Twenty-Two Stops to Good-bye

The elderly man has folds in his coat and folds in his skin and tightens a scarf around his throat. He would smile but he’s German. His words are curt and brisk and hard. I stare at him. More words come out. Loud now; and curt and brisk and hard. I suppose he thinks volume and comprehension are the same. He expects I should understand. He doesn’t know that I don’t. He points to his throat. 

“He wants you to close the window Grandma. He doesn’t want a sore froat” 

Elijah is three. He likes yogurt and eggs that are cooked until all parts are hard. He doesn’t like when the colours of his food touch. He pretends he’s a dragon. He pretends he’s a knight; sometimes one, sometimes the other, never both together, I suppose it is like his food. Somethings must be enjoyed singularly. 

Elijah lifts his hand to my cheek to get my attention. I’m thinking it’s strange that someone should think they will get sick from an open window. A scent of cinnamon cookie, three-year-old cologne, clings to his fingers. 

“His froat, Grandma, his froat...” 

Elijah pats my cheek. He smiles. Sugar crumbles are caught in the commissure. I would wipe them if he was my daughter but he's my grandson, so I don't. Then, the bottom lip disappears. Pulled in. Sucked on. His lips are always sticky. His hands never are. He has tolerance for one, but not the other. 

 “Grandma...” 

He’s waiting for me to respond. To save the old man from his sore froat. But I don’t.

I’m thinking of the hand on my cheek attached to a little boy attached to my heart.

I’m thinking of five weeks ago, on the same train going the other way. The start.

I’m thinking of my heart now, breaking under a tiny hand on my cheek. The finish. 

The train makes another stop and a boy and his bike get off. A lady and a baby get on. The doors close to move their worlds. 

“Grandma...his froat.” 

My translator stepped out of diapers yesterday. I’m amazed he knows more than me. He understands what I don’t and is worried about a stranger’s sore throat. I don’t move from under his hand. 

Before the train stops again, my daughter reaches over and slides up the window I’m sitting beside, the one I opened before I took my seat. Fresh air. August heat. Long ride. The old German nods approval like he speaks; curt and brisk and hard. 

“They think the wind will make them ill. The scarf will keep off the chill.” Danielle speaks in low tones.

I want to say he’s nuts, that a breeze from a window on a train headed east won’t make him sick but I can’t. My grandson’s hair, Einstein hair; messy, standing, waving, is under my nose smelling of soap and play. Sweat of a three-year-old is sweet. I want to bottle it up and take it with me. He presses his body against mine. He pulls a hair on my arm. I pull a hair on his leg. The train moves to stop thirteen. 

We are quiet. We look out windows. Closed windows. We look at flat fields. Patchwork prints in green and yellow, hemmed with trees. Oak. Beech. Ash. Orderly. Like the people who planted them. I try to forget where I’m going. The train thumps on. It stops. It starts. New faces come. Old faces go. The man in the scarf is reading a book. The Personnenzugbegleiter is reading the train. A woman with a sleeping child tucked under her breast picks up her purse, a suitcase and her waking son and leaves quickly before the doors close. 

He is rolling a toy car on my lap, on my leg. Vroom, vroom sounds push through his lips. He stops. He thinks. He states, “Can I come to Canada?” His eyes are blue, wide, hopeful. I look at my daughter. My daughter looks at me. We are crushed by the desires of this little boy.

“It takes money to go to Canada, Elijah. We don’t have the money.” His momma says.

He knows what money is. It buys Gelato in Landsberg. Shweinshaxe at the Metzgerwirt. A paddle boat ride on the Bodensee. His head drops. He puts his car away. He snuggles against my daughter now. I ache watching them. 

I look away. Houses pass under red roofs made of red tile, sometimes black, sometimes gray. If it was a different day my mind would wonder after lives I never knew; existing their everyday, behind windows I was peeking through. But not today. Today I ache. My throat burns. My chest pounds.

A person on a speaker announces "Neunzehn." Elijah says, "Nineteen Grandma, it's nineteen." I nod. Another German City farther from theirs, closer to the one that will fly me away. 

Fields turn into factories. Houses into apartments. The smell of the city creeps, and the gauze of dread threads through doors that slide open for new people. I know the tourists because they smile. I know the locals because they don’t. 

“The German people are very friendly and smile always when you are in their homes. But not on streets, in shops, on trains, in planes.” My daughter is now my teacher. 

I try to think of other things. My suitcases. My passport. My water bottle. My purse. Things I need to bring, but all I care to think about is the boy who has moved beside me again. I think about the feel of his hair, silk. The pudge on his fists, squeeze. That my home isn’t near his everyday. I’m trying desperately not to cry. It makes my chest spasm, my throat throb. 

He shifts. He stands. He puts a hand in the pocket of his shorts and pulls out a nickel-centered, brass-rimmed Euro. The surprise surprised him. Rapture. Heaven opened her heart and blessed the little boy his silent request. His joy radiated so innocently that even the Germans smiled. 

“Mama!” The jubilant three-year-old squeals, “I have money!” 

Danielle and I cry. 

He doesn’t know why. 

His joy plumets to its death. Murdered by fact. His mama tells him it's not enough for Canada. There are no words to describe his devastated face.

We are wiping sorrow coming out in snot and tears and the train slows. The announcer speaks. I don't know what is said but I know what it means.

"Next stop. Munich Airport. Exit on the left.” The doors open for their twenty-second stop.