The Woman on the Train
Read The Woman on the Train Online
Authors: Rupert Colley
The Woman on the Train
Rupert Colley
©2014 Rupert Colley
rupertcolley.com
Annecy, September 1982
I was expecting a visitor. The first, perhaps, in years. I can’t remember. I had a tidy up in recognition of this momentous occasion – threw away newspapers that should have been thrown away weeks, if not months, ago, cleaned the toilet, pushed the vacuum cleaner around. At five minutes past one, the doorbell rang. He was five minutes late. Not that I blamed him – trying to find this address in this backwater French provincial town near the Swiss border is no mean feat. And he’d come some distance – over 500 kilometres, all the way from Paris.
He’d phoned me a few days earlier. His name was Henri Bowen, a Frenchman with an English name, a journalist from one of the nationals, I forget which now. He’d said he was writing an article about people who’d made a name for themselves during the sixties but had since faded from public view. A sort of ‘where are they now?’-type piece. I had hesitated and told him I would consider it and ring him back. And I did think about it – in fact, I thought of nothing else all day. I was tempted, of course; it appealed to my vanity, a trait I thought I’d repressed years ago. Obviously not. For I was once a very vain man. But I was comfortable with that – to be a leading light in one’s chosen profession, a degree of vanity is a necessity. But since my downfall, no, let’s call it retirement, many years ago, I’d been content to fade into obscurity. Did I want to be remembered? Of course I did. The chance may never present itself again. The following day, I phoned up this Monsieur Bowen and, as I knew I would, told him yes, I’d be happy to be interviewed. He seemed delighted.
And here he is, sitting in my living room, the place smelling of air freshener. Good-looking fellow, slicked-back hair, positively shiny, tall, very pale, wearing a dapper cream-coloured suit, firm handgrip. ‘It’s lovely to meet you, Maestro.’
‘Oh please, Monsieur Bowen, less of the maestro. I’m a plain old Monsieur now, and happy to be so.’
He refused my offer of tea and biscuits, and, at my invitation, sat down on my settee which sucked him in, leaving him looking slightly awkward. He took in his surroundings and, I have to confess, despite my efforts at cleaning up, I felt a prick of shame. There was no denying it – I lived in such a mundane place. The chintzy carpets, the turquoise curtains, the squashy settee, the old-fashioned radio – nothing wrong with any of it but it must have seemed very ordinary to a thrusting young man like Henri Bowen. Given my former fame, given the respect I used to command, he must have expected a lot more. I could see the words written all over his face – ‘how the mighty have fallen’. He tried his best to cover up his embarrassment. ‘My parents had all your records,’ he said, almost falling over his words. ’They loved everything you did. I think the Richard Strauss was their favourite.’
I sat down opposite him, crossing my legs. ‘Your parents had fine tastes, Monsieur Bowen.’
He laughed politely. ‘As far as they were concerned, if it had your name on it then it had to be good.’ So, what happened? He didn’t say it – but from the expression on his face, he might as well have done. ‘Do you have any of your own records?’
‘No.’ His reaction obliged me to explain. ‘One’s musical direction changes all the time. What I felt was right twenty years ago, now makes me cringe. With age, I look back at my cavalier approach, and at the liberties I took, and I feel, well, if not embarrassed, then certainly a little bashful. I fear my younger self had a rather inflated opinion of himself, thinking he knew better than the composers he was trying to interpret.’
‘Do you listen to much music now?’
‘No, not often. I prefer Moroccan music nowadays.’
‘That surprises me. Do you mind if I take notes?’
‘Be my guest. Tell me, Monsieur Bowen, I don’t mind, but how long do you think this’ll take? It’s just that everyday at three, I like to pop over and visit an elderly neighbour. I like to make sure they’re OK.’
‘Plenty of time.’
As he organised himself with pad and pen, rummaging in his briefcase, he mentioned a photographer. ‘It’d only take a few minutes,’ he said. ‘She’s very good. Based locally. I’ll get her to give you a call.’
‘I used to have my photo taken every few minutes. This will be the first for many a year.’ I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Part of me was, for sure, thrilled, but the idea of the whole country seeing me, as I am now, a shadow of my former self, perturbed me.
‘You look different from the photos.’
‘We all get older, Monsieur Bowen.’
‘No, it’s not that – it’s something about your nose, I think. Sorry, that sounds rude.’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘Would you mind if I smoked?’
‘I would.’
He took this little setback in his stride. ‘I read about you in the papers. I know, before your success as a conductor, you were a hero of the resistance.’
‘A hero? I may have exaggerated a little.’ Drumming my fingers on my knee, I tried to explain. ‘The words resistance and hero are too often merged together, as if by merely being in the resistance automatically made you a hero. Yes, I was in the resistance, as you know, but I never did anything remotely heroic.’ Bowen tried to speak. I cut him short with my hand in the air. ‘Yes, if I had been caught it would have been unpleasant but I was, how do you say these days, small fry. I was not on any list; I knew nothing. Occasionally, I’d be given an errand which might have carried an element of risk but that was about it. I would do my task, without fuss, and go home again.’
‘Yes, I read about what you said. Nonetheless, they must have been difficult times.’
‘Oh yes. One had no control over one’s life. I’d always wanted to conduct. Before the war, I had secured myself a place at a music college but the Germans invaded before I had chance to take up my place. After that… well.’ I waved my hands in the air. He understood. ‘Instead I was forced into conducting invisible orchestras while I played Vivaldi or Elgar, or whatever was that week’s favourite, on my father’s gramophone player. Before the war, we listened, as a family, to concerts on the radio but once the Germans took over, radios were banned.’
‘In case you listened to the BBC, or something like that.’
‘Precisely that. We had to hand our radios in. That was a sad day for me. But, really, Monsieur Bowen, about my war years, I have nothing to say that could be of interest to you. Except perhaps…’
He sat forward, his pen poised over his pad. ‘Go on.’
‘I met a woman once.’ He raised an eyebrow, a sort of man-to-man acknowledgement. ‘No, no, nothing like that.’ I laughed inwardly. If only it had been that simple, I thought. But no, this woman was to have a far greater impact on my life than any wife or mistress could ever have had.
‘Ah yes, the woman on the train. Of course, this is what our readers want to know – how you feel about it now, all these years later.’
‘It’s strange, isn’t it, how an innocuous meeting can have such repercussions, in this instance, many, many years down the line. She was much older than me for one thing. It was the summer of forty-two. I was just twenty years old. Still a boy really, although at the time I thought of myself as a man.’ I paused.
‘Are you OK, Monsieur?’
‘Yes. Just give me a moment.’
He leant back in the settee and gazed round the room, pretending to show an interest in the landscape paintings I have framed on the walls. Obscure paintings of no value by forgotten artists. Placing my fingertips against my temples, I tried to think. Did I really want to share this story with, in effect, the huge readership of a national newspaper? I had lost everything, pride was all that remained, and now I seemed on the verge of losing that too. I knew that for many people of my generation I was one of those ‘Whatever happened to…’ personalities. Was it not better for it to remain that way; to allow my former achievements to speak for themselves? I would regret it, I knew I would, but that vain streak was too strong to resist. I had had my years in the limelight followed by many more in obscurity. I thought I was old enough, mature enough, not to be tempted by the lure of fame any more. Could I resist one last passing shot at being at the centre of attention, at being the name on people’s lips? No, sadly I couldn’t; this was my one last grab at the chalice of infamy.
‘Monsieur Bowen?’
‘Maestro?’ He sat up, trying unsuccessfully to hide his enthusiasm.
‘You’re right, somehow my whole life has been influenced by, as you call her, the woman on the train...’
Saint-Romain, August 1942
I’d bought my train ticket and waited at the far end of the platform, pacing up and down. It was almost midday on a warm but dull summer’s day, heavy clouds dominating the sky. Above me, a large hanging sign with the word
Sortie
, ‘Exit’. The train was due any moment. Patting my pockets, I checked for my identity card and the paper permitting my travel – I was visiting my old piano teacher, and that was the story I had to keep to. I was indeed visiting a former piano teacher in Saint-Romain, so if checked, my story would hold. Nonetheless, my stomach flittered with butterflies. Nearby, a couple of mothers with pushchairs shared a cigarette, passing it from one to the other, while talking animatedly. Further along, also waiting, was a group of German soldiers. The sight of their uniforms always made me shudder, today especially so. But they seemed in a jovial mood, as if they were a group of sightseers out on a day trip. Perhaps they were. They seemed so young, no older than me. I knew if my nation hadn’t been defeated so quickly I would have been forced to join up by now. Craning my neck, I spied a couple of older ones, further along, who seemed to view their younger colleagues with a degree of exasperation. It seemed strange to think that, unbeknownst to them, I was working with the local resistance, doing tasks, albeit minor ones, that would help undermine their authority. I hated it, having too nervous a deposition for such gallant deeds, but when I was asked, what could I do? This was the second time I’d been sent on such a mission – to take information written on a sheet of paper and deliver it to fellow resisters in the town of Saint-Romain, a train ride of less than half an hour. I needed to think of an excuse to avoid any further missions. The man I’d replaced, a twenty-year-old, like me, had been caught, supposedly tortured, and sent to Germany to work in a labour camp. A death sentence in all but name.
I could see the train approaching, a huge, ugly thing with its fender protruding from the front. I didn’t have to worry about having to share a carriage with the Boche – they always had their own carriages, the first class ones, reserved for their exclusive use. The station guard appeared, a busy-looking fellow with his green flag tucked under his arm. The train puffed large clouds of black smoke into the high rafters. A couple of men jumped off before the train had fully come to a stop and embraced the two young mothers. I boarded the last carriage as, further up, the soldiers pushed and jostled each other like a bunch of overexcited kids. I found a near-empty compartment. Sliding the door open, I asked its sole occupant, an older woman sitting by the window, if I could join her. She waved her hand by means of saying yes, fine. I sat in the middle of the row of seats, not wanting to sit directly opposite her. No one joined us and after a few minutes, the train pulled out of the station.
Soon, we were out in the open countryside. I twirled my thumbs, crossed and uncrossed my legs, feeling sick to the core, knowing I was carrying information that could land me in front of the Gestapo. The compartment smelt slightly of the woman’s perfume. After a few minutes, I opened my satchel and retrieved my reading material – the sheet music to Wagner’s opera,
Tristan and Isolde
. I didn’t feel like reading but I was told to – it’d make me look more
normal.
So, I thought, if I had to read, it might as well be music. I wasn’t a big fan of Wagner, far too Teutonic and self-important for my liking, but my man in the village had persuaded me that, if questioned, it’d look better to be reading something German than French. I was tempted to sneak a look at the contents of the illicit envelope handed to me, the one causing me such anxiety, now nestled in my satchel. I had no idea of its contents. All I knew was that I had to deliver it to a woman who worked at the station at Saint-Romain. I wouldn’t miss her, I was told – she was African. I puffed my cheeks – this was awful; this was not my calling. I’d been placed here on this earth to conduct music. My time, I knew, would come. The war had hindered my grand plans, but it couldn’t last forever, and when, finally, men braver than me had driven the Germans off our land and defeated them, then I’d be ready.
I’d not gotten far in the score, no more than the end of the opening scene, when I considered the woman opposite. She had her eyes closed, her hands on her lap, a large handbag, more like a briefcase, at her feet. She wasn’t as old as I had originally thought – middle aged, in her fifties, perhaps, nicely dressed with a burgundy-coloured jacket with heavy black stitching and a large-collared white blouse. Her skin looked tough, as if many layers deep, yet surprisingly smooth. She had jet-black hair swept up in a bun, with matching, prominent eyebrows. She had a solid-looking nose, deep-set eyes and a prominent forehead, and downturned lips. She reminded me of a bad-tempered schoolmistress. She opened her eyes, taking me by surprise, and looked straight at me – as if aware I’d been scrutinising her. I tried to turn away but too late. I felt her eyes bore into me; this time it was her turn to consider me. When I stole a glance at her, she was still staring straight at me, unblinking, with a distinct look of disapproval. Unnerved, I returned my attention to the Wagner and pretended to read.
‘What is that you’re studying?’ Her voice confirmed the image of the old schoolmistress – loud, sharp and well-articulated, like someone in a hurry.
‘I, er, it’s Wagner,’ I stuttered, unable to meet her eyes.
She didn’t answer for a few moments, as if considering this morsel of information. Eventually, she asked. ‘Why not a French composer?’
Oh, the irony, I thought. ‘I study them as well. Debussy, Ravel, Bizet–’
‘You don’t have to list them, I am perfectly aware of who they are.’
‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘There’s no need to apologise,’ she said. ‘You study music?’
‘Not at the moment but one day I will be a conductor.’
‘Oh, you will, will you? You sound very sure of yourself.’
This time, I looked at her directly as I said firmly, ‘Yes. A conductor.’
Finally, she took her eyes off me. ‘I wish you the very best of luck,’ she said, looking outside the window at a passing woodland.
I returned my attention to the score but although she seemed, thankfully, to have lost interest in me, I could no longer concentrate. For some reason, our short conversation had unsettled me.
I looked at my watch – we’d be there in less than fifteen minutes.
A few minutes later, the compartment door was slid violently open. I jumped. Standing at the doorway, deeply intimidating, were two German soldiers. ‘Papers,’ barked the first one, a tall man with small, steely-blue eyes, wearing a peaked cap, and a swastika on an armband. I’d been in this situation before and got away with it. This was worse – my exchange with the woman had made me nervous. I knew it was obvious but I lacked the strength to control my trembling hands. While I fumbled in my pockets for my card and papers, the woman passed her documents to the German. He glanced at them and with a nod of the head returned them to her. ‘
Dankeschön
,’ she said, putting them back in her inside pocket.
‘And you,’ he said to me, while his squared-headed colleague hovered behind. I passed them to him, knowing that I had guilt written all over my face. He considered my card carefully, glancing from the photograph to me and back again, his eyes narrowing. I tried to calm my nerves conscious of the sweat forming on my brow. ‘Why are you going to Saint-Romain?’
‘To visit–’
‘The real reason.’
My stomach caved in. I didn’t know what to say.
‘Well?’
It was the woman who spoke next – in German, talking quickly.
He considered her words for a few moments, bowed in a slightly exaggerated fashion, and exited, pushing away his colleague, who slid the door firmly shut behind him.
The woman looked at me again, without expression. I wasn’t sure what to say. If I thanked her it would only confirm my guilt. What had she said to them, I wondered.
We sat in silence as before – me pretending to read the score, she gazing out of the window. I knew I was far from safe – I still had to run the gauntlet of getting past the guards at the station.
Finally, the train began slowing down – we were approaching Saint-Romain. She stretched her arms and took a deep breath. I realised then that she too was getting off here. I returned the music to my satchel.
The station came into view, a much larger place than our local one, boasting several platforms with trains coming and going. We both stood. While checking the contents of her briefcase, she spoke: ‘As we pass the guards on the platform, you’ll have to walk beside me. Have your documents ready. Say nothing.’
I nodded. Clicking shut her briefcase, she waited for me to open the door.
The platform here was far busier – lots of people, both French and German, some with heavy baggage, boarding, a few alighting. A porter rushed passed us, pushing a trolley laden with suitcases, a newspaper vendor enjoyed a brisk trade, as did a kiosk selling tobacco and sweets. The woman strode briskly, sidestepping others, while I tried to keep up. At the far end of the platform, I could see the barrier decked with swastika flags and manned by numerous Nazis in their ugly uniforms, with Alsatian dogs straining on their leashes. It was a foreboding sight. They had stepped up their presence since the last time I’d been here. I knew I could never have done this alone, and I was relieved to have at my side my newfound companion. We had to queue for some time as the guards ahead of us were stopping everyone and frisking them and searching their bags. I looked round for a bin in which I could ditch my incriminating envelope. The woman, sensing my concern, looked at me and mouthed, ‘Don’t worry,’ before staring straight ahead again.
Slowly, we reached the head of the queue. My companion passed over her documents and signalled me to do the same. Again, she spoke to them in that same authoritative voice in German, and again it did the trick. The guard bowed, returned her papers and indicated to his colleagues to let us through. No one, apart from one of the dogs, even bothered to look at me. We were through to the main part of the station with its high, curved roof and the hustle and bustle of so many people. I felt a surge of relief, almost of adrenalin. This time, in my enthusiasm, I did thank her.
‘Please, do not say another word.’
‘I’m sorry.’
I think she may have smiled a moment. ‘This is where we part.’
‘Yes.’ I offered my hand. She didn’t take it.
‘Can I ask your name?’ I asked, lowering my arm.
‘No.’ She turned to leave. Before she left me, she stopped and, turning, said, ‘I look forward to watching you conduct one day.’
‘Yes, I’ll…’ But she’d gone, disappearing into the crowd.
*
So, now I had to find the African woman and deliver my message. It wasn’t difficult, she knew someone would be looking for her, and I saw her, a large, short black woman in her railway uniform with its peaked cap, carrying a pile of envelopes. She watched me as I approached her.
‘Can you tell me the time of the next train to Rennes, please?’ These were the words I was told to say.
‘Not for at least another two hours, Monsieur.’ And those were the words I was told would be said back to me. ‘Follow me,’ she said, in her thick African accent. She led me to the back end of a newspaper kiosk, checking round her in, what I thought, a rather obvious fashion. ‘Have you got something for me?’ I think she said.
‘I’m sorry?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Are you not listening? I said–’
‘Oh, yes.’ I fished the envelope from my bag and passed it her.
‘Good,’ she said, inserting my envelope into the middle of her pile. Without another word, she spun on her shoes and walked briskly away.
‘Thank you very much,’ I muttered under my breath. Nonetheless, I was hugely relieved to be shot of the offending document. Now, at last, I could breathe easy. I saw her enter an office with the words
Personnel Seulement
written on the door.
I sauntered towards the station exit. Two French policemen stood either side, eyeing the crowds. Above the large doors was a framed portrait of Marshal Pétain, the head of our collaborationist government, bordered by a couple of French flags. I stopped to check the address of my piano teacher on a slip of paper, while people rushed past me. A mother, carrying a small but bulging suitcase, yelled at her child to hurry up; two men bumped into each other, and had started arguing. ‘Why don’t you look where you’re going,’ said the taller one, scooping up his hat off the ground. A station announcement broadcast the time of the next train on platform two; two men on ladders were affixing a new poster on the station wall.
I was about to leave, when I heard another commotion behind me. The door to the station office was opened. I saw the back of a German uniform; I heard shouts in German-accented French, competing with the argument between the two Frenchmen who had clashed into each other. Had something happened to my African woman? I had to see if anything was wrong. Approaching, I heard a German say, ‘We can do this here or you come with us to HQ – it’s up to you.’ Others, like me, had come to see what was happening. We could see inside, the African women, dwarfed by two German officers, unable to escape their clutches. She caught my eye, her expression one of confusion and fear. One of the Germans followed her gaze. He saw me and the two of us remained frozen for a second, staring at each other. Then, instinctively, I ran. I heard the German yell, ‘Hey, you, stop.’