Unnatural Order by Liz Porter

Author:Liz Porter [Porter, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780994353856
Publisher: Clan Destine Press
Published: 2016-03-06T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

‘Vorsicht auf Gleis Eins. Zug nach Gellingen zieht ein,’ drawled the world-weary female voice announcing the arrival of the train to Gellingen. Once again Caroline had to blink back tears. It had been happening all morning.

When the doors opened she went automatically to a window seat, although she knew there was nothing much to see in the 25-minute journey from the centre of Stuttgart to Gellingen. She hadn’t been able to buy a ticket because she’d had no coins for the automatic ticketing machines, and all three of them had rejected the crinkled 10-mark note that she’d fished out of her pocket and tried to smooth into the slot designed for banknotes. There was a ticket window upstairs but the five minutes it would have taken her to use it would have made her miss her train. The next one went half an hour later and she wanted to be home by 10.30.

She wasn’t particularly worried to be travelling without a ticket. Schwarzfahren as the Germans called fare evasion, might inject some much-needed excitement into her day. The worst that could happen would be to be caught by the two conspicuously plain-clothed inspectors who patrolled her line. The resultant 60-mark fine would be a sign, a confirmation of her deep-seated feeling of discomfort, perhaps even a message that she should leave. To escape would mean a small victory, not to mention a saving of two marks sixty.

Caroline hadn’t seen either of the inspectors on her platform. She knew them well by sight – one short and crewcut, the other tall and bald, both always clad in unfashionable blouson leather jackets. The short one always held a small rectangular bag, a bit like the male handbags – manbags – that had been all the rage 10 years before. The bag, Caroline had noticed, held change, tickets and the various forms necessary for fining and ticketing procedures.

The pair had a gift for suddenly materialising on a train, usually at the shoulder of some ticketless miscreant who blushed and cringed while the rest of the carriage looked on in silent schadenfreude. Did these incidents arouse race memories of Jews and Communists being hustled off by the Gestapo, Caroline wondered, scanning her fellow passengers. They all looked so bloody smug with their pursed lips and neat clothes. And so organised, the women with their baskets, the men with their papers and briefcases. Caroline thought fondly of tram trips in Melbourne where there’d always be some old lady next to you who wanted to chat about the weather or her grandchildren.

She had started making regular train trips in the last month. These small journeys to Stuttgart, where she visited bookshops and bought days-old copies of the London Sunday papers at inflated prices, were a kind of therapy, a proof to herself that she wasn’t developing agoraphobia. Working at home it was easy to go for days without leaving the flat. She wanted to be sure that the long stints inside were a choice.

Rain spotted the windows as she stared out at the grey landscape.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.