As we were driving along a country road today I saw a man putting on his shirt. One arm was in the sleeve while the other sleeve billowed in the cool breeze that was the reason for him putting on the extra layer of clothing. His shoes and knapsack suggested he was a hiker and it had been a perfect day for a walk on the nearby trails. A typical autumn day of a warm sun and deep blue skies. The trees are just beginning to turn colour and nature really appears to be on her best behaviour. By now, though, the sinking sun was applying a dark and even shadow over the mountains and thoughts were turning to home. Seeing this man reminded me of another shirt and another man making his way home. It is one of my strongest memories from my trip on the Trans-Siberian railway some 21 years ago. It was also autumn then, though the Russian countryside was a little further advanced in its season and the trees had lost their verdancy with the leaves in varying shades of gold, red, yellow, crimson and orange. Our train was whizzing along, if not at the speeds I'm used to now certainly at a good rate, and Soviet trains ran on time in those days! As we passed a crossing I saw a man in a dark red shirt that was stained in what appeared to be coal dust waiting for our train to pass. His pickaxe also added credence to my hunch that he was a miner. Swarthy in build, hirsute in appearance with unkempt hair on a large head, this man seemed to represent the Soviet Russia I was travelling through. I have a picture (somewhere) of me in Red Square in Moscow and images in my head of the serene Lake Baikal and the wondrous colours of the trees around it, but it is the image of that worker in his red shirt with sleeves rolled up and axe in hand that has remained the most vivid. A man waiting patiently somewhere in the Soviet far east for a train to pass so that he could get home and eat supper. A supper, which if our meals on the train were anything to go by, would have been simple, not particularly nourishing but probably substantial. It was, by its very nature, a fleeting glimpse of a person I will never meet and can know nothing about, but it is, I think, out of those blurred images of our past that we build the pictures of our lives.
Posted by Joe at October 18, 2003 07:29 PMI enjoyed your tale and it reminded me of encounters which remain equally indelible for me, most likely for their emblematic quality. For some reason I often think back on an old white haired man in a tattered factory uniform I watched one afternoon years ago on a nearly empty JR commuter train. He was sitting cross-legged opposite me on a bench seat adjacent and parallel to the carriage's sliding doors. His crumpled shoes lay empty on the floor below. And he would squint and wince in pleasure as he took drag after drag on a smoldering cigarette. First he'd fill his mouth with smoke, then let it slip out and over his upper lip, quickly drawing it up into his nose before any could escape. His eyes would then close. A stillness. Then came his long exhalation, filling the air before him with a haze. The sunlight streamed in the window from behind the old man, cutting a shaft of light through the scene. He seemed to be in a private heaven. When the railway company later banned smoking on such commuter trains, I knew I'd never see his like again.
Posted by: Stewart Wachs at October 19, 2003 01:34 PMExcellent post Stewart. I do think smoking has such a romantic edge to it. It must be the ethereal quality of smoke floating upwards into nothingness. Just a shame that I hate it so and I have to say the increased number of non-smoking trains are, in my book, very welcome.
Posted by: Joe at October 19, 2003 06:48 PM