The Winter’s Tale — A Short Story

Photo by Fré Sonneveld

Paul and Karen lifted their bags onto the floor of the carriage from the low platform and then followed them onto the train. Their compartment was three doors down on the left and Paul was pleased to see it was empty. Karen, still wishing that they had opted for a coach rather than a train, let Paul arrange the bags in the overhead racks and flopped down in the corner nearest the window. The window looked grimy and the compartment itself appeared to have been given only a cursory clean since its last use. Paul found a tissue squeezed between the cushions of the seat he chose. He decided to leave it where it was.

They had twenty minutes before the train was due to depart and Paul kept switching his gaze from the platform clock to the compartment door.

“If someone comes, they’ll come,” said Karen.

“What?”

“You. Looking at the clock and the door. Hoping we’ll have the compartment to ourself.”

“Is that so bad?” Paul tried to smile and make it sound mischievous.

Karen didn’t smile back.

“If you had wanted nobody sitting next to you, we should have gone by coach,” said Karen.

Paul said nothing. He turned back to look at the clock and the platform and the interior of the Athens station. They were on their way to Istanbul and Paul had a romantic notion that arriving by train was really the only way to arrive in Istanbul. This was by no means his idea of the Orient Express but it was a train all the same. He had been disappointed that Karen had felt a coach was a better option but, then again, she had been to Istanbul previously. And she had relented, finally.

Shortly before departure, as Paul had both expected and feared, the door to the compartment opened and two men came in. They wore suits but carried no bags. One of the men sat down immediately opposite Karen but looked neither at her nor Paul. The other man sat by the door, along from Paul. He smiled at Paul and made a little bow from his waist towards Karen that brought a full belly forward to touch his knees.

“Good evening,” he said. “Americans?”

He knew that would rankle Karen so Paul said nothing.

“God, no,” said Karen. “English.”

“Ah,” said the man. “I understand.”

Paul wasn’t sure what it was the man understood but his smile was pleasant and his eyes warm.

“I am Shenouda. From Egypt. Alexandria. You know it?”

“Know of it,” said Paul. “Have never been.”

“You should go,” said Mr. Shenouda.

“I should,” said Paul.

Mr. Shenouda stretched out his hand and Paul took it. The shake was quick and the Egyptian removed his hand before Paul could even grip the man’s fingers. It was more like a stroking of palms, which left Paul feeling a little uneasy. This, in turn, made him feel a little ashamed. Mr. Shenouda made no attempt to stroke Karen’s palm and neither did he seem inclined to introduce his companion. The man by the window remained silent but whether this was due to a lack of English or complete disdain for the company was impossible to tell.

The train departed into the dusk and began its journey north along the eastern coast of Greece towards Thessaloniki. Paul was disappointed there would be no decent view from the window for many hours but he was comforted by the rhythm of the train. So much better than a bus.

“You like the train?” said Mr. Shenouda.

Paul wasn’t sure whether he meant this train or all trains but, before he could reply, Karen spoke.

“My husband does. He’s a bit of a train spotter at heart. Aren’t you, Paul?”

“Train spotter? Me, I hate flying. So we take the boat from Alexandria to Piraeus and then catch the train.”

“It’s a long journey,” said Paul.

“Yes. But we meet people and there is too much rushing now.”

“Still,” said Karen. “Twenty-six hours on a train instead of two hours on a plane is a big difference.”

“Thirty-six,” said Mr. Shenouda.

“Twenty-six, I believe,” said Paul.

“No,” said Mr. Shenouda. “Thirty-six hours. Twenty-six hours would be a wonderful express of a train.” He smiled at his companion. His companion looked away again and out of the window.

Karen simply looked at Paul. Paul shrugged. Karen’s expression didn’t change but she closed her eyes, as if shutting him out of what she felt. Paul wondered whether he had deliberately confused the numbers when justifying the trip to Karen. His work at the National Museum meant his expertise was in classical Greek rather than the modern forms spoken on the streets of Athens but they had lived there long enough for him to become accustomed to accents and slang.

Mr. Shenouda seemed to sense that his remarks had somehow caused a rift between Karen and Paul so he remained silent for some time. Then, Paul noticed that he closed his eyes and his face lost its cheerful expression. He was asleep. Paul took out a book from his jacket and began to read.

“I am so tired,” said Karen.

“Lie down,” said Paul. “Put your head on my lap.”

But Karen just shook her head. “I’ll be alright,” she said.

“Madame is tired.”

It was Mr. Shenouda. Suddenly awake, he was determined that Karen should have some undisturbed sleep. He clicked his fingers at his companion and gestured to the corridor. The man rose and slid open the door and stepped out. The noise of the train swept into the compartment. Mr. Shenouda stood and waved for Paul to follow. Paul thought this was ridiculous.

“Thank you, Mr. Shenouda,” said Karen. “That is so thoughtful.”

Mr. Shenouda bowed while standing this time, which kept his belly just off his thighs. He held the door aside for Paul and then pulled the blinds down inside and followed Paul into the corridor.

Paul and the two men stood in the corridor for four hours by Paul’s reckoning. By the time Karen opened the door to the compartment, Paul’s legs were ready to give way beneath him. He had spent those hours straining to make out any details of the landscape they crossed through the dark reflective glass of the train’s windows. He felt he knew his own reflection now better than he needed or wanted to.

At Thessaloniki they stopped for an hour to grab some breakfast in the station cafe. Their Egyptian friends — one loquacious and one silent — accompanied them. Karen seemed to find Mr. Shenouda’s presence reassuring. Paul just needed sleep. He was unable to do more than shut his eyes for moments at a time and was beginning to regret the whole train thing.

The length of the journey seemed to Paul to be about speed rather than distance. At no time had the train moved at anything greater than twenty or thirty miles per hour. And there were another twenty hours of this to go, including, if Mr. Shenouda was to be believed — and why not? — a four hour wait at the border while a train from Bulgaria arrived and was attached to their train.

* * * * *

They had booked no hotel in Istanbul. Karen had assured Paul that at that time of year, they would have their pick of places. When they arrived at the terminus — a disappointing, almost rural, station for the end of the line for the Orient Express, thought Paul — Mr. Shenouda took charge and hustled them into a large, ageing Mercedes that purred up the hill above the station, towards the Blue Mosque and then round the Grand Bazaar to the student area by the university.

On the way, Mr. Shenouda loudly commented on the loutishness of the soldiers at every street corner. The military coup had taken place two years earlier but the sign of military rule remained blatant.

“Small men from the villages,”said Mr. Shenouda from the front seat of the car. “They’re scared of the big city and the people. That makes them likely to shoot first. Perfect for control.”

He laughed. The taxi driver looked at him and laughed, too.

Mr. Shenouda’s first choice of hotel had no rooms. Undeterred, he ushered them back into the Mercedes for a quick journey across two streets to another hotel.

Here, there was room. But they sat for an hour in the lobby drinking hot sweet tea while Mr. Shenouda talked until the manager finally handed them their keys. Any longer and Paul would have considered stabbing the manager with the ornamental serving spoon with which he kept offering them slices of some sticky sweet pastry.

Their room was spartan and small but Paul didn’t care. He had not slept for over thirty six hours and the bed at least was spacious and appeared clean and comfortable. It took all his willpower to drag himself into the shower rather than collapsing on the bed. Karen insisted he shower first, which, in normal circumstances, he might have found hopeful.

Karen was taking her turn in the shower when Mr. Shenouda knocked at the door. He carried an armful of fruit, sourced from God only knew where. He pushed past Paul into the room and placed the fruit on the top of the large brown chest of drawers that filled the wall between the door and the shower. He glanced once towards the bathroom, from where the sound of the shower was clearly audible, but quickly looked back at his fruit. There was no fruit bowl, so Mr. Shenouda simply arranged the fruit with quick and gentle movements of his fleshy and liver-spotted hands into an approximate pyramid and gestured at it as though he had performed some sort of magic. Paul was prepared to believe he had.

* * * * *

Paul woke next morning and was alone in bed. Karen was keen on fitness and, considering her long hours stuck on the train, Paul assumed she had gone running. Then he noticed that her bag was gone. For a crazy second or two, he wondered if she had run off with Mr. Shenouda. Crazy thinking or not, he put on his trousers and went along to Mr. Shenouda’s room.

The silent and nameless companion opened the door and looked at Paul, unsmiling. Before Paul could say anything, the door was closed in his face. He knocked again and Mr. Shenouda appeared, smiling, and as fresh as though he had been up for hours.

“Is my wife here?”

Mr. Shenouda appeared unsurprised by the question.

“No,” he said.

He came out of his room and walked with Paul down to the front desk. There, they learned that Karen had waited for, and then taken, a taxi in the early hours of the morning. Paul was amazed that she could have risen so early — and silently — to arrange it all.

Mr. Shenouda called for tea and the manager joined them in the lobby to discuss the situation. They were then joined by two Iranian students, who began to express sympathy for Paul. Mr. Shenouda corrected them immediately, however, and told them that Paul had not treated Karen well. This surprised Paul so much that he couldn’t even summon any anger. The two students and the manager began to look at Paul as if he was an interesting example of a Western husband, typically ill-equipped to deal with women.

With the next round of tea, the manager produced a letter, which he handed to Mr. Shenouda. The Egyptian opened it, read it through once, and then handed it to Paul. Surprised, Paul took it, along with the opened envelope, and found it was addressed to him. From Karen. Quite why the manager had offered it first to Mr. Shenouda and why Mr. Shenouda had felt it was right to read it, made Paul’s eyesight blur and he had trouble reading the words. Karen’s handwriting had always been angular and not at all stereotypically feminine. He felt ashamed for a moment of her scrawl and hoped that Mr. Shenouda thought no less of her because of it.

“She’s on the Asian side,” said Mr. Shenouda. He then repeated this, Paul assumed, in Turkish. There were eyebrows raised and questions fired.

“With a friend,” continued Mr. Shenouda, in English. He appeared to think this made sense. Even the students appeared to think this destination was an obvious choice for a wife fleeing a cruel husband. Only the manager looked as puzzled as Paul and he felt a jolt of warmth towards the man.

Paul finally focused his eyes and read the letter. It was a note, really. And it said very little more than the Egyptian had indicated. Karen told Paul she was over in Asia with a friend. Mr. Shenouda had refrained from telling him the final part, though. Karen wrote, simply, that she would not be coming back to Athens. The starkness of the words gave Paul’s heart a slap. It destroyed any hopes that Paul might have had that Karen was looking for some temporary break. This was final. And it appeared to have been planned.

Paul’s role as bad husband was now accepted. Each new arrival through the lobby was apprised of his failings with a quick burst of suitable vocabulary in a number of different languages. Soon there was a crowd sharing tea, discussing his crimes. Mr. Shenouda did what he could to translate but sometimes he became so involved in an argument himself that he had no time to tell Paul what was being said. Mr. Shenouda leaped to the defence of Karen whenever it was suggested that she should not have left her husband. He took great pleasure in translating how he had defended her against these calumnies and how he had enumerated Paul’s crimes against her, assuring Paul that he was adding some crimes to make Karen seem even more justified in her flight. Paul felt Mr. Shenouda knew Karen better than he did and he wondered whether he had become the only one drinking straight tea.

Mr. Shenouda’s casual and comfortable assassination of Paul’s character and suitability as a husband continued. More and more people arrived, many more than the hotel could possibly entertain as guests. Mr. Shenouda was treated as the expert, the man with the facts and the theories to be listened to. Occasionally, a remark by Mr. Shenouda would cause a member of the audience to look Paul’s way but, increasingly, this was Mr. Shenouda’s show. Paul had become a prop.

* * * * *

Finally, Paul excused himself, telling Mr. Shenouda he needed to visit the bathroom. It was almost the truth. He had drunk a lot of tea. Paul went quickly back to his room and looked for any clues. Clues of what, he was unsure. There was nothing to indicate a fleeing wife. Even Mr. Shenouda’s fruit pyramid was untouched.

He collected a jacket and scarf and walked downstairs and out the front door of the hotel. He turned right on the street and then right again and reached the main road through that part of town. Paul had a vague sense of the direction of the railway station so he turned left onto the main road and began to walk in the bright chill air. It was the first chance he had had to think about Karen’s motives. The off-hand insults of Mr. Shenouda, delivered with a confidence that brooked no opposition, soon lost their barb as Paul reviewed them in his head. The Egyptian’s knowledge of their relationship was scant, his perception of a normal Western marriage probably skewed, and his level of English in which to discuss the minutiae of emotional discourse in all probability insufficient. This thought cheered Paul up for a moment until he realised that the real issue was not Mr. Shenouda’s opinion of him as a husband but the fact that Karen was now in Asia, potentially rushing into the arms of some new lover. This was perplexing.

The giant red flags of the state billowed and thundered on their tree-like poles on the balustrades and roofs of the monolithic buildings that lined the road. Paul felt flushed in the cold. The tea, the adrenalin rush of shame, and the self-ignition of unfocused anger had him sweating as he hurried along the pavements, past bus queues huddled in the shelter against the chill Bosphorus wind.

He came to a halt at a major junction. Two soldiers occupied a small sentry box on the opposite side of the road. Paul was unsure which way to turn and found himself staring at the soldiers and remembering Mr. Shenouda’s comments in the taxi. Then he saw movement and one of the soldiers was out of the box and looking across at Paul. He lifted his rifle and pointed it towards him. Paul froze. Then the soldier lowered the gun and laughed. He turned back to his fellow soldier in the box and the two of them laughed and looked no more at Paul.

The encounter with the soldier decided Paul’s direction and he turned left in what he thought was the direction of the water. The road was as wide as the previous one and Paul suddenly felt exposed. He took another left turn by instinct and followed a narrower cobbled road for a few hundred metres.

When he chanced upon the square, it seemed like a refuge. Empty, and bounded on one side by the ornate gates and wall of the university. He chose a bench against the wall adjacent to the great iron gates, which were padlocked. Across the empty square, he could see narrow streets that dropped steeply downhill. The sounds of a market streamed into the square from one of those streets but the square itself remained bare. The wind from the Bosphorus occasionally played with the small piles of leaves that huddled half-heartedly in the corners of the square but it had the air of a spectacle put on from habit.

Paul sat and let the wind bring sounds and smells to him and to carry his thoughts away. He thought it was probably not a fair bargain. A Byzantine trade-off. Then he was suddenly calm, almost warm in the centre of the cold that played around his feet and face. His hands were hidden deep in the pockets of his lined jacket, which was one of the few warm clothes he possessed. He thought of his wardrobe back in Athens, in the small flat above their landlord’s house. It seemed inconceivable that Karen would have left so much of her own clothes there. Perhaps she had already arranged for someone to go in and pack, forwarding her stuff to some final destination she had already decided on.

He had been sure the trip to Istanbul for Christmas had been his idea. And yet it appeared now that Karen had planned it. Perhaps she would have left no matter the city. Istanbul may have just been a lucky break.

Then the bear arrived. Paul was aware of it first as a subtle clanking, like the swaying of a chain link fence. When he thinks back, Paul is convinced he could smell it, too, but the wind was probably in the wrong direction. It was more likely that the bear could smell his loneliness and puzzlement, his sense of betrayal. Whatever the truth, Paul sensed the bear before he saw it and turned. Its eyes met Paul’s and it reared up on its hind legs and roared. The keeper, a slight man with a cruel grin that seemed fixed across his face like a parody of a duelling scar, had not seen Paul. He looked at the bear and followed its gaze. When he saw Paul he changed direction and began to lead the bear towards him. After only a couple of steps, however, he changed his mind. Something in Paul’s look or something in the cold empty square alerted him to the wasted effort of trying to elicit money from him for the bear to dance.

The keeper pulled the bear along towards the street from where the market sounds were now more clearly audible. Paul felt sure that the bear, when it turned to look at him, was sad at their parting.

The bear disappeared from sight and Paul stood and pursued it, leaving the square.

THE END