The lady is remarkably put together. A light gabardine coat, with matching light grey shoes, that dear little heel, so comfortable, and matching clutch bag and a haircut so short you would have thought scissors were going out of style. Not provocative, no, just well groomed, like before the war. You worry about that coat picking up something filthy from seats not cleaned for weeks these days.
In the crowded car everyone is looking at her, bending out of shape even, which is remarkable seeing that the noise, all of it, is coming from the other aisle. Tucking at her knitted jacket, worn all out of shape, is a woman who holds a large jute bag on her lap.
“So, he asks me,” she shouts, “what do you want? You have a roof over your head, a little dented but a roof. And you have food on the table, and your son’s got a nice cushy job miles away from the front. Miles away. And your daughter, for heaven’s sakes, is in school, learning English and French, right? And —” She stops momentarily, as the train stops at Friedrichstrasse and half the car empties, her audience as if sucked out to the platform to transfer, another sea of bodies pushing in.
“But he doesn’t understand, “she continues to no one in particular, mopping her face, “is it so hard to get? I mean, all I want is —” she looks around for approval, “—want to not carry the birdcage down six flights to the basement in my pyjamas and raincoat every night, almost every night, and fret about Irma next door, if she is coming, with her mom, and…”
No one, not one of her fellow travellers, sitting or hanging from overhead loops, pressed against dividing walls, pays any attention, her wails like white noise in the night. This from Berliners who used to chat at the drop of a hat, share a joke.
Gesundbrunnen station. A little belatedly she gets out of her seat, pummels through the throng towards the exit. A man moves aside to give her space. He looks around. “Look doll, you wanna keep some of that stuff to yourself, right? You look like a smart girl, keep it zipped for a while. Remember?” She gives him a sharp elbow and potatoes drop to the platform from her shopping bag.
The train rumbles on past the industrial areas, the neat, well-kept ‘Schreber gardens’ abutting the railroad and S-Bahn tracks and on towards the posher suburbs in the north end. All eyes now on the lady in the gabardine coat. Not exactly staring, but. They expect something from her. Something. She rises. Her face is expressionless. “I have to assume she isn’t entirely herself, a temporary…” The last words spoken for the benefit of the billboard still encouraging the public to “Trink Coca Cola”, a spot no doubt reserved for a hundred years, well before the war, outside on a wall.
Behind the closing doors the passengers look blank.