The Unforgiving Minute (22 page)

se, uh … this is very awkward. I don’t know how to say this.”

The light bulb in my head went on. “I think I know what

you’re trying to tell me. You’re not attracted to any man.

You’re a … I mean, I mean … “

“Go ahead, you can say it. I’m a Lesbian … God, I hate

that word but I hate gay even more. Let’s just say that at an

early age, I found out that I had no attraction to men. I don’t

hate men at all. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed my time with you

immensely.

“When I was younger, I tried having sex with men. I felt

nothing. I couldn’t even fake it. Then the best thing in my

life happened to me. I met Don. He confessed to me that he had

a similar problem toward women. We truly love each other and

have a wonderful marriage. We’ve had our affairs with members of

our own sex from time to time but that seems to have petered out

with time.”

I couldn’t believe this. It was like a meal set before a

starving man with a glass wall keeping him from eating it.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Why don’t you come back to

my compartment with me? I’m sure I could awaken your desire.”

“Poor Robert, you just don’t understand. This thing is

not psychological, it’s biological. I wasn’t raped, I wasn’t

abused by my father. My desire is not dormant … believe me, it

just isn’t there. If you and I were naked together, it would be

just like it is for you walking around a men’s locker room. I

wouldn’t be turned on at all. Can’t you understand that?”

“I guess so,” I said, with an obvious pout on my face.

She kissed me on the cheek. “You’re sweet, Robert. I

hope we get to see more of you!”

With that, we parted company and I returned to my

compartment with a feeling of defeat.

When I got between the sheets, I felt that relaxing

feeling that you can only feel when you’re in bed on a train or a

ship. I really wasn’t too unhappy but I fell asleep dreaming of

Marie having sex with other women.

When I went to sleep it was close to midnight and I was

looking forward to a good night’s sleep. We were due in Paris

about ten in the morning and I hadn’t really decided what I would

do next. I was contemplating a museum trip to Florence or a trip

to Rome, another of my favorite cities. I figured that I’d make

that decision over a good breakfast in the morning.

The sound of the wheels on the tracks, coupled with that

occasional ringing of bells that you hear on a train, lulled me

into a deep sleep.

I was awakened by a pounding on my door and a loud voice

with a German accent. I rolled out of bed and opened the door.

The conductor was going from compartment to compartment,

announcing in various languages that the French railroad crews

were going on strike and that we had to leave the train in

fifteen minutes.

I couldn’t believe it. The entire train was in a panic.

There were people angrily screaming at the conductor, at each

other, and at anything else within earshot. There were others

dragging their luggage toward the space between trains. My

luggage consisted of two rather large suitcases with wheels

attached. Luckily, I had not brought my golf clubs from America,

renting them whenever I played. I also had a rather large

shoulder bag for books, toiletries and other sundries.

A few minutes later, on a cold rainy night in December, I

found myself, at two o’clock in the morning, standing on a

platform in Alsace-Lorraine, with what seemed to be hundreds of

others in the same predicament. I had no idea what my next move

would be. I stood there, wondering where the nearest auto rental

was and whether they would be open at two in the morning. I had

just decided that the possibility was highly unlikely when I saw

the Wetzels walk toward me, dragging four suitcases between them.

“Hello again, Bob,” said Don. I wondered whether Marie

had told him what had transpired the night before. From his

tone, I surmised she had not. Then again, he probably wouldn’t

be jealous anyway.

I smiled and tried to make light of the situation. “Got

any bright ideas?”

Marie looked pensive. “Why don’t we try to find a hotel

in this town and look for a rental car in the morning? We can

share the cost and drive to Paris.”

“Good idea,” I said. “But how do we know what part of

town the hotels are in? Aside from that, there are no porters

around. They’re probably on strike too. It would be a major

logistical problem to move six suitcases and three shoulder bags

down the steps. And who says there’ll be cabs running at two in

the morning? Our train wasn’t even scheduled to stop here, so if

no trains were due in there won’t be any cabs.”

Just as we were pondering our fate, a train pulled up on

the other side of the platform. A man in uniform was shouting

something in French, causing all of the people on the platform to

start boarding the train.

We immediately surmised, and correctly so, that this was a

train sent to sweep up all of the displaced passengers and take

them to Paris. We followed and managed somehow to hoist all six

suitcases onto the train. The train was outrageously overcrowded

and we ended up sitting on our suitcases in between two cars.

The noise and the discomfort were maddening. The aisles on the

train were packed with people and suitcases, making it extremely

difficult to navigate the interior of the train. After an hour

of this, with a good seven hours until we arrived in Paris, I

decided that we had to try something. The train had stopped at

two stations since we left and I saw several people leave the

train. There had to be an empty compartment somewhere. I sent

the Wetzels on a search of the train. If they found a

compartment, Marie would guard it and Don would return. Don and

I would take turns dragging suitcases through the train, while

the other watched the remaining luggage.

The Wetzels left and I sat despondently on my suitcase.

It was even more maddening sitting here with five surly

passengers of indeterminate nationality, some of whom were

snoring as they sat on their luggage or curled up on the floor.

In about twenty minutes, a conductor came through looking

for tickets. I couldn’t believe it. This made me doubly angry

and when he approached me and said, “Billet s’il vous plait,” I thrust it

in his face angrily.

“Voici mon billet … premiere classe … Wagon lit … Je voudrais un compartment, s’il

vous plait.” All the while waving my ticket in his face and feeling

like throwing him off the train. At that moment I hated the

French … all of them, more than anyone in the whole world.

At that moment I decided that the minute I hit Paris, I

would take a cab directly to the airport and go someplace else.

I sat on my suitcase staring morosely into space. I

couldn’t even close my eyes and take a nap because I had to guard

our suitcases which were strewn about the opening between cars.

After about an hour I saw Don Wetzel making his way toward

me, looking uncharacteristically dishevelled and sweating

profusely.

“We found an empty compartment; it’s about five cars down.

How in the hell are two of us going to get all of this luggage

down there?”

I pondered the situation and decided that one of us would

drag an initial load and return later, at which point the two of

us would lug the remaining luggage. Don informed me that the

compartment door would be open and that Marie would be standing

in view, since even he wasn’t sure at this point what the

location of the compartment was. I volunteered to go first,

since I was about to go mad from sheer frustration and boredom.

I took two large suitcases and was on my way.

The aisles on a compartmented train are approximately

four-and-one-half feet wide. There were people with their

accompanying luggage everywhere. This meant that I had to weave

my way through sleeping passengers with their various property

piled about them. It was a fight all the way. Europeans are not

notorious for their politeness in such situations and were

certainly not sensitive to my problems. Each car took about

twenty minutes to negotiate. My knees and knuckles were now

skinned and bruised and my suit was torn in several places. I

was out of breath and perspiring and I still had three or four

cars to go. On several occasions my suitcases hit passengers on

the head or body and I got more than one dirty look. This could

turn into a wholesale brawl with very little provocation. The

space between cars was particularly crowded and I couldn’t

readily stop to take a break. I was definitely losing my cool.

I found myself using the two suitcases I was carrying as weapons.

I would swing them at the shins of anyone who was blocking me.

All I could think of was that after I finally reached Marie, I

would have to go back and do this all over again. That was

enough to push me to the brink of insanity. I felt like a man

who was marooned in the desert without water. My mind was

becoming hallucinatory.

Finally, after the best part of an hour, I was elated to

see a worried Marie standing in the doorway of a compartment.

Even in my agony I was stricken by her beauty. She stood there,

not a hair or thread out of place, her perfect posture accenting

her flawless body. The sight of her gave me a momentary energy

that I needed desperately. I dragged the suitcases into the

compartment, which consisted at this time of two seats for three,

facing each other. There was no toilet and no sink, but at least

it was comfortable and private. I sat down on one of the seats,

grateful for a five-minute break. Marie explained to me that

they had been lucky to find this compartment after making their

way through the five cars. The occupants must have vacated it at

the station where we boarded. I advised her to close the door so

that no one else would join us. I took note of the location and

made my way back toward Don.

One hour later, we and our collective luggage were all

safe in the compartment. A little exploration indicated that the

seats turned into four bunk beds, upper and lower. Marie

immediately took off her skirt and folded it neatly, leaving her

in a powder-blue sweater and black pantyhose, curled up on one

of the upper bunks. Don took off his trousers and hopped onto

the other upper bunk. I lay on the lower in my clothes which

were already wrinkled beyond recognition. It was getting very

cold and we all used our coats as blankets and drifted off to

sleep. I was, for a moment, conscious of this beautiful woman

who lay near me semi-clothed, but my knowledge of her sexual

preference quickly erased her image from my mind. By this time,

it was four in the morning and I estimated that we should be in

Paris by ten. I felt that we had a good shot at sleeping most of

the six hours and ascertained that the rest of the journey should

be painless.

We had been asleep for forty-five minutes when there was a

furious pounding on the compartment door. I awoke with a start

and quickly realized where I was.

“Allez vous-en,” I hollered at the top of my lungs.

“Ouvrez, ouvrez,” a voice of equal loudness hollered from the

other side.

I saw that Don and Marie were awake and all three of us

were hollering in several languages but the commotion on the

other side would not cease. Finally, the sound of a key in the

lock told us that the jig was up.

An irate French conductor in uniform stood outside the

door along with several tired-looking passengers. He gave us a

derisive look and, without saying a word, nudged one of the

passengers, a tall, studious-looking young man, into the

compartment with us. Without so much as a hello, he flopped onto

the one remaining bunk and was snoring in a matter of minutes.

When I awoke, sunlight was shining through the window of

the train and all three of my compartment-mates were sound

asleep. I looked up at Marie sleeping in her black pantyhose and

blue sweater. Her legs were curled up under her and her back

faced me. She moved in her sleep and the sensuous writhing of

her body was turning me on. I lay there looking at her and

fantasized being the first man ever to inspire her. I knew it

was futile, but I kept looking at her. My thoughts wandered to

the women that I had possessed and lost on the trip and I missed

them all. At that moment I would have been grateful for any one

of them … even the Hungarian whores.

I drifted back to sleep and when I awoke Marie was deep in

a quiet conversation in French with the young Frenchman. I

wondered if he too was enamored with her and what he would do if

he knew the truth. The bunks across from me were back to being

seats and Marie was wearing her skirt. Don, it seemed, was off

searching for coffee.

He returned about a half hour later, empty-handed but

cheerful. The good news was we were about twenty minutes outside