Trouble on the Overnight Sleeper
GRUBER, RUTH ELLEN
LETTER FROM ROME Trouble on the Overnight Sleeper ?y Ruth Ellen Gruber Rome I enjoy long distance train trips and frequently take overnight sleepers across Europe. Generally I travel...
...In the already sunny morning he knocks on the door bearing a cappuccino and a brioche...
...She told me she ran a gift shop near Piazza Farnese in central Rome, a neighborhood not far from the old Jewish ghetto that I know well...
...The train conductor, too, refused to help...
...It leaves at 8:35 p.m...
...I had my notes to go over and the latest Vanity Fair to read in bed...
...But he, too, was loath to cross the "picket line...
...It is fronted by few commercial enterprises, so I was confident that I would have no trouble locating the gift shop...
...No one is rushing, for one thing...
...Travel becomes a journey, a welcome interlude of decompression, not an anonymous takeoff and landing...
...A recent overnight trip from Nice to Rome severely strained my positive perspective...
...Farther down the car, mothers tried to comfort sticky children, and beyond them at the far end a multigenerational family of women— an older grandmother, two younger women and two small girls—huddled in urgent consultation...
...He showed me that not all Germans are bad...
...she cried...
...I know what this means," I told her...
...My informants did not have sleeping-car berths, only simple, six-to-a-compartment bunks run by employees of a company that wasn't on strike...
...I was very tired and looking forward to relaxing...
...The compartments come equipped with bunk beds, a sink, terry cloth towels and various toiletries...
...A Japanese tourist couple from the compartment next to mine expectantly brandished their tickets...
...I scrawled on the smudged sheet without reading it, bade hasty but fond farewells, and rushed off to catch a connecting train to Orvieto...
...I was curious to see her in normal surroundings, and also to have the opportunity to chat in a calmer environment...
...He would bring her flowers, buy trinkets, and they would sit and talk...
...The attendant's cubicle office inside the sleeping car was padlocked, and many of the beds had not been made up...
...Finally, we convinced him to at least switch on the electric power...
...No one stood waiting to check reservations and help with the bags...
...He's sick...
...The Japanese tourists stood plaintively in the corridor, asking "Who will make our beds...
...I walked around the perimeter, looking into every doorway, imagining how surprised the Signora would be to see me, then walked up and down the surrounding streets...
...Generally I travel in what is called T-3, or Tourist-3 class, which means sharing a small compartment with three other women...
...Very nice...
...This time, I was returning to Italy after a conference in Nice...
...and arrives before 7 the following morning...
...On the other side, three middle-aged, Englishspeaking men broke open a bottle of malt whiskey and started toasting international friendship and each other...
...Sweltering, we grumbled in the gathering darkness...
...I still find something romantic about going to bed in one place and waking up, in the same bed, somewhere else...
...We were instant allies...
...Most are Sephardi Jews, some fairly recent arrivals from North Africa, or Italkim, whose ancestry dates back to ancient Rome...
...The other women in the group beamed...
...More worrisome, there was no electricity in our train car—no lights and no air conditioning—and the power didn't come on when the train started up and pulled out of the station...
...Are you Sephardi or Ashkenazi...
...They had seats in a compartment they couldn't find and were hot and bewildered...
...I shared my compartment that night with Sara's mother, head of the female clan...
...And she began telling me a story...
...Some time ago, she said, before he left Rome, the German had sung a song in Yiddish for her (or had presented her with a recording, it was not entirely clear...
...The English-speaking men kept drinking, rocking ever more unsteadily on their feet...
...Everyone else was standing by helplessly, or getting drunk...
...she asked—a Jew of Spanish or of Eastern European ancestry...
...Of course, I told her, I would be happy to help if I could...
...I write from time to time for the city's Jewish newspaper, Shalom, whose editor turned out to be the Signora's nephew...
...He was just operated on in Monte Carlo...
...The beds are comfortable, and I usually sleep well...
...The rest of the trip was uneventful...
...The summer sun was still bright, but we were plunged into pitch darkness upon entering each of the numerous tunnels...
...Buoyed by our sense of newly forged solidarity, we took action...
...Ordinarily in the summer it is a beautiful trip...
...The route threads through tunnels along the Riviera...
...I have met some interesting people over the years...
...Ruth Ellen Gruber is a correspondent for The New Leader, based in Italy...
...At nightfall the sleeping car attendant pulls down the beds in the air-conditioned compartments and provides bottles of mineral water...
...He was about 40," Signora Sonnino said...
...My trips are routine ones, point A to point B. But there is a lingering shadow of erstwhile luxury to the wagon-lit ritual...
...His heart...
...The carabinieri contacted the railway police, who dispatched an agent...
...Only our carriage was affected...
...Secondo me, sei bella: To me, you are beautiful...
...A good-looking man...
...Presently an older Italian couple wandered in from another carriage...
...She smiled and took back the paper, thrusting it again into her bag...
...Light and air conditioning worked their magic, and he escorted the ailing man and his wife to seats in a different carriage...
...Other cars were added to the train, but no one came to assist us...
...The Signora's face lit up when I told her I was an Ashkenazi...
...Of course horror stories abound, particularly in Italy where the pleasures of rail travel are often marred by strikes, delays and antiquated rolling stock...
...Madonna mia...
...with increasing insistence...
...At the same time, however, it provided me with an experience that has already become an icon in my personal travel annals...
...Amid the gloom and confusion, one of the two younger women in the multigenerational family suddenly stared at me, gripped my arm, and smiled broadly...
...She and the others—daughter Sara, a niece, and the niece's two daughters—were returning home from a big party given by friends in Monaco...
...She reached for her capacious handbag and rooted around in it, searching for the piece of paper that she had written the title on...
...That's what I thought," she said...
...Piazza Farnese is dominated by the Palazzo Farnese, the Renaissance palace that houses the French Embassy...
...Once I admired the rain jacket of a fellow passenger, and she left it behind for me when she got off the train...
...Sharingthe small space does not bother me...
...Could one of them come and turn on the power in our car...
...I wondered, too, about what had happened with the protest...
...There is time for conversation, reading, watching the scenery, or flipping through trashy magazines...
...We crossed into Italy after sunset and stopped at Ventimiglia, the border town...
...She was an amply proportioned woman in her 60s, with bright black eyes and curly black hair, and she introduced herself formally as Virginia Sonnino...
...Who will make our beds...
...Even with open windows, the air was stifling...
...We were in Italy, so the young woman, who introduced herself as Sara, pulled out her cell phone and called the carabinieri to report that we were, essentially, being held hostage in a hot, dark train car...
...Here," she said, opening it and showing me the uneven, penciled words: Bei mir bist du shain...
...1 lurched down the corridor into the next carriage to try to find someone who would at least turn on the power...
...That would amount to breaking through a picket line...
...Agitated passengers congregated in the corridor...
...Absolutely not...
...There I was told that employees of the company that operated the sleeping car had called a strike...
...She had a personal question for me...
...Unexpected things can happen...
...Shaloml" She pointed to the Star of David I wear around my neck, then at herself...
...Ever since, I have been looking for an Ashkenazi Jew to tell me what the words mean," she said...
...Eventually, she found the folded white sheet...
...As soon as I got to the train, though, it was clear that something was wrong...
...in the hours before sunset there are spectacular views of sea, cliffs and coastline...
...That's wonderful," she said, "maybe you can help me...
...But there was no trace of her...
...The dynamic in the carriage subtly shifted to "us" against "them...
...A young German diplomat, attached to the German Embassy, had taken to visiting her shop and they had become very friendly...
...I explained that I did not know Yiddish, but she begged me to see if I at least could translate the title for her...
...The overnight sleeper is the only direct train between Nice and Rome...
...They too were Jews, from Rome...
...The husband sat down suddenly in the corridor and clutched his chest...
...Some weeks later, I was in Rome and foundmyself near Piazza Farnese, a large, elegant square located between the Tiber and the colorful open produce market on Campo de' Fiori...
...In the morning, though, as we neared Rome, Signora Sonnino decided that we should all submit a protest to the Italian Railways...
...As she shrugged out of her dress and into a flowing nightgown, Signora Sonnino and I chatted about Rome's Jews and discovered that we knew a number of people in common...
...Few of Rome's 15,000 Jews are Ashkenazim...
...Being in the neighborhood, I thought I would look in on the Signora...
...Young...
...His wife whipped out a syringe from her handbag, pulled up his shirt and, right there, gave him an injection in his abdomen...
...Standing in the narrow corridor, propped up against the windows, she penciled a long screed on a flimsy paper napkin and thrust it at everyone to sign as the train entered the station...
Vol. 82 • August 1999 • No. 10
