Context
From Vain Art of the Fugue
by Dumitru Tsepeneag
I sat quietly for a while in the seat
behind the driver, looking out at the rush-hour streets, but then I
began to whisper to him that I was in a great hurry to get to the
station and was afraid that I’d miss the train, because, you see, I’m
already late and don’t feel like rushing from platform to platform (you
never know exactly which one to wait on), running around with my coat
unbuttoned and tails flapping while people turn and look at me with
surprise or indignation; there’s no point shouting or waving your bunch
of flowers like a flag, faster and faster in that huge, reddish,
thickveined hand, while the train disappears at the end of the platform
. . . I’ll be left there, head bent and arms dangling at my sides, as I
look at my mud-flecked shoes and wonder whether I’m not somehow to
blame: that stupid habit of looking for someone to blame, the torture
of splitting hairs over and over again. I hear the panting of the
locomotive, slower and slower, then the long sigh of relief as it comes
to a halt. I turn my head, passengers rush down, the platform fills
with people talking loudly and all at once; their words, all more or
less the same, collide with one another in the air. Their voices too
are very similar, one perhaps thicker or thinner than the next but all
strident and rasping, because the noise makes it almost impossible to
hear, yet no one can refrain from speaking; the words eventually lose
their meaning, or rather they seem to be in a foreign language, and you
look around and can’t tell what’s wrong with you, whether what you see
is real or whether you’re dreaming. The driver is wearing a
leather jacket and seems very robust. Between us is a kind of glass
pane held in place by aluminum bars, and between the glass and the bar
on the far right is a space where my voice can get through to him. “Please
go faster, I don’t want to miss my train. You see, I took my bags there
earlier in a friend’s car—he left this morning heading in a different
direction. So, I’ve still got to pick my bags up from the luggage
office. I didn’t leave this morning because I still had a few things to
do: I had to visit someone (there was no point mentioning Maria’s name,
as he wouldn’t have known who I meant, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t
know Magda either)—anyway, to visit a woman.” The driver didn’t say a
word, as if he were deaf and dumb. At some point a woman with an
incredibly large stomach got on the bus; maybe she had a pillow under
her dress . . . It was warm and he felt good. He adjusted the
pillow and turned over again, feeling himself begin to fall back
asleep. He didn’t try to resist, although he knew that in the end he
wouldn’t be able to stay in bed.
