PARANOIA AND PALPITATIONS ON PORTUGUESE EXPRESS

Our twitchy  peripatetic correspondent Peter  Burleigh   has  unnerving experiences , or  is  it  the  revenge of  the  grey nomads  he  has   unmercifully  lampooned  in  Australia  and  on  the  Continent ?

Train travel relaxes me. The rhythmic ticking of the wheels; the creaking of the structural frames hidden inside the carriage walls, the swaying - those classic lulling noises. Crowded footpaths do the opposite. There’s no framework, no reassuring noises; never a clue to what’s coming next. Pedestrian faces are stony blank, offering nothing. One never knows what form unpredictability will take - footpaths are particularly prone to split-second confrontations, losses of private property (I lost three pens in the last week alone) and vehicular mayhem.

And planes? Plane travel involves being taken somewhere in a closed compartment with strangers, just like train travel…but that’s where the complementary comparison ends and discomforting anxiety begins. But you understand, don’t you. It’s theoretically possible to get off a moving train, but impossible from a moving plane. Of course they have sliding doors in trains. What if the door gets stuck? With no hinges, how do you get out?

 

Look, I’m sorry about overdoing the adjectives but they bully their way in. Relaxation is elusive.

This train is carrying me from one point to another in eastern Portugal. Where it is doesn’t matter, like any other train it’s how it does it. It seems sound and stable. Nothing to complain about. The carriage is half-full. Passengers range from teenagers to pensioners. They are quiet and still, they have wired winkles stuck in their ears and scratchy music is rasping. Their eyes are active though, they study one another and sometimes me.

A man in a dark grey suit shoulders his way through the sliding door from the rear carriage. I feared this moment; he’s a ticket inspector. They have ways of looking at you that make you squirm like you’re guilty when you’re not. What if he finds fault with my ticket? My Portuguese is execrable. He could put words into my mouth I’ve never heard of and I’d have no immediate defence. Although he’s not wearing a plastic identity card. badge. No bag or electronic ticket reader.


 Maybe he carries a badge wallet in his pocket, like a Sheriff or an FBI agent. Is his sagging suit a uniform? He hasn’t shaved very well, but that mightn’t be important – how strict are Portuguese Railways on personal appearance? Could he be a Customs or Immigration officer? This train isn’t scheduled to cross the border, is it? Regulations change without notice of course, and suddenly I may not have the proper papers. This is the EU. There should be no borders.

He pauses at a stack of luggage near the door. I’ve been watching it. I don’t trust luggage.

Backpacks in particular are suspicious. Aren’t they favoured by terrorists?  No one in the carriage looks like a terrorist, but how can you tell? The grey-suited man seems at ease. He pulls a soft-sided briefcase from the bottom of the pile. He opens it – it wasn’t locked – he pulls out a book, a fantasy novel titled ‘The Fool’s Fate’. A disturbing coincidence; the book I am reading is ‘The Golden Fool’, the prequel to his. I go on the alert. As they say, “there’s no such thing…”

The man takes a seat, finds his place in the book and begins to read. How come I didn’t see him when the train was loading? Is he deliberately concealing his authority? His book has an English title. Of course he’s just a tourist. He raises his eyes from the book to look directly at me. No smile, thank goodness. Looks straight at me but doesn’t see me. A passage or an idea in the book has preoccupied him.

Not knowing who or what he is bothers me. When I was young this kind of not knowing wouldn’t get to me because I felt invulnerable, but no more. An acidic note of travel sickness rumbles in my stomach, but it’s a false sign; it’s not fear, it’s anxiety. The man could be anything or anybody.


He sweeps the cap from his head. He’s bald. It’s a look once favoured by the Gestapo or the SS. Zoom in on this face: late middle age. See the backs of his hands, the drooping skin under his chin. If he was in the Hitler Youth in 1943, that would make him around 93. He’s younger than that, much younger. That would make him a modern Nazi. Plenty of right-wing groups worship Hitler.

I prefer not to follow stereotypes, but this guy is a candidate. When I told my doctor about the people who follow me around he said: “I understand.” It wasn’t put in a condescending tone, far from it. My doctor is a sound and stable confidant, although ignorant about the world. He said “I understand” and I believed him.

The train has sped up. It’s not a TGV, but you wouldn’t know. My map shows the train will stop well before the Spanish border, at Evora. I’ll go on from there. Everything’s fine. I have my baggage under surveillance, the passengers are settled in place, and the man in the grey suit is peacefully reading.

His face is relaxed but has hard lines around the mouth. His bald head shines as if he has polished it. He shifts in his seat as if in pain. Could he have an irritable bowel or a twisted testicle? Pain brings out the worst in people. I can picture him in a uniform, torturing a gypsy or a homosexual. He tried to escape to Argentina or Brazil at the end of the war, failed, and ended up in Portugal.

His fingers are long and dexterous, the fingers of a thief, precise in movement as a surgeon’s. His wire-rimmed spectacles have round lenses. Behind them his eyes are bright. Not blue but brown. Brown eyes mean Spanish don’t they? A Franco thug? Their reputation for cruelty was second to none. No, he’d be too old. His eyes come up to meet mine and I look away in that split second.


 I wait a minute or two then come back to the man’s face. Shit. He’s looking straight at me and smiles and nods. Does he know me? I nod and return to my own book. The train is slowing; Evora, the last stop. I’ve told no one of my plans yet here he is, holding me in place with his eyes. What can I do to elude him? After all, his kind are part of a network, ‘The Spider’ or something, that looks after war criminals. But it’s almost 2020 and that’s all over. The old Nazis are gone, aren’t they? Franco died in 1975, Mussolini in 1945, Eichmann in 1962...

Sorry. My imagination runs on, doesn’t it? The train has stopped and I am the last passenger to get off. My bag hasn’t been disturbed. I have my wallet, my credit cards, my booking confirmations. Tomorrow I go to Badajoz and on to Cordoba. It’s cold, even for late May. There’ll be a phone in the ticketing area of the station.


 I don’t use a mobile because it can be used  like a tracking device; same with using email for bookings, Facebook and the others... another idiosyncrasy of mine; no one else seems concerned about their privacy. Occasionally I pause and think about these things and I can never establish what it is that makes me uncomfortable. I’m not a criminal and don’t know any criminals. Not even my late brothers were criminals. I don’t know any Nazis or Fascists – I’m too young. But the man in the carriage sent me into a spin, and I’ve learned to trust my gut feelings so I run my gaze around me one more time before I leave the platform. 

My sixth sense prickles; I spot the grey-suited man watching me from the next platform across. He must have left our carriage at high speed to get over there so quickly. A monitor over his head reads ‘Next train - Lisbon’. He just arrived here in the same train as me – the train from Lisbon – and now he’s going back again!


 A weird reflex causes me to put on my sunglasses. I take them off again. To think wearing sunglasses will keep me anonymous; in fact they make me more noticeable. It shows how easily disturbed I am when my common sense is telling me to ignore these thoughts. If I am serious about concealing my identity I would have considered plastic surgery before this.

The smiling people in the advertising posters in the pedestrian tunnel look at me blankly. Of course they don’t know who I am. Perhaps they should be the model for my own plastic surgery: a characterless nose-job, a chin-blunting, reduction of my flap-ears, a hair-dye job to conceal my early greying? The list goes on. I’ll never do it, I know. Why? Because I am not being followed. I am not targeted by Interpol, or the Russians, or by Mossad, or the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation. Relaxation is the key to unlocking my imaginary handcuffs.

I take a cab to my AirB&B apartment. The driver is a smiling young man. His expression acknowledges that he’s never seen me before, and I hope my expression tells him the same about me. My reflection in his rear-view mirror shows a tight but slowly-loosening expression. I’m pleased he doesn’t look at me at the same moment. My mind sighs and stops weaving complex scenarios in anticipation of a good night’s sleep. At last.

I carry my own bags into the reception lobby. It’s a small place, private, peaceful. Smiling, I put down my bags and look up at the man at the desk, He is wearing a grey suit.

Burleigh's mocking   depiction of  a convoy of   Australian  grey nomads with  all home  comforts  cluttering  the  roadway.