THE NON-EXISTENT TRAIN to Geneva. At least, I didn’t know there was a connection. There was, but it was obscure, complicated. It was one of those Google Maps Directives that tells you to get off at one stop and walk four hundred meters, then turn left, et cetera. Somehow doing this, I would be able to arrive at the conference in Geneva in two hours and thirty minutes.
If every step was accomplished smoothly.
But getting to the train station proved to be harder than I thought. I decided to go on foot and stopped by the Green House Café on the corner of Koidu and Tartu Streets. It had snowed, perhaps the first snow of the season, and I walked in with my bags and asked Põder, or “Moose,” the cheerful barista, if he would make me an espresso, to be consumed at the bar, but instead he made me a flat white, which was like drinking snow. Sven, the owner and operator of the establishment, was outside meantime, digging away. Flat white in hand, I headed up Tartu Street toward the town center, hoping to make the train to Geneva. There was still time.
There I could hear, on Turu, or Market Street, the sounds of an electric guitar. Guillermo was inside a small club there, fileting some riffs on his axe. A small crowd had gathered around him, and I saw my bass was on stage. “Do you know how to play any Rage Against the Machine?” Guillermo asked. His black hair was down his back. I told him of course I knew how to play their songs, that I had taught myself “Freedom” at age 15. This was one of the more intricate riffs I had learned how to play at a tender age. The gig turned out fine. But then I was stuck having to lug my bass guitar and amplifier to the town train station in a snow storm.
Along the route, where I stepped past locals out shovelling more snow, and it was already dark out, and the car lights illuminated the big wet flakes as they fell down, I decided on a solution. I would stop by Brynhild’s house on the main street, which was Tallinn Street, and leave my musical equipment there. Through the window I could see her sitting on a couch in her pajamas. Her dark hair was wet and she was toying with it. I could hear a second voice coming from inside the living room. This person was not visible. They spoke in soft but excited tones.
Another man! I thought. I went and hid down the street in an alley. Then I waited until the visitor exited, only to learn that it was an older woman, perhaps an old friend or acquaintance.
She just happened to have a very deep voice.
“What are you doing out here in the snow, you fool?” Brynhild asked. “Come in, you can leave your pill, your instrument in the back.” I stepped down the hallway, and left the bass guitar and amplifier in a dark back room that was serving as storage of some kind. The idea crossed my mind back there that this was my room and that these were all my things. I had a room at Brynhild’s house, I wasn’t always aware that it was there. After I deposited my things in the back room, I joined her in the living room. It was spare and modern. She sat in her chair, still wet, still in her pajamas. She had pulled them over her enormous freckled breasts. Then I felt aroused. There was just something about arrogant women with wet hair and warm breasts.
I got closer to her. Brynhild looked up. “You’re going to miss your train to Geneva,” she said.
“The thing is,” I said. “I think I already did.”
north! 