from fellow passengers, polite was the attendant, if there was anyone like such. I felt like an addict, and I felt like the morning rain - the damp one who got it descended upon him. An uncomfortable feeling, a bit similar to sitting in a crowded minibus after a two days of a winter hike. Untidy amongst the tidy.
And I have a mental picture of Him smiling conspiratorially, from behind a newspaper he was reading. I’m quite sure the newspaper was in polish.
This weariness of mine lasted well until the first cigarette in Warsaw. When they were busy finding out options for continuation, I was ignorantly smoking. Grumpy and narrow me, broadening himself up again. I think I didn’t even say anything to them. As soon as the train arrived, I walked directly over to the main door of the railway station and out.
And smoked.
All that felt like an airport, rather than a train station. This place, messy portal of arrivals and departures; you, poor smoker, standing there like in a river, clasping against the wall not to be carried away by the constant flow of people. Observing taxis, observing this heavily controlled strain of transport, cars, buses, bringing in more people, taking some away. Suitcases on wheels, all trendy and modern, backpacks, in some variety. Again you’re an alien, different, again you’re standing there where everybody else are moving, at the intermission between coming and going - you are neither. It is not nice to smoke at a place like that. It’s like trying to enjoy a peaceful cigarette at the doorway of rush hour metro, psychologically speaking. And yet this is the place where you’re supposed to go, you relict of unhealthy times! This door smoking is mostly common for airports. Train stations tend to be more humane and offer a snug nook or somewhat looser rules. Airports! It maybe wouldn’t be so bad if you wouldn’t harass even the people who like to have their air without the filter – I mean your air tastes tired, mishandled, exhausted, worn. What do you do to it? Let it go through security checks also?
Istambul – I had to spend five hours there in this airless building and go through security check after every cigarette. Oslo – you couldn’t even smoke on the same side of the road with the door, no, under some overpass, in a corner with the tenderness of concrete above, under and around you. Feeling like a broken down car rather than a human being. Helsinki – after way too many days of almost constant flying, bit before home, a hopeful cigarette at the door with a lovely caress of heavy chilly wind. Tallinn – awful, but with benches and some puny plants in pots they are somewhat trying. I might mix them up, actually, those places and cigarettes. All of them went through my head though in Warsaw. And as I was remembering about those glass cubicles in some airports - I felt a shiver, and tried to be happy. To look at the bright side of this cigarette. So I looked up.
I’ve been in Warsaw for many times, but never there for her. Coming from somewhere or going, it is on the way. And now when I looked up there was one of my repetitious thoughts there, illustrated again. From the gap between two sides of roof in front of the station I could see few buildings, glimpse view of the city, a grand small view. Something I think about Warsaw – she has style. Mixing together old and brave new, managing to keep it intact and building budgets uncut, ideas taken to actual life. Warsaw has a city touch to it.
I entered the station building again and found them. They had been going between different desks, finding out the possible ways and routes for continuation, and now had some printouts with schedules on them. I took a picture of impressively huge main timetable, looked at the printouts and thought that we are lazy. We go and ask, let the information be printed out for us, and this revered timetable will soon be a relict of times gone by as I am as a devoted smoker. Minified but still there. I felt like another cigarette. I was still too narrow for all this information and decisions.
We walked out again, to the other side of the station. That was a more peaceful place for a cigarette. Backdoor facing a car park. Space and size again. Not like smoking in a river this time, rather like smoking at the edge of a huge pond with still, asphalt-gray, rotting water, some waste wrecks drifting around for to variegate.
I smoked, impedimenta scattered around me, and we discussed. Mainly between two options – to go on or to stay for the night. Warsaw is a transport hub already, inside Europe in railway sense. We had many possibilities. To go to Odessa, straight away – of course! possible! Could even take a train to Odessa coming from Berlin. Expensive though. And Lviv. And another route, different trains to Odessa, transfer options and straight options. Suddenly options, options, options.
To go or not to go? I was protecting the idea that we’d stay for the night. Leave our luggage at the station, get a cheap hostel, and take this deserved respite. Enjoy Warsaw. I hadn’t actually visited Warsaw, I said, and He seemingly knew a lot about this city, and so He could share, and maybe let’s just rest and have a wine in the hostel. I even said that I have never ever stayed at the youth hostel, and that could be interesting, all first times together in Warsaw, communicate to strange foreigners and try to figure out the nature of youth hostels. Seemed like a sensible side issue to solve for me. And pillows, blankets, beds, shower – have to admit, I’m getting somewhat comfortable.
I got voted out. Warsaw is not our aim, Odessa is our first aim, we could spend a day and take a night train and that would be enough. They used arguments that had my own touch to them. It was decided. We go. Mystery of youth hostels has to wait some more. And one gets a pillow on the night trains also.
We bought the tickets, after some more questions and running around the desks. You know how it is, you ask a question from one desk, get the answer from the other and then try to find the third one where you should buy the tickets. And this ticket lady, she made a joke. After all that, in this grumpy morning, she, who looked unbelievably grumpy - especially after we stated that we all want to pay separately and by card - she made a joke and got us off guard. We made a lot of fuzz around the issue of being able to be in the same coupe. Her English, nor her Russian, was good enough to keep up, somewhat of a confusion there. And then she says, while printing the tickets already: “Men can go, girl has to see how she can.”
???
He later said that he was thinking about Poland being a catholic country and maybe there’s a rule, or something, that boys and girls should be proper and separated. I had a plain “what?” in my head (still not particularly sharp), and She said “WHAT?” The ticket lady gave us a light smile, cracking the grumpiness, indicating a joke had just been made. We laughed, a bit strained laughter, while cursing in Estonian.
I was not sad to say my farewells to Comrade Suitcase, it was merely “see you later”.
Hello Warsaw, dear, we have one day.