The Passenger

As the mournful night drifted by her window, Susanna knew nothing of her future, and very little of her past. Every person in the train car, including herself, drew shallow breaths under the dampened light. Cigarette sighs hung in the air, and a dozen sullen eyelids drooped down to the floor.

Susanna stole secret glances at the others, when she dared. She liked to imagine what brought them here, onto this dark, creaking train, hidden beneath the belly of midnight. One woman had coarse hands and sensitive eyes. She was loosely wrapped in a work uniform: the night shift. Maybe she worked at night to feed her children during the day… maybe she had multiple jobs… maybe this was the only one she could find. Whatever her reality was, the woman seemed gentle, if only a little resigned.

Then Susanna looked behind her to see a tired man yawn back into his seat. He had a face made of lines. The creases on his forehead were parallel to his blocky eyebrows, to his narrow eyes, to his furrowed mustache, and to his wiry lips. Every time he yawned, he seemed to fold into himself like an accordion. Susanna wondered what could’ve made this man so exhausted. And if it was just tonight. She looked again at his eroded face–her guess was no. It was every night.

The night sky raced beside the train and finally began to slow. It moaned as it eased itself into the station. Susanna reminded herself that she had her own story, too. Her own secret that she couldn’t seem to forget.

She was running away.

Several hours ago, Susanna had thrown everything she needed into a large, canvas bag. An extra pair of clothes, a toothbrush, her medicine, and her portfolio. She forgot to bring her books. When she first boarded, she merely shrugged this off; but now she cursed herself. This was going to be a long journey.

The car doors gasped open. A few people shuffled off, a couple people meandered in, but the gentle woman and tired man stayed. A part of Susanna wanted to turn and talk to them. So, what brings you here? She would say, softly. But Susanna also knew that traveling alone brought not only freedom, but danger. Especially for a young woman like herself.

Susanna must have dozed off, for when she awoke, the train had halted at another stop. More people stepped off, but none stepped on. Just as the doors began to shut, a stray hand flew forward, clasped onto the rim of the door, and yanked the rest of its owner on board. His young, wide eyes frantically searched the faces of the other passengers. The door, by now, had closed, and the train resumed chugging along. Yet the man still had not taken his seat. Something about him seemed unusually urgent and fresh. His suit was pressed, his stubble shaven, and his gaze anxious-yet-alert. Susanna was unsure if the man’s appearance made him more trustworthy or more suspicious. Keep an eye on him, she told herself. Never trust a stranger.

Suddenly, the man’s eyes met Susanna’s, and something in them flickered. Not something like fright or anger, but something like… Well, Susanna didn’t know what. The man seemed less tense now as he approached her.

“Thank God,” he said as he took the seat next to hers. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“Do I know you?” Susanna snapped at him.

The man turned to her, and the frenzy in his face melted. A hint of sadness tinted his eyes.

“Oh… I’m sorry. I must’ve mistaken you for somebody else.”

Susanna nodded and held her bag closer to her.

The man sighed to himself and rubbed his temples. For several quiet minutes, his attention locked to the dark window, and Susanna thought she spotted a few tears inching down his cheeks.

Eventually, he turned back to her.

“What brings you here?” he said, softly.

Susanna looked at the man’s dewey, pleading eyes. She could almost see him as a little boy, as though he were a child crawling towards a stranger for comfort.

“Well, to tell you the truth,” Susanna smiled warmly at him, “I’m headed to New York. To sell my paintings.”

The man was impressed. “New York, you say!”

Susanna nodded proudly. She seemed to have cheered him up.

“Are those some of your paintings there?” He pointed to the portfolio sticking out of her bag.

Susanna beamed, took them out, and slid them towards the man. He held the pages carefully in his hands.

Delicate strokes appeared almost stitched onto each canvas. The first was a self-portrait: a girl like Susanna staring sideways at the viewer, a glint of mischief shining in her eye. Then came a series of imagined portraits, fictional faces that Susanna must have conjured from her dreams. A young soldier, his serious brow furrowed above a familiar, kind gaze; three middle-aged women walking down fifth avenue, their faces bent by laughter you could almost hear; and two children, a brother and sister, the boy helping the younger girl into the loving arms of an oak tree. The final portrait was of an old woman standing alone on a beach at dusk. Her face, barely turned towards us, was smudged beyond recognition. Like a dream Susanna just couldn't quite place.

“These are beautiful.”

Susanna could not doubt the honesty of his words; they trickled out from somewhere deep within him.

Smiling, she shrugged. “I have more at home, but these were all I could carry.”

Susanna recalled what she’d told herself a few stops before– do not blindly trust this man. But something about him seemed so soft, so forgiving. It was like she’d known him all his life.

“Who are you looking for?” Susanna asked.

The man’s voice gasped like the opening of the train doors.

“Just… someone who ran away… someone I lost.”

The man’s hand reached out again, this time wrapping Susanna’s hand in his warm grasp. Suddenly, Susanna saw it all: packing her bag, running from her house in the pouring rain, boarding the subway, getting strange looks, taking her seat, and watching the night chase after her.

Now she looked back down, saw the man’s hands and hers. Hers were so… old. They looked like wrinkled papers, loose, purple, and etched with age.

Frantically, she looked out the window. Where was she going again? But the tunnel was only filled with murky darkness. All that Susanna could see was the reflection of a watery old woman staring back at her through the smudged night.

The lights flickered. Her attention swerved back to the inside of the train car; it was empty except for the two of them. She turned back to the man beside her and pleaded:

“What is happening?”

The man rubbed her arm soothingly.

“Let’s get you home, Ma.”

At the next stop, when the train moaned to a halt, a young man held the hand of his elderly mother and helped her step off the car. The woman turned and watched the sliding doors breathe shut one last time.

Then she whispered to her son.

“Matthew?”

“Yeah, Ma?”

“When you got on the train, was it just me in the car?”

Matthew shook his head, earnestly.

“No. There were some other passengers, too.”

“Did you see the woman in the uniform? And the very tired man behind me?”

The man hesitated before nodding. “Yes. And yes.”

I smiled.

“Thank you, Matthew.”

As my son and I climbed up the stairs and out of the station, the lilac sky peaked mercifully down at the both of us.

“Am I still painting?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the yawning sun.

Matthew lifted into a grin. “Yes.”

“What do I paint?”

“A lot of things,” he shrugged, “But you’ve always had an eye for faces. People.”

He pointed across the road to a mural splashed on the side of a brick wall. It was a mosaic of five women– each a different age, each a different temper, but all of them with the same compassionate glint in her eye.

“See Ma,” he said, “that’s you.”

One by one, the golden sunlight moved onto each of the women. As it did, each of them turned and bravely faced the violet dawn.