Conversations on a train
I was reading Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar while we traveled through Portugal and much in the same vein was amused to have our own little interlude on our train from Lisbon to Porto. In the midst of an extremely confusing oversight, we turned out to have tickets but not reservations, so I went into my mad dash panic to secure us seats, running back and forth through the terminal like a nutball, while Tatjana held our seats on the train. When at the very last minute we got the go ahead to take our seats, I flew back and collapsed into my chair.
So I didn’t notice the couple who had meanwhile come in and taken the seats behind us.
They were engaged in a conversation with a man sitting in the single seat across the aisle – a man wearing yellow shorts and all sorts of preppy and very gay clothing and I mean gay. The woman was doing most of the talking, which we were soon to find out, was to be the dominant theme. I could tell by the voice, by what she was saying, that she was Jewish, from New York, and I pictured a small sinewy creature who maybe worked at Saks or something – there was a lot of pretension in the air being tossed around.
They were speaking about David, poor soul, who was in the midst of a break up with his partner. And they were all three headed to someone’s soiree or concert, it was hard to understand. I passed a note to Tatjana that said is she traveling with her husband and is it Todd? Raul was the solo traveler and he barely got a word in edgewise, but Todd – who we learned to be her taciturn husband did know Russian and Chinese, so we were only trying to imagine his work.
David remained the subject but interspersed were thoughts on Nietzsche, Portugal, the host of the party and his rigidness in time keeping, as well as other characters we were trying to sort out. Tatjana passed me a note that said, David is an important character.
It turns out the woman, who got up to go to the restroom was a tall big-boned woman with a dramatic grey streak in her hair and a certain cosmopolitan flare to her wardrobe. Todd was sort of droopy looking but younger than her in appearance. When she returned, Raul announced he was learning the harpsichord and of course, she knew the harpsichord inside and out – well there was not a lot she didn’t know. I wrote a note and passed it to Tatjana – this is what adults do who don’t have children, they take harpsichord lessons and go to international parties.
They turned out to be all of them fairly learned people and the conversation was interesting at spots although she dominated 99% of it. At one point Todd spoke and I nearly fainted and passed another note to Tatjana saying he speaks! but that was quickly remedied by her changing the subject entirely.
The last straw was when she said to Raul that she had been telling Todd about his favorite soap being made in Porto and he was doing “the husband thing” and nodded as if he was listening, but the very next morning, he was dancing around and so excited because he had discovered that his favorite soap was made in Porto after learning it on the internet. She said, I had just told him this the night before and he acted like he heard me, he acknowledged me, but he wasn’t listening.
Todd said, “Well, you know why that is.”
And she ferociously said, “Yes, I do, it’s because your mother talked all the time and you just learned to tune her out.”
Todd said, “And?”
She replied indignantly, “And what?”
Todd said, “And?”
Raul was silent.
She said, “Well I don’t know what you are implying.” Then she turned to Raul and said, “But his mother talks nonstop and he just learned to tune her out. It has nothing to do with gender Todd, just because I’m talking and you learned to tune your mother out.”
This went on and on for quite a few bitter moments and Todd never opened his mouth again. But I was soon bored with the rant and wanted to read my Theroux book where he describes conversations with people on trains traveling through India and I couldn’t because of the constant talking.
I passed Tatjana a note that said, Like Todd, I suffer in silence.