“I’m going to the dining car to get some brek,” she said. She zipped my oversized jacket over her tank top, grabbed ten euro from my wallet, and pulled open the sliding door that partitioned our private seats. I shouted behind her for a cup of coffee as the door latched shut and she disappeared down the hallway of our second class car. Pausing for a moment to study the Czech countryside passing outside the window, I shifted back to my computer and returned to thoughts of Krakow. We had left the southern Polish town just two hours before, on the first Vienna-bound train of the day. The early departure had required an alarm at dawn, motivating Jeannie to pass the first third of the trip in a horizontal, three-seat nap. I had passed the time quietly; writing, following the horizon, and watching her sleep. Now that she was gone I became engrossed in my journal. I totally lost myself.
When I came to my senses I was startled to still be alone. I blinked hard at my watch, trying to make sense of the time. An hour had passed. Jeannie had not returned from the dining car. She must have decided to eat there. That would be out of character, but you act out of character in places like this. She wanted my coffee to be hot, so she waited to order it after she was done eating. The dining car was packed. The server was busy. They were out of coffee so she was waiting for tea. They wanted zloty and she only had euro. It took time to negotiate the currency. No. None of these stories were working in my head. Something was wrong.
With a consciously controlled sense of urgency I rose from my seat and opened the door to the hallway. The image of her walking away was vivid in my mind. I turned in the direction she had gone and walked toward the dining car at the back of the train. Approaching the end of our car, the rear windows came into view. I stared through the smudged oval panes in complete disbelief. My knees knocked. The windows at the end of the car gave way to open track. Where there should have been three connecting coaches and the dining car, there was nothing but railway and Czech farmland, rapidly disappearing into the distance as we sped to the south. Jeannie was gone.
I stood there looking through those windows for what felt like eternity. Each passing tree, a blur of green and brown, suddenly symbolized our widening gap. The train seemed to mock me with its rattling, its vibrations, the blowing of its horn. I was fleeing the scene, racing away from a solution, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was being held hostage by the train and by the unbelievable circumstances.
Ten dizzying minutes passed before we approached a station and came to a stop at the platform. I leapt from the opening doors in search of an English speaking conductor. My search ended abruptly when the only conductor on the platform waived his hands and shook his head at my questions. He cut me off in a guttural language I couldn’t make any sense of. He pointed down the track to a set of cars about a kilometer away and then ushered me back onto the train. I surmised from his hustled rant that the cars down the track would be reconnecting with our train. This was something I could hold on to. Surely Jeannie was sitting in that dining car a kilometer away, about to be reconnected to our coach. I stood at the rear windows for thirty minutes until finally the wheels in the distance started to turn. Moments later, an engineer was fastening the clamps between the coaches. I loomed over his shoulder while he finished and then nearly bowled him over as I ran past him on my way to the dining car.
A server, two Austrian men, and fifteen open tables. Impossible. How could this be? I jolted one of the men from his eggs and toast and rattled twenty questions off his forehead. Trying to ignore the bead of sweat rolling down my cheek, he informed me he had not seen a blonde woman, and had in fact boarded the train in Warsaw, not Krakow. Like me, he was headed to Vienna. The server, overhearing the anxiety in my voice, chimed in from behind the kitchen counter. “The dining car from Krakow is on its way to Prague,” she said. Finally someone had put into words what I already knew to be true. Jeannie was on her way to another country altogether.
I needed to be alone to think. Racing back to my seat, our seats, I took a quick inventory in my head. What did she have? My jacket, ten euro, maybe less, her rail pass, flip flops. That was it. I couldn’t imagine how she must be feeling. Where was she right now? When had she realized we were disconnected? I sat down and buried my head in my hands. I tried to be rational. Getting off the train would only complicate the situation. Backtracking would allow for more error. We both knew where the hotel was located in Vienna. I would go there and wait for her to arrive. Would it be tonight? Tomorrow? Where would she sleep? I asked these questions while the train pressed on, steaming its way to Austria.
I fought with myself to stay positive as my trail of hope sputtered behind the caboose. I barely noticed when we slowed to a stop. I lifted my head from my hands and looked out the window. There she was, standing on the platform, my jacket zipped all the way up to her quivering chin. Our eyes met and hers filled with tears. It was obvious that she was shocked to see me. I was physically consumed with relief. It started in my legs, passed through my stomach on its way to my shoulders, and left my body through a smile so big it hurt my face. We laughed and held each other. We spent the rest of the passage to Austria discussing every angle of our separation, and the aimless train hopping Jeannie had enacted to get herself to the platform where we reunited. We stayed joined at the hip for the remainder of the journey—not even a trip to the water closet was done without each other’s company.
Having traveled unscathed through Southeast Asia, China, and even India, I think Jeannie and I can both agree that we might have dropped our guard upon arrival to Europe. At dinner that night, having acquired the time to let the day’s events simmer, we found an odd pleasure in the notion that travel in the Western World does not come without challenges. The world hasn’t become too small after all.
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