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The best things to do when traveling is to observe your surrounding and what better place to do that when in an Italian train.
It’s 9:00pm, and the Espresso train from Napoli to Milano is running late. We’re packed like sardines, shoulders touching, in the very last car – carozza 11. Most of the passengers are trying to get home after the May Day holiday. There are six of us in the cabin – one is a studious-looking man in his 50s, fervently praying from a book with pictorials of saints. Another man in his 30s looks like a tough biker with his leather jacket, unshaven face, and low gruff voice that is a dead ringer for Marlon Brando’s Godfather. I notice his cell phone is bright pink. Maybe he’s not as tough as he looks. Another man, heavyset and in his 50s, is bidding farewell to a dear friend. Pressed against the cabin window, he is waving earnestly and shouting “Ciao! Ciao! Ciao!” through the glass. A pair of young lovers in their early 20s stumble in. The girl is pretty and blonde, loaded with shopping bags. The boy is pimply-faced and awkward. Without seat reservations, she is frantic about claiming the one last opening inside the cabin but doesn’t want to leave her boyfriend. They negotiate, and he offers to sit in a foldout chair in the hallway. Alas, the last seat is claimed by its rightful owner – an artsy 40ish man with Woody Allen-style black-rimmed glasses and short curly hair. He’s rocking out to a Madonna remix on his cell phone. Despondent, the young pair continues on their quest.
Voices ebb and flow through the carozza – Mandarin, African, English, Italian. A vendor passes through, shouting, “Acqua minerale! Biscotti! Panini!”. He passes through two more times. There seems to be a dearth of seats on the train as people continue to trickle in, looking for a space. We are now 35 minutes behind schedule. The sound of two men yelling in Italian at the other end of the carozza causes a hush throughout. Someone shouts, “Fermata! Fermata!”. The Godfather incarnate climbs over me to catch a glimpse of the fight. The others in the cabin, even the quiet prayerful one, are soon engaged in the commotion. Breaking the silence, a jovial young woman with a pixie haircut begins to sing a rendition of “Killing Me Softly” in an Italian accent, which draws embarrassed smiles from those around her. Next to the impromptu singer, a blonde in her 50s seems to notice the tension in the carozza and cracks a joke. The group explodes in laughter. All is well again.
Mass transport always brings together interesting cross-sections of people, but trains, especially sleeper trains such as this, are more communal in nature. Passengers face each other in the seats, walk around, and climb over each other, often leading to the formation of an ad hoc community. So many very different people are brought together for a common destination, lives intersecting for just a moment. And occasionally, you witness something unusual – like two American tourists from suburban Westlake Village, thrown into this foreign microcosm that is carozza 11.
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That was one of the most descriptive and well-written pieces I've read--thank you for such vivid imagery, and beautiful prose!