On a Train from Vienna to Bratislava

In an otherwise quiet coach, a woman wearing a floral-patterned sundress, spoke with some vigor into her phone. Speaking in German, she was speaking too fast for me to understand the actual conversation, but the tone of her voice indicated she was agitated and exasperated. She held her long brown hair in one hand as she kept rapidly repeating phrases, two or three times over, indicating that she was emphasizing a point to her argument. Perhaps there was a tinge of embarrassment because she drew attention to herself on a train that was only about half full. It was Sunday, maybe Saturday night did not go well. I amused myself by remembering the opening scene of Before Sunrise, the seminal travel film, in which Jesse witnesses and argument on a train bound for Vienna and meets (and falls in love with) Céline after she explains the argument. In my version, the story playing out in reverse: the train was traveling away from Vienna and there were no romantic connections being made as a result of the argument.

When the train arrived in Bratislava, I wondered if the woman in the sundress was “escaping” for the day, running away if you will. What little I understood from the conversation, she wanted something from the person on the other end of the phone.  When we emerged into the antiquated, communist-era train station, I saw her, several feet in front of me, take out her phone and snap a picture of the sign across the exit that read: “Welcome to Slovakia.”