The Train

I feel I spent a lifetime on this train.

Enlessly being jostled from side to side. Blindly staring at the scenery through dirty windows. Startled by a sudden whistle blast announcing a tunnel, then squinting against the hazy yellow sun. Occasionally all is obscured by the billowing white smoke from the engine. Dozens of unwashed bodies. Fragrant and pungent food shared with neighbors and whining children. Cigarettes, joints, pipes, and drink handed around with a wink and a smile. Voices sharing news and gossip, whispers, and giggles. A young woman sings a lullaby to her infant son. A grandmother picks up the tune. Gradually the car grows silent.

The train climbs, switches back and forth, ever higher. More tunnels. The flat river delta lies in shades of green far below and will soon be a memory. The stifling heat we once knew is slowly seeping out the open windows, replaced by a new cool dampness. By nightfall, the train will reach the summit. Everyone will step out, build small cooking fires, and spread sleeping rolls. Once the sun rises, my friends and I will proceed up on our own. We will walk. A donkey will carry the heavier load, the rest will be on our backs.

With the drug induced silence hanging in the car, I take my satchel and walk to the balcony at the back of the train. Dusk is falling, not enough light remains to read. It doesn’t matter, I’ve seen the picture, know the message by heart.

We saw it. More tomorrow.

Joaquim’s pigeon with the pealed-off polaroid came to me two weeks ago. The promised next message never came. I would have been on this train ten days ago, but I had to wait for official permission. I wish I were more impulsive and rushed off looking for Joaquim and Cyril, my colleagues. Lord knows what happened to them.

I flick the butt of my cigarette over the end of the balcony, idly watching the sparks dance in the fading light. One last blast from the whistle. The last tunnel before the summit. I turn and weave my way back inside. Tap Mel, James, and Ravi on their shoulders, alerting them to gather their packs. Soon after we’ve cleared the last tunnel, the train slows, mercifully comes to a halt. Everyone exists.

James valiantly tries to heat the coals in our assigned cook pit. A young woman watches us. She stands back a few paces, arms crossed. I see her smile of amusement. I nod to our pitiful attempt and raise my eyebrow, silently asking for help. She steps forward and pushes James aside. We sit back and watch as she quickly has the coals heated, the root vegetables chopped, seasoned, and skewered. She carefully cubes and seasons the meat and lets it roast. I ask Ravi to negotiate with her.

She turns to me before Ravi speaks. “I know where you are going. I know the way, the land. I’ll be your cook and guide.”

“Why?”

I may not know the route from experience, but I have read Joaquim’s earlier messages and understand the trek will be tough.

“Melin, my betrothed, is their guide.” She serves us and takes her share of the food. I glance at James, Ravi, and Mel. They nod.

“Okay. What’s your name?”

She smiles. “Call me Ayah.” The word for nursemaid.

The sky is mauve when she wakes us. More potatoes and pork wrapped in palm leaves. The fire is already doused. Thermoses have been filled with strong sweet tea.

The passengers are reboarding and look curiously at us as the train slowly descends down the other side.

Once we have properly packed our gear, loaded the donkey with his burden and hoisted our packs, we set off. Ayah walks beside me, the donkey follows, Mel, Ravi and James make up the rear.

Soon we are in a land few have seen. The trees are tall and straight. Bare till their canopy spreads to greet the sun. Up in the dark green leaves are birds with songs, clicks, screeches and the occasional aria. Plants and bushes with large leaves and enormous colorful flowers are straining to live, absorbing every drop of moisture and flicker of sunshine that reaches the jungle floor. Rodents, monkeys, insects, boar, and snakes watch us pass.

“None of them will attack, they will defend, however.” Ayah tells us. “As they should. We are the intruders. We are the ones needing to be polite and beg passage.”

When the sun is high, Ayah hands us our lunch ration.

“When did you make these?” James asks her.

“When you slept. We don’t have time to stop and make a fire each time we want to eat. Come, the climb is ahead.”

By the third day we leave the taller trees behind. Each day the vegetation growth thinner, sparer. By the eighth day, we are on bare rocks. Our donkey complains with each step. We let him go and divide his burden among us. The four of us alternate carrying the larger loads till each of us has found their comfort level.

Mid-morning on day ten, Ravi points silently up the mountain. We see something red. We can’t make out if it’s a flag, a jacket, or something else. Distances are deceiving in the thin air.

It takes us more than two hours to reach what turns out to be a scrap of fabric tied to a stick. A signpost? A landmark? We root among the small rocks and pebbles, but don’t find a message. Then the sun hits the summit, just before it sets. Something glints, reflects, flashes. James thinks it’s morse and attempts to signal back, but the light fails.

Ayah yodels. A sound comes back. Is it her echo or Melin answering? Even she isn’t sure. Because it's too dark to climb we, reluctantly, make camp.

Before first light, Ayah wakes us, cautioning us to remain quiet, reminding us that sounds multiply in the mountains. She hands us the breakfast she made last night. Last night’s tea has grown cold, but we drink it. We have a quiet debate whether to leave the camp or pack up. In the end we decide to secure the bulkiest pieces, Before we climb on I release a pigeon sending our coordinates and the fact we found the first sign of Joaquim and Cyril to myself. I have two more birds.

The climb is hard, steep, the wind has grown colder, stronger and is against us. Clinging close to the rocks we make slow progress.

Till …

Mel is in front. We are climbing almost on hands and knees, trying not to get blown back as fast as we go forward. Ravi is second. Ayah is directly in front of me, James brings up the rear. Mel stops, we bump into each other. I look up.

Breath fails me.

Directly in front of Mel is … a creature. Easily seven feet tall, its physique in proportion to its height. Covered in long, thick dingy hair it looks enormous, otherworldly, frightening. I watch Ayah salaam and hear her murmur “Namaste.”

I follow her example. As do Mel and Ravi. I can’t see him but hope James does as well.

The creature turns and easily walks up the mountain as if it’s strolling around the block. Mel starts to turn around, but we urge him to follow the creature. He lets us pass but falls in with James. We crawl up the mountain, fighting the bitter wind for what feels like an eternity, but is probably no more than ten minutes.

We enter a cave.

It’s dark inside. I shield my torch with my hand and look deeper inside. I gasp, stop, try to make sense of what I see.

Cyril, what’s left of him is strung up by his feet. Pieces of him are gone. Joaquim and Melin are huddled in the back. Their eyes are hollow. Having known terror, hearing their friend’s cries in the dark, anticipating the inevitability of their own gruesome death. They turn their faces away from the feeble light of my torch.

I grab Ayah’s arm, restraining her from going to Melin. “Wait” I whisper. She trembles under my fingers but holds back, just barely.

Mel, surprisingly, steps forward. Using what he learned from years of studying apes and orang-outans, he attempts to interact. In the end it is a matter of us or it. Though as naturalists we loathe the idea of possibly eliminating a species, our survival instincts win.

It takes all five of us more than two weeks to carry the two of them off the mountain. They are weak from hunger and thirst. Suffer from terrifying nightmares. We camp for three days on the last summit, along the tracks, waiting for the train to come back from the valley and take us to the lowlands.

Ayah is invaluable in finding edibles among the myriads of poisonous plants and animals. None of us would have lived to reach the train stop, let alone be here on this train, going back to what we know if it hadn’t been for her.

With each twist and turn the green delta, the meticulous rice fields come closer. I stare blindly at the white sky. Joaquim, who sits across from me, opens his eyes with a start. Bewildered he looks around, as he does every time he wakes. It pains me each time to see the realization hit him anew, the agony of his memory flooding back, hearing in his mind the screams and moans of his friend, his partner. His eyes well up.

A man sitting across the aisle, offers Joaquim his pipe. Gratefully he takes it, doses himself and closes his eyes. I hope he can lose himself in sleep once more.

On the last balcony, lighting my cigarette, I lean on the railing. I fish the scrap of photopaper from my chest pocket, hold the end of my cigarette to the flimsy paper and watch it curl into ash before I let the final corner drift away.

I look up at the receding mountain top. Was it only a month or so ago that we rushed up? Determined to reveal the truth to the world. No, I’ll never share the coordinates. What my friends lived through, how Cyril died should never be repeated.