The Silent Desolation
The train stopped in a small snowy mountainous station. Paul alighted from the train with other passengers. In such a wintry night of December he saw them walked past him and then vanished. They were in a kind of rush to go home, dine and sleep for the night in the warmth of home. The station was almost empty. In the misty air he caught a whiff of coffee. There was a café shop but none was there to look through the befogged glass or to open the glass door to step outside. No sound of locomotive he heard yet. A vagueness shrouded him. All railway stations looked alike. He rolled his wheeled suitcase down the ramp, he had to walk through a passage underneath the station, then up again to walk across the street to reach the platform. He had altogether seven minutes to board the train bound to Zermatt. While stepping down slowly Paul heard the sound of rolling wheels and tromping steps just behind him on the ramp. A young woman was pulling her bags down the ramp. Paul focused his attention back on him, strode down few steps and stopped near the passage way. He looked back again, found she was struggling to balance her descending with the bags. He stepped up and reached her. ‘May I help you?’ he asked her gently. She looked at him. Before she could say anything he asked her again, ‘Will you change the train here?’
She replied ‘Yes, I will.’
He grabbed one of her bags and said ‘I’m afraid. There isn’t much time. If you want to avail next train let’s walk’.
She followed him down the ramp. They stopped at the entrance of the passage. Paul introduced himself to her, ‘I’m Paul. Nice to meet you.’
‘I’m Alina. Thanks a lot. It was a great help to me.’ Gratefully she said and shook his hand.
‘My bag is not so heavy. I can push two at a time putting yours on my wheeled bag. We can walk faster this way to reach the exit of the passage before the train arrives.’ Said Paul.
While they were striding side by side down through the passage Alina thought about Paul, a dashing handsome young man who came all on a sudden with his straight forward, manly, honest, selfless approach and took away all her stresses of changing a train in the station and boarding again in the train while she was in her end part of travelling.
‘By the way, I’m heading for Zermatt.’ Alina told him. After a pause she said again, ‘Temperature over there, I believe, would be colder tonight than this place. If I’m lucky I might see a sunny Zermatt tomorrow.’
He agreed and said, ‘That’s right. It will be cold there. It’s an elevated mountain valley. Then he added quickly, ‘I’m going to Zermatt too.’
Though she could not express right away her feeling to Paul, but inwardly she felt a delight knowing that Zermatt was also his destination.
They reached the exit that opened to a street. There they took right turn as the sign showed the direction towards the station. The station was open but covered with wide corrugated metal roof. They found only two passengers on the platform waiting for the train. Paul looked at the platform number again displayed on a big board over their head to be sure they were on the right platform. In a minute or so the train arrived, they stepped inside the compartment and found some passengers were already there. Paul and Alina put their bags in the luggage space adjacent to door.
Paul said, ‘It will take more than an hour to reach Zermatt. Let’s sit.’ There were some empty seats. They sat face to face on the seats by the window. The train was moving through the thickening darkness of the night amidst the falling snows. Alina looked through the window, but could not see anything but darkness. She turned her face, looked at Paul and smiled. Paul smiled too. Her beautiful face was demanding attention. Her charming innocence in the face called his eyes. She wore a black thick woolen overcoat, a burgundy colored woolen cap that covered her head matching with a muffler around the neck. She was graced with a look that emanated her elegance. Her blue eyes with blond hair over the shoulder made her more alluring and pleasing to him.
There was no sound in the compartment, only prevailed a quiet rumble of the train. A peaceful silence Paul experienced around him. Alina broke the silence and asked him in a casual way, ‘Is it your first time in Zermatt, Paul?’
He nodded and then replied. ‘Yes. It’s my first time.’
‘I’m also to some extent a first time tourist here. My mom and I live in Stuttgart. Dad lives here and owns a bakery shop.’ Said Alina.
‘Your bags indicate you have a plan to spend here a lot more days.’ Paul said it lightly with a smile.
‘Oh! No.’ she laughed. ‘Actually I’ve one bag and the other one belongs to my dad that he left at our home in Stuttgart when he visited us last month. I’m here for few days to roam around the places.’ She explained nicely.
‘It happens sometime.’ Paul said. Then after a little pause he said, ‘Your English accent was different from someone who lives in Stuttgart.’ She smiled and innocently replied, ‘I learnt English in my school. I have friends in schools from England. I talk with them in English.’
‘That’s great.’ He admired her. She thanked him and asked, ‘How many days you’re gonna stay in Zermatt?’
Paul replied, ‘Just one week. I will spend my time in skiing and snowboarding or roaming around the village.’
After a pause he asked her, ‘What are you planning to do tomorrow, any certain place to go?’
With a smiley face she replied,’ I’m not sure where to go. But I would love to go somewhere.’
Paul informed her, ‘Well, I’ve a plan to ride cable car in the iconic Matterhorn mountain tomorrow morning and spend the whole day in skiing or snowboarding around.’
A joy in her glittering eyes spread in her lovely face. She expressed delightfully, ‘I liked that idea riding cable car.’ Then they discussed where and when they would meet each other on the morning next day. They exchanged each other’s mobile phone numbers. The train arrived at the station. They got down from the train with their bags. Alina saw her father who came to receive her in the station. He was a nice, amiable and joyous man in his early forties. Alina introduced Paul with him and narrated briefly but gorgeously how he helped her at the Brig station. He was very pleased on Paul having heard that and thanked him sincerely. In that small car-less winter resort Alina’s father came with a horse-drawn carriage to take her home and suggested Paul to ride one to reach the hotel.
Paul waited until they left. He waived them smilingly and then took a horse-drawn carriage from the station and reached his hotel that night.
Next morning was sunny and bright but chilly cold wind was blowing over the vast whiteness of the snow valley. Alina came and found Paul was waiting for her at the station. They liked that sunny day. They met with an avidity to spend the day in a place where they were quite new and they too were known to each other not quite long ago. They rode an electric bus to reach Matterhorn station. Finally they reached at an altitude of 3883 m., the highest mountain cable car station in Europe. While riding the cable car they viewed the snow-covered panoramic mountainous valley and the lofty crest of Matterhorn Mountain. A stillness was existing there, no one wanted to disturb that silence. Even the birds ceased to fly. It was like a paradise of glacier. When they finished cable riding they entered in a restaurant to eat lunch and drink hot chocolate. They planned for snowboarding after the lunch. They rented snowboards, boots, gloves and jackets from a nearby rental shop. They had much fun in snowboarding that whole day.
Thus together they spent many hours in six days in many places of that winter ski resort. They enjoyed every moment of their togetherness. Everything was beautiful, so bold. And lately they discovered— they fell in love with each other.
They went out to dine at a fine restaurant in the village up in the mountain as Paul was leaving next day morning. They enjoyed a soft romantic candle-lit dinner. Table was set up with flowers that kept it classic. They wanted to spend those last moments in their own world, in their own way. After having the dinner they stepped out from the restaurant, walked together putting arms around each other under the dim light of the starry sky and with the surrounding silvery incandescence of snows casting light on their shadowy contours. Happier they were in their happiness. He drew her to him gently, holding her against him, and she didn't resist but let herself turn fluid in his arms, let his lips’ soft touch continue on her eyes and face like a vernal breeze flowing over a meadow.
That morning it was snowing when Alina came to the station to say goodbye to Paul. Those few moments of their parting time that day appeared to them as a solemn evocation in the timelessness of their life. That cherished feeling wrapped them up and made them protective as if for their whole life. They could not think to stop their fondness there, rather they would retain it to the end. They didn’t have much time to analyze how their life would take the course in the waves of love. Those moments they spent were filled with happiness, they were not ready to accept the reality that love had pain.
Paul hold her fists gently, put them together within his palms. The slight hint of moisture he saw on her lips that made them glistened in the morning misty light. He embraced her, kissed her lips delicately since he discerned her individuality and underlying gentleness she had been graced with.
But a sadness had overtaken the sophisticated, sublime moments that were created just a while ago. Paul looked at her face. Her doleful look conveyed the pensive sadness of her heart. At one point her control broke, tears quickly filled her eyes. Looking at her eyes with crumbling heart Paul parted himself from her embrace, slowly took his hands away from her body and embarked the train—that began to roll. In the snowy cold morning, in choked desolation she watched the train vanishing slowly along the tracks from her sight.
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