ON A TRAIN A once beautiful woman sits shivering in an old coat. Next to her is a young man nearly at full bloom. He doesn’t shiver. He stares straight ahead, stone cold, his face inscrutable. So is the woman’s. Except for her shivering, neither of them moves. She wants to speak but has nothing to say. She glances at him. He has nothing to say either.
Their ride is long. Eight hundred kilometers. Five hundred miles through bleakest terrain. The rivers hardly move, the melting ice crushing down the flow, the waters heavy. The flattened fields are black, old speckled snow clinging to the trees gray and bare. It’s grim, desolate, barren, and it’s all flying by. O World! O Life! O Time! On whose last steps I climb.
The young man stares out the window purposefully, single-mindedly. A boy yet not a boy. His hair is black upon his head, his eyes the color of coffee. He wants nothing less than to discuss the unspeakable. The train car is almost empty. They deliberately took the later train, the one no one takes, because it gets in late at night. They don’t want to be noticed.
The woman tries to take his hand. It’s cold. He gives it, yet doesn’t give it. He wants to be left alone. He wants to shout things he knows he can’t, say things he knows he can’t. He stops himself only because of her, because of his reverence for her—still and despite everything. The things he wants to whisper, she is not strong enough to hear and doesn’t deserve to. How could you bring me here, he wants to ask her in his most frightened voice. Knowing my life was at stake, how could you come here with me? It’s too late now for if onlys. Why didn’t you know enough back then?
Listen to me, she whispers intensely after the train screeches to a stop and the few remaining passengers shuffle out. There’s nothing to be done. You can’t think about what’s past.
What else is there to think about? The future?
I want you to not look back. Forget where you came from. Forget everything, do you hear?
That’s the opposite of what you’ve been telling me my whole life.
The train speeds on.
It’s a long way between two metropolitan cities. They have ample time to sit, to stare speechlessly at the countryside.
He wants to know about only one thing. He wants to ask about the place he can’t remember. She refuses to entertain his questions, hence her new commandment: stop looking back. His entire life, he has heard only: never forget where you came from. Suddenly she wants him to forget.
He asks her about the place he forgot. To help him remember what he can’t remember.
Stop asking me about what’s meaningless, she says.
The past is now meaningless? Why can’t you answer me?
Why do you keep wanting to know? What does it matter? God, you’ve been on and on about it lately. Why?
Why can’t you answer me?
She turns to him. Promise to remember about the money?
You just told me to forget everything. So that’s what I’m going to do.
Remember only the money. Make sure you hide it again. Keep it secure. But don’t forget where it is. Don’t keep it in the house in case they come, but hide it somewhere close to you, somewhere safe, where you can easily get to it. Do you have such a place? If you don’t, you’ll need to find one.
The money! The money is what makes him want to rail at her more, not less. The money is the thing that brings cold to his heart, and cold toward her. The money is what screams to him the brutal truth: You did know what you were doing when you brought me here. That’s why you saved the money, took it with you, hid it, kept it hidden all these years. Because you knew. You can’t claim ignorance, which is what I want to believe in most of all, your ignorance of the way things might turn out for us. Turn out for me. But you keep reminding me about the money. Which reminds me that this act on your part—bringing me here—was for my destruction.
He says nothing.
Do you hear me?
I’m trying desperately not to.
Promise me you’ll remember.
I thought you just told me to forget? Make up your mind.
It’s not about the money.
You want me to remember it’s not about the money?
Stop joking.
Who’s joking? After what happened today, how do you think your money will help me?
Here not much, you’re right. But elsewhere it might buy you another life. It might free you. It’s not magic. You must participate in your own salvation. Strength. Resoluteness. Courage. Will they be the hallmarks of your character? I don’t know. She shrugs her crumpled narrowing shoulders. I hope so.
He shrugs his widening ones. Perhaps instead I can misspend it. Drink it away, maybe? He stares—glares—at her. Buy myself fancy shoes and red wool overcoats?
Where are you going to get those here? she asks.
Anything is possible with money. You just said.
Please don’t jest. This isn’t the time.
They whisper under the relentless hum of the wheels, under the hiss of the steam engine.
Tell me about that place, he says. Tell me or I’ll promise you nothing.
I know nothing about it.
The warm white place with the boats and the frogs. The carnival wheel across the blue water. What am I remembering?
I don’t know, she says, letting go of his hand, falling back against the seat. A nightmare perhaps.
He shakes his head.
She closes her eyes.
Promise me you’ll find a way to keep the money safe, she repeats in a breath. Everything else, including the marble palace with the white curtains, will one day be revealed.
Not today?
Nothing is clear today and won’t be for a long time.
They sit so close. He is slumped down, deep in the crook of her arm. He turns his face to her, away from the icy window. Tell me honestly, do you think we’ll be okay? His tremulous voice is too small for his body. Or do you think because of what we did we might be in danger?
She meets his eyes, a beat, another, a blink, and then she smiles. No, she says. We’ll be fine. She kisses his forehead, his hair, his face. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be all right. They sit with their heads pressed together.
Ti voglio bene, she says. You are what I love most in life.
Now maybe. Once you loved someone else too.
Yes, my son, and still do, she says, her voice trailing off, the marsh grasses outside, the taupe and gray towns flying by. Klin, Kalashnikovo, Okulovka, Luka. Once another Calais lay on my heart. Once I loved more than just one someone.
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi, she whispers. Thus passes the glory of the world.
If you press me to say