I’m on a train, the sort that’s likely to be modernised out of existence. The sort with a soothing chug, windows that don’t quite close and heaters that blow out warm air like my little travel hair-dryer used to before it went bang. It’s February. All around me, people are layered up in thick winter coats and woollen scarves. The women are in heeled boots and have a classy, well-dressed look about them that reminds me of Northern Italy, but this is Latvia and outside it’s minus seven degrees Celsius.
I strip off my coats and scarves and jumpers, feeling the odd one in the carriage because everyone else seems to be able to bear the heat. But maybe I’m the only one whose dragged their suitcase through the fine snow with a rucksack on her back. It’s a long journey ahead. I remove my boots and wiggle my toes in their multiple layers of sock. I’m over-dressed, but understandably so as yesterday the temperature was ten degrees lower. The colder-than-ice air, whipping through the crack at the edge of the window is a relief.
We arrive at a station and a sound reverberates through the train like that of an old-fashioned doorbell. Outside the fields are covered with an icy frost, that in places becomes a clean carpet of virgin snow. By the stations, across rows of abandoned track, the snow is trampled with heavy boots, their blue shadows are the only sure way of knowing where the roads begin. From the bank at the side of the railway they disappear between the trees.
The forest is everywhere around me. On both sides of the track for hour after hour it remains a constant companion. Trees with rich brown and orange bark stand straight and tall. Many are bare but for a crown of dark, evergreen needles. Occasionally spindly silver birches cluster between them. There are animal tracks in the snow.
When we pass a lone house, I spot what’s unmistakeably an outside toilet and a few outbuildings. At a small town, Sigulda, many of the train’s passengers drop down from the carriage to the platform. The platform reminds me of travelling through Slovakia with my sister and being amazed and bewildered to see the platforms only little higher than the track. Like the Slovakians, and unlike my sister and I, the Latvians disembark gracefully.
The docile towns appear in a state of semi-hibernation. But maybe that the illusion of quiet created by snow. The buildings are spaciously arranged. They’re steep rooved a bit like German houses, but naturally coloured. The more isolated houses are made of wood. The hours pass, but I don’t put in my earphones because there’s something precious about the moment that stops me.
We chug on. Losing passengers as we go further and further away from the capital and towards the Estonian border. And then, I glance around the carriage and realise that there are only two of us remaining. The woman a few rows down, faces me, but she can’t see me, she’s crying.
Her dark hair hangs loose, I know by the way her hair falls that she’s raked her hands through it many times this morning. I’ve seen that look in my mirror. She’s a mess, but she’s got style about her. Heeled boots accompany a tan winter coat which comes down to her knees. I suspect she knows her cheeks show mascara tears. She cared enough to put her make-up on this morning. She glares at her phone with tight drawn lips, a mixture of fear and fight. Her body is rigid. Then she is gone.
I stare out at the snow, looking through the trees for signs of deer, grateful.
train adventure
