not sure I looked sincere enough in my lie about leaving tomorrow, especially trying to fool a probably experienced and skillful, if young, working girl. I’m not sure how much she understood of my speech, but she seemed to grasp the essential meaning. Again, her facial movements and hands lifted in exasperation. Even at one hundred francs, about $20 US dollars, I was splurging. But I thought twenty dollars was doable, especially since I was shortly going to be a wealthy fashion entrepreneur. Although I had never thought about having a sure-to-remember experience with a French prostitute, some things just happen, and as they do you have to make decisions.
I continued, “All I have is one hundred francs, no more.”
She again stood there looking at me and then looking around, seemingly to check if there was anyone else, anyone with more money. I looked around also; there was no one.
She started talking to herself as she looked around. The more she talked, the more the conversation with herself became agitated. I wish I knew what she was saying, but on the other hand, I kind of did know.
After a minute or two she more pointedly vocalized in my direction, “Est-ce que je peux avoir un autre Marlboro cigarette?”—accompanied by raising two fingers to her mouth and intimating taking a puff. I didn’t have to understand French to know she wanted another cigarette. I took one out for both of us and struck my lighter as she put her hands over the flame to let us both inhale our protected first puffs. She was calmer now. All of a sudden, the atmosphere surrounding us turned from confrontational to relaxed. She even smiled a little as I blew a smoke ring or two, and the late-night breeze floated them past her and up into the air.
“OK, oui, one hundred francs,” she whispered and motioned for my hand. She took it in hers as we turned and walked down the avenue.
Orient Express
Could life get any more interesting?
Hanging on the handrail of the steps leading up to our train compartment on the world-famous Orient Express,
I searched for the exotic and fascinating characters
I hoped to meet in the days ahead.
Next stop, India and beyond.
Paris at Night
Untouchable women, eyes that stare
All the signs tell you to beware
Sky liquid pours at suspicious times.
Heels on broken sidewalks rhyme
Foreign menus move up and down.
The only talk is a foreign sound
Wicked women are your only friends.
You might pick one or two, but do they pretend?
Moving red dots glow on a damp lonely street
Who knows what a stranger will meet?
Frequent looks are but foreign stares
And one who hesitates is one who dares.
Dark streets can be an inviting sight
But how can a traveler measure where there is no light?
Written April 12, late one evening in Paris while walking alone
3.
Going East to Meet the Czar
10:15 PM, April 13, 1970
Our excitement and anticipation levels were off the scale as we dragged our bags through the train’s hallowed hallways. Funny, I thought, not the hallways or compartments that I had been imagining. “How ya doing, Doug? I’ve had enough; these bags sure don’t get any lighter the longer you carry them, do they? We’ve gone through about a thousand cars so far. I’m tired and, by the way, haven’t seen any of your movie stars or anyone who might look like a spy. I can’t go another step—how about this compartment?”
“Okay, why not,” Doug responded.
We collapsed into ornate-looking couch-sized seats facing each other. As we were about to experience repeatedly, even though our Orient Express was supposed to depart Gare de l’Est at some time in the early evening, we didn’t leave until closer to 11:30. For the last couple of hours, we had tried to check out more of the train. We just weren’t finding any interesting characters—as I saw it, we were the most interesting people on the train.
Unfortunately, at 3:00 a.m., as I was finally starting to fall asleep, a non-English speaking conductor didn’t find us interesting at all.
What was supposed to be a simple ticket and passport check as we crossed into Germany almost had us thrown off the train. Our conductor was furious and wildly throwing his arms around, making it known this was not a compartment for us as he threw our baggage into the hallway. We finally understood; we were in a first-class compartment, and we most certainly were not first-class travelers. We followed him through numerous train cars until he finally stopped at one containing a young German who looked somewhat like a fellow traveler.
The remainder of the night went fast, with hardly any sleep. Early the next morning we entered the huge main train and switching stations in Munich, Germany. We had to exit the train with all our baggage for an eight-hour layover. After changing some money, we bought some food and walked around Munich for a while after we put our baggage in a rented locker.
Back at the station in one of its many cafes, having a regular beer in a glass that looked a foot tall, we met a student from Denmark. He was trying to decide whether to go back to the university or keep traveling. He’d been gone six or seven months. We were on our way to Istanbul; he had just been in Istanbul. His English was fair, sometimes hard to understand. But what caught our attention was his warning about traveling from Turkey east to India. India was great, he said, but watch out for Iraq and Iran; gun battles seem to spring up in every town. He also alerted us that because the conditions were so miserable in those desert countries, many of the gangsters were moving west to exactly where the Orient Express was headed next—Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.
We bought him another beer in hopes of finding out more about—I couldn’t believe I was saying this: “Gangsters!”
Before we could continue to give him the third degree, we heard an announcement over the public address system, luckily in English, that our train was going to be leaving shortly from track 27.
And again, we had no sooner picked what seemed to be a very nice and cozy compartment when a conductor was at our door asking to see our tickets, motioning us to follow him as he shook his head from side to side mumbling to himself in German. Many cars later, there was no doubt in my mind that not only were we leaving first-class accommodations, we were apparently not stopping in second class either. In each car, the compartments looked worse. Finally, he stopped and signaled us into a beat-up compartment already occupied by what appeared to be an elderly Yugoslavian couple with a ton of luggage.
Okay, I thought, we had gotten used to having the space to ourselves, but why not, this was more interesting. We could manage, we could do this, it was how the compartment was designed. Two people on one side, two on the other—but why did they have to have so much baggage?
As we
