THE TRAIN

The train moved on. The sound of the moving train synchronized with the pitter-patter of raindrops on the steel roof. Together, both the sounds created a symphony. He thought of Kahlil Gibran, who wrote that two pillars can’t stand together. They should be wide apart in order to give strength to a structure. But what if the structure wasn’t meant to be? Hadn’t he seen the Stonehenge? What if two pillars, standing together were complete in themselves leaving no room for any other part of structure? Inquisitions, inquisitions. Why anything on earth has to have a purpose? And if it is so, what is the purpose of existence? He kept on thinking as the symphony kept on playing.

The train entered a tunnel. He watched the darkness outside the window. It was his tunnel. He had built it. In the process, he had also created darkness. The darkness inside the tunnel. The darkness was monotonous. It never seemed to change. Time seemed to have frozen. But his watch ticked and made him keep realizing the reality. The reality of time. Time goes on while one is stuck in a moment for years. It had happened with him. Time had wounded him. Time had healed him.

The memories flashed past him in the darkness of the tunnel. A darkness which he had created. They flashed past him like a motion picture.

Ten years ago he had passed high school. With flying colours. He had been happy. For himself and his girlfriend, Kate. James Miller and Kate Watson were the most happening thing of the school. He had topped the state and she was behind him by a fraction of the percentage. And it was the start.

She wanted to become an archaeologist. He, an engineer. He wanted to build bridges. She wanted to dig mounds. He wanted to cover the gaps. She wanted to uncover the facts. She went on to study history. He went on to study science. She went into the best department of archaeology. He went to the best technical university. She went North. He went South.

They’d call each other on weekends. She’d ask, “So, how’s it going?”
“It’s going well. All’s fine.”
“Yeah, same here.” Then would follow a long pause until one of them had to say “Guess I’ve got to go now. Got some chores to finish. You know, laundry and all. I get a bit of time for these things only on weekends.” And then they’d hang up. After that he’d resume working on his model and she’d resume shuffling through her papers and journals.

He had never thought what would become of them. He’d never thought of the future. With him and her together. It once occurred to him. And out of his anxiety he astonished her by calling her up on a weekday.
“Hey Kate.”
“Hi Jim.”
“I suddenly realized we’re soon going to be in a fix.”
“I know that. Do you mind if I call you up in the evening? I’m listening to a lecture right now.”
“Okay.”
He felt relieved. He felt as if his burden now lay buried deep inside the earth and she would excavate it, decode the manuscript and come out with the solution. He smiled at the thought.

At four in the evening she called.
“Hi Jim.”
“Hi.”
“Where are you putting up? Just tell the address.”
“You’re sending over some stuff, or what?”
“Just dictate your address, will you?”
At eleven in the night she knocked on his door.
“I was just waiting for you to take up the matter. I’ll be staying till weekend.” She said as she entered his apartment.
“Why did you have to wait for me to take up the matter? Anyways, okay.” He paused for a moment.
“Kate...” he continued and was interrupted.
“We can do the talking in the morning. Right now I’m tired Jim.” She bore a strange look in her eyes. As if she was pleading. As if she was about to undergo a waxing session and wanted to take her time getting prepared for it.
“Are you hungry?” he asked after a pause.
“What do you have?”
“Some cold meat. Besides I also have a gas connection and a kitchen.”
“Okay, go cook some hot junk. I’ll freshen up by the time.”
While having dinner they almost didn’t see each other. Just talked. About other things.
“So how’s everything going?”
“Uh, nothing much, history classes. Mesopotamian civilization. I guess I’ll take that up for my research.”
“Good.”
“And you?”
“Research is not the first thing I have in mind. I want to do things right away. But I’ll have to graduate. All construction firms require a degree to recruit.”
“Doing things means what?”
“Building things.”
“Bridges, tunnels, ropeways, railroads, is that it? Its all very material.”
“What is wrong in being material?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. I think we should sleep now.”
“Yeah. You hit the bed. I’ll bang on the couch.”
“Why not vice-versa?”
“What does it matter Kate? Anyways, you’re my guest.” He laughed.
In the morning, she woke him up at six.
“Listen Jim, I have a solution. At least for the time being.”
“What?” he asked rubbing his eyes.
“Let’s just not give it too much importance.”
“To what?”
“Our relationship.”
“That’s your solution?”
“Perhaps the best one.”
“What an entry, and what an exit!”
They spent the weekend lazily lying in the room, looking at each other, ordering pizzas and getting drunk. She left on Sunday evening.

X X X

The train had stopped. It was a hydraulic failure. He sat still. As before, time stood still. The light inside was the same. The darkness outside was the same. It was only the one sudden jolt that marked the stoppage. Otherwise there was not much difference. The technology which he had propagated into the rails and the train, lifted the train up by half an inch above the rails. In the air. The train then moved on the magnetic field. No friction, no jerks. Efficiency and pleasure. He was a pleasure seeker. He was bound to make progress. For himself and the mankind.But there was a jolt which marked this event of progress. Only the jolt. Otherwise he couldn’t tell the difference. An event is a time marker. So was this jolt. It had occurred seven years ago. The motion picture resumed.

The Sunday night was longer than expected. After she had left, he dreamed. In his dream he made love. To Kate. The next morning he tried calling her but she didn’t pick up. Then he didn’t call. Neither did she.
He toiled from then onwards. He broke all his old models, adopted a new approach and started from scratch. The magnet became his soul mate. He cut it into various shapes and angles and observed the effects on his model. It worked for a few seconds everytime, and then collapsed. He knew it was going to take a long time. Meanwhile, he kept on topping the examinations. The girls on the campus kept on hitting on him. Pestering him. He didn’t give attention. A year passed.

She called one day.
“Do you mind me getting into a relationship? With another guy?”
“You only said we’ll give it less importance, not that you wanted to end it.”
“First of all, let me tell you that ‘less’ and ‘no’ are not synonymous. And secondly, I don’t want to end it. I will never want to end it. Its just that my body has needs.”
“Can I come over this weekend?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Its just that my body has needs.”
“Wow.”
She hung up.

He took some flowers on the way. He rang the doorbell. She opened the door. They kissed. He realised the difference between pleasure and satisfaction. Its pleasure which culminates in exaltation when one discovers happiness. Satisfaction is the follow-through. Without pleasure there could be no satisfaction.
Lying with her on his side was satisfaction. Kissing her was pleasure. Making love to her was exaltation.
“You’re beautiful.” He said.
She nodded simply. Her lips widened, only a bit, and her eyes sparkled. This was happiness.
“Why did you say that?” she asked.
“I felt like saying it; I felt a strong desire to say that, stronger than ever.

He returned the next day. This time his model worked for about an hour. This time he had cut the magnet into the right shape and the correct angle. It gradually got better and better over the next two years. He worked frantically over it. He’d spend his weekdays on his model and weekends at Kate’s place. One Friday evening, he changed the shape of the magnet very slightly. He then left for Kate’s home. He didn’t bother switching it off as it was anyways going to collapse in a couple of hours. He spent the two days with Kate. She had grown lovelier by the day. They both were in a very nice mood. For the first time he didn’t think about his model while being with her. These two years had passed very slowly for him. He had always been in stress. But that day something about him was telling altogether a different story. He was happy. They spent the weekend fashionably. They got drunk. Went shopping. Cooked together. Made love. When he returned, his model train was still running. It had been running for more than two days continuously without collapsing. His train was ready. He marvelled at his innovation. He took pride in what he was about to bestow on the mankind. The train did not rest on the rails. No contact. No friction. No power loss. Better efficiency. No jerks.

But the jerks are always there. She called him that very day.
“Hello Jim.”
“Hi Kate, I’ve just made it. It worked for two days and didn’t collapse.”
“Well, congratulations Jim. But isn’t it me who has made the call?”
“Yes.”
“So let me do the talking.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I just called to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Will you marry me?”
“Of course! Who else,” he paused, “will marry you?” and he burst into a childish laughter.
“Will you marry me now?”
“What do you mean ‘now’?”
“Say, a couple of weeks or a month?”
“Are you kidding? I’m still in college, an undergraduate!”
“Just say yes or no Jim.” Her words were strong but her voice was frail. Just like a kid who has done bad in the paper but has come to see the result with a slight hope of passing.
“Why are you being so difficult?”
“Easy is not worth you Jim.”
“I cannot support you right now. This is unreasonable.”
“I never asked for support.”
“Okay, for that matter, I cannot afford to get married.”
“That means a no. Right?”
“Yes. That means a no. But why suddenly this shocker?”
“Don’t ask questions. I called you. I’m done talking with you. So, good bye.” She hung up.

He didn’t have time to ponder over this conversation. He engrossed himself in thinking where he’ll run his train. The streets were crowded. There were already too many overbridges. The only feasible option was a tunnel. He’ll have to build a network of tunnels in the city. He still had one year in college. He started gathering information on tunnel building. In his last semester he opted for a specialisation course in tunnels. He didn’t want to do something together with someone. He didn’t believe in sharing success.

The next year he graduated. He got his plans approved by the city administration. The government hired him. He promised to bring down the street traffic to one-fifth. To bring down the effective travelling time to one-third. To bring down the cost of travel by a factor of one and a half. And he fulfilled these promises in the next two years. The promises made to the government and the tax-payer. He had forgotten the promises he made to himself.
Gradually he ventured into other cities. It became a national project. The intra-city railway gradually grew up into transcontinental railroad, covering Mexico and Brazil over the next two years. The project became the nation’s pride. James Miller had become a national hero.

X X X

There was a sudden jolt once again. The hydraulic failure had been rectified and the train had started moving. He thought perhaps he should propose to replace the hydraulic mechanism with the latest electronic control systems. In his mind he started calculating. No, not feasible. The cost of installation will be too high, let alone the cost of the systems. And then he’ll have to collaborate with the electronics guy. The idea had to be rejected. He’d have to endure the occasional jolts for the time being. An attendant came to him and asked whether he wanted something. He asked for some wine. Time was going on. As usual. He was stuck in a moment. The motion picture resumed once again.

He was a success now. He wanted to celebrate it. He wanted Kate. He tried to call her but her number was out of use. He didn’t have any contact of her. He searched the telephone directory. Her name wasn’t there. Perhaps she had moved out of the city. He searched for Christina, her best friend in school. She must be having her contact. Yes, she had. But she won’t tell.
“For god’s sake Christina, why can’t you give me her number?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“I need her number.”
“Well, your need for something is not a license to it. You don’t deserve her. You don’t even deserve her number.”
This was the trigger. He didn’t know there could be something HE didn’t deserve. That there could be something he needed. So badly.
“How can you decide what I deserve?”
“After what you’ve done to her, even a street urchin can decide against you. Anyways, I have her number, to put it straight, and Iam not going to give it to you.”
“Very well, I need it. How do I buy it?”
“You’re out of your mind. You don’t buy money. You earn money so you can buy stuff. Stuff that makes you happy. You want to buy Kate! Loser, you ought to have earned her. And then you could’ve bought your happiness.” She started crying bitterly.
“Okay Christina, listen, I wasn’t even a graduate then. I don’t know what sort of a whim of hers was that, why she started behaving like that. How could I marry her and ruin all the success which we can now together celebrate? I declined her not for myself but for us.”
“Do you even know who that ‘us’of yours include?”
“What do you mean?”
“It includes a child also Mr. James Millers. Do you even know that?”
“No. She... she didn’t tell me.” He stammered.
“You’re a father Mr. Millers and you don’t know that. What a shame!”
“Please tell me her address.”
“You want to build a tunnel and a railroad to her house, do you? Please just go away.”
“Okay, I’ll go. Don’t tell me where she is. But can you at least enlighten me on what happened to her? How and when?”
“I admire your guts. Well, when she asked you to marry her, she was pregnant. She didn’t tell you but I know what hell she went through. She started working part time as a waitress. Freelanced her articles, and sold her journals to another historian researching on the same subject. It paid her well, but her career was ruined. It allowed her enough money to give the child a birth and an upbringing. She continued her part time job and meanwhile researched too, on her own. She started from scratch, this time working on the Egyptian civilisation. About a week ago, she got an offer to join a team of archaeologists as a junior assistant.”
“How did she complete her graduation?”
“Kate’s mother chipped in to help her daughter out. Her mother looked after the infant when she wrote her exams. She is still living with her.”
“Okay, that means she’s in Egypt. Thank you very much. Just one more question.”
“What?”
“How do I earn her?”
“I don’t know. How do I know? Please leave now.”
“Thank you, Christina.”

The next day when Christina was out of her house at work, James Miller broke into her house, searched the diaries and the notebooks and extracted Kate’s address. She was in Cairo. Just when he was leaving, he bumped into Christina at the door.
“What are you doing here?”
“You told me to earn her. You didn’t tell me how.”
“I never said that you could break into my house.”
“Well, you implied that, didn’t you?”
“I’m calling the police.”
“Go to hell.”
“Disappear from here within ten minutes, or I’m going to really call them.”
“You don’t always imply what you say. Isn’t it?”
“The airport’s that way.” She smiled as she pointed her finger towards a lane.
“Good bye, Christina.”

He had the address. He couldn’t wait. There he was at her doorstep. On the way he had picked up some flowers. He rang the doorbell. She opened the door. They kissed. Her mother watched. The three year old watched. No one said anything. Finally he broke the silence.
“Will you marry me?”
“You’re in America, and I’m here in Africa. How are you going to make it work?”
“You can’t ask for a transfer in America?”
“I’ve researched on the Egyptian civilisation. What will I do in America?”
“You don’t need to.”
“You’re asking me to quit my job?”
“No. Not you alone. Lets both of us quit. Together.”
“Together? Since when did you start working ‘together’ with someone?”
“Since yesterday.”
“And you expect results right away?”
“No, this is my first step.”
“Anyways, how do you plan to make it work with both of us quitting our jobs?”
“We have enough savings.”
“They are your savings. Not ours.”
“That’s not true.” He said in a feeble voice.
“That is one ultimate truth.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go away.”
“But we just kissed and I thought you were quite engrossed in it.”
“That was a call of the moment.”
“Nothing else?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m pleading you Kate.”
“Please don’t do that.’
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“That too was a call of the moment. Afterwards, it was too late.”
“Is there no way we can be together?”
“It’s you who has to figure it out.”
He put the flowers gently on the table, and left, bewildered. Without another word. He took a flight and reached America the next day. Then he took a rail ticket and boarded a train bound for the suburb where he lived. Thus started the journey.

X X X

There was a sudden jolt, the last one, and the train stopped. The motion picture ended. He had reached his station. He alighted on the platform and walked towards his house. On the way, he discovered something. And he felt the pleasure of the discovery growing in his veins. At the doorstep of his house, he paused and retraced his steps.

X X X

While he was on his fateful train journey, towards his home, Kate and her mother were involved in a conversation. Her mother asked the first question.
“Why did you have to do this?”
“What?”
“He’s a nice guy.”
“Yes, he is. He’s the most honest man I’ve ever met.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“He doesn’t love me.”
“What?”
“Did you hear a word of love during the entire conversation?”
“I can’t understand. No.”
“Well, that’s it. He implies only what he says. And he says what all he implies. He wants to be with me because he thinks me worthy of himself. I like him for his honesty. Since I met him twelve years ago, he has never said he loves me. He doesn’t love me.”
“Do you love him?”
“Yes.” She felt helpless.
“But you too never told him.”
“I guess I am not as honest as him.”
“You’re not dishonest, you’re an idiot.”
Her mother said, irritated.
She let out a sigh. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she started crying, once again the same way, on her mother’s shoulder as she used to, when she was a child. The only difference being that her mother didn’t have to kneel this time.

X X X

The next day he was in Egypt at her doorstep. Again. He didn’t take flowers. He rang the doorbell. She opened the door.
“Kate,” he paused.
“Say it.” She gasped.
“I love you.”

X X X