There’s something romantic in regards to the thought of an evening practice from Cannes to Paris, with the weather of intrigue, of a time passed by, of the movie noir college of hazard simply off within the shadows – and there had been dramatic shadows. The gare was beneath an overhead freeway dividing New (resort) Cannes from Outdated (working class) Cannes. John Pekich shares his night time practice expertise…
A number of trains got here as I stood on the jetty on the station in Cannes ready for my practice to reach. The ready crowds thinned as their trains arrived. Then, regularly, extra folks got here for the night time practice to Paris. The complete setting felt to me like one thing from a Forties Bogart film. Because the practice pulled into the jetty, I studied an digital signal close to me displaying the situation of every compartiment and seat.
I climbed on board and noticed non-public sleeping cabins, DEUXIME CLASS (SECOND CLASS). There have been six bunks to a compartiment, with a door. I requested le conducteur du practice (practice conductor), in unhealthy French, the place my baggage went. He replied in le compartiment and pointed forward to an aisle. I discovered mine, quantity 61. I additionally unexpectedly discovered 5 teenage ladies there. The underside proper bunk, mine, had their baggage on it. In French, I mentioned, “Il y a un problème.” The women start to answer, “Sure…Oui!” As I shifted into English, I heard their collective sighs of reduction!
Three of the ladies had been from Denver, Colorado, and two had been from California. They had been touring via Europe for the summer time. The women babbled on excitedly the place they had been from and what they deliberate to see and do in France.
A practice attendant entered in her darkish uniform and requested for my ticket. As the ladies chatted, the girl appeared regarded sympathetically at me after which moved me to a compartiment 4 vehicles down, with an older couple, my age, inside. As I lay in my bunk, I spotted I had left my fanny pack within the compartiment with the ladies once I moved out. I wished to get it again, however I additionally didn’t wish to disturb the couple beside me. Every kind of situations went via my mind: stolen playing cards, numbers taken, ID taken. It wasn’t straightforward to sleep with this foremost in my thoughts plus the bunk was onerous canvas, with a small, flat pillow and a skinny, grey, musty sheet for canopy! I additionally had the views of the backs of the person and the girl on the opposite aspect of the comprment! The mattress was about 2-feet-wide, 6-feet-long and 10-inches-down from the one above!
I heard the hiss of the rails, felt the sway of the practice round sharp turns, slowing because it climbed a grade, adopted by the sudden pace because it raced downhill, swaying left and proper. There have been additionally the hall sounds of individuals going to les toilettes and the deep respiration of the couple throughout from me, all accompanied by their stressed tossing and turning on their bunks…and the heavy, stale air of the compartiment.
However in some unspecified time in the future, I did go to sleep.
At 5 the following morning, I awoke and left the carriage. Gazing on the surroundings of daybreak was an expertise to cherish. The flat, low farm nation, with a haze over the open fields and meadows; farmers harvesting crops; and cattle peacefully grazing. I went to my earlier compartiment and requested the ladies to examine for my fanny pack and after a slight panic it was discovered.
We arrived at Austerlitz Station, the top of the road.
I’ll wager an in a single day ticket on one other practice that Bogart by no means skilled such an evening as I did. Nevertheless it was price it, the night time practice from Cannes to Paris is definitely an journey.
John Pekich is an writer, educator, actor and longtime Francofile with a particular affinity for the South of France. He could also be reached at cal20j01 @ aol.com.
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