Page 109 - Microsoft Word - CMA BOOK_2

Cultural Migration in Autobiography Grundtvig Partnerships 2009-2011

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

e-mail: kszia@komesnet.com.pl http://cma.internetdsl.pl

109

The Escape

Natalie Lazăr

I lean my forehead against the window. It rains outside. When the train gathers speed, raindrops fall diagonally and cut the flat landscape into stripes. This morning I wanted to get to a remote place - far from university, from parents, and all the usual stuff. Secretly I bought a ticket Hamburg – Den Haag, the very next departure. The train stops. We have arrived.

In front of the railway station I get on a tram as in a trance. Next stop Scheveningen says the blue sign from above the driver. I stand. I don’t look to anyone. I have no doubts about that: they can see it on my face, they can read my escape. I am positive about that. Why do they all stare?

After each stop the tram empties. People will get home at five in the afternoon. I am no exception: I get home from university or from school at the same time. It has always been that way. Nothing has changed. I notice how the driver watches me. I am positive I’ve got a sign on my forehead. I look around the carriage. No one stays on the tram. This is a dead end. I blush and get down fast. The driver greets me nodding.

The street lights glimmer in the remaining grey daylight. It smells of fish or algae. Unexpectedly, the encounter gives me the shivers: the North Sea. Never before have I seen it so wild. I get very cold. The storm tears my clothes apart. I start walking along the water line. I can feel sand in my eyes. I can’t see a thing. An immense solitude overwhelms me.

A month ago the feeling that I was to lose something invaded me; a feeling of paralysing fear, growing from day to day and turning into lethal solitude.

I think I can hear a seagull. I can feel its rapacious cynical eyes.

“Nothing new under the sun, that’s the problem!,” I suddenly explain to the bird out loud, in case it is flying next to me. I admit that I myself don’t know why I am disappointed with my life. The waves cry out even louder. I can hear a scream. Might that be the seagull?! I hope so. Suddenly I stop walking. “Disappointed! That’s it! Disappointed with me because I could not change anything, I did not have the guts to break with the routine.”

The blow of the wind weakens. I search for the seagull on the horizon; I can see the night undulating gently with the waves.