AN: This is a work of fiction.
*****
"Entshuldigung, ist dieser Platz frei?"
My hands slipped from my book and it fell to the floor. I was reading a travel guide when I was interrupted by a warm, baritone voice. A young man in his early twenties was standing along the open door of the train compartment that I occupied. I didn't catch what he said since it was in German, but I presumed that he was asking if he could sit with me. I nodded and pointed to the empty seats across me, then bent to pick up my guide.
Upon entering, he placed his large knapsack on the overhead luggage rack. He sat down on the chair across me, but not directly, to give enough leg room for both of us. Putting on an old baseball cap, he stretched his long legs before him, folded his arms above his stomach and went to sleep.
We were on the train to Salzburg, and it was going to be a long ride, three hours at the least. As the train travelled along the lush Austrian countryside, my eyes wandered to the guy across me. Dark blond hair was visible from below his cap, and I saw the hint of stubble on his chin. He was wearing a blue T-shirt, khaki shorts, socks and rubber shoes.
Typical backpacker outfit,
I thought. As a backpacker, I was also casually dressed; I was wearing a red figure-hugging T-shirt, blue jeans, socks and sneakers. As I gazed at him sleeping peacefully on his side of the compartment, I looked back and remembered how I came to be on this particular train.
I was born in 1975, the year when the Americans pulled out of Vietnam and that country fell into the hands of the communists. My father was a Nam vet; he was drafted in '67 and served for two years, until a leg injury earned him a ticket home. Until today, that wound bothers him from time to time, especially during winter.
Dad went back home to New York City and went on to study pharmacy. His time in Nam gave him an appreciation for sloe-eyed women, and as a young man, he fell in love with the daughter of an apothecary in Chinatown, a petite, delicately boned girl named Yi Shen, a.k.a. Cindy, who soon became my mother.
My straight black hair and dark brown eyes reflected my Chinese ancestry. My mother is a second generation Chinese woman who married a pharmacist of Polish extraction. Her surname was Lee, and in an attempt keep the family name going, gave that name as a first or second name to all her children. Thus I was named Lee Anna Kowalski, while my younger brothers were gifted with names of Mark Lee and Simon Lee. I am called Lee while they are called Mark and Simon.
Thanks to our father's genes, we grew up to be significantly taller than our pure blooded Chinese cousins. I stood at 5'6", while my female cousins averaged at 5 feet in height. During my early teens, I felt like a gawky giant in the company of petite beauties. Despite my height, I inherited my mother's delicate bones, and constantly thanked her genes in contributing to my slender physique.
Mom came from a big family of Chinese Americans and the extended family often met for holidays, the most important of which was the lunar new year. During that time, we would eat rice cakes and crescent-shaped dumplings, and receive little red packets containing money or some trinket for good luck. Having been born in the year of the wooden rabbit, it never hurts to have more luck as we rabbits were said to be flighty.
My parents had a tumultuous courtship; my dad had to overcome the objections of my strict oriental grandparents. They were traditionalists and wanted to my mom to marry a man of similar origins.
This was in the seventies and my mom was a by-product of those times; she rebelled against her parents and married my dad against her parents' will. After I was born, the hostilities were ended and my grandparents grudgingly accepted my dad. In time they had learned to respect him and now remain in very good terms with each other. Their love affair is a long tale worthy of its own telling, which I would rather not expound on.
Having grown up in the congested streets of New York, I adored the rolling hills and meadows of the European countryside. I had just finished my second year in NYU where I studied languages, with emphasis in French and Spanish. I was awarded a summer fellowship to study French at La Sorbonne in Paris. It was a delightfully enriching experience for me; I basked in the old world elegance of Paris and in the Gallic nature of the French people.
The summer of 1995 was nearly at an end; my academic requirements had been fulfilled and I was backpacking my way across Europe alone. As a foreign student I was short on cash, but I wanted to see more of Europe before I was scheduled to go home the following week. In my eight days of travel, I had spent my meager savings for tickets to Brussels, Cologne, Bremen, Berlin, Prague and lastly, Vienna.
I also spent a few francs on film and captured images on my small instamatic camera. Travelling by train, I ate cheap food and slept in youth hostels. A few of the sights I had visited include the Gothic churches in Cologne, the Grand Place and the Manneken-Pis in Brussels, the remains of the Berlin wall, the charming city of Prague, and lastly, the majestic buildings in Vienna, the seat of the once powerful Austro-Hungarian empire.
From Vienna, I was on my way to Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart, the child genius who later became one of the most famous composers of all time. I was particularly excited to visit Salzburg, not because of Mozart, but because it was the location for the Rogers and Hammerstein musical film, "The Sound of Music".
I must have watched that movie more times than I could count, and I knew all of the songs by heart. When we were young, my brothers and I would get together with our neighbors and pretend to be the von Trapp children.
Being the oldest girl, I naturally played the role of Liesl, and I knew every step of the dance that I called the "Pavilion dance". I knew by heart the lyrics of the song "I am 16 going on 17", and during our impromptu productions, I would dance coyly and bat my eyelashes at "Rolfe", who was played by Fred, a skinny, carrot-topped neighbor who couldn't carry a tune but could dance heavenly and twirl me high up in the air.
Fred was working as an apprentice in a laboratory that summer of '95; it was part of his training a pre-med student at SUNY-Buffalo in western New York. His dancing and (lack of ) musical skills remained and his hair has darkened to auburn.
The Schengen Agreement had recently been ratified, thus I was able to travel to Belgium and Germany without the inconvenience of having my passport checked. Austria had joined the European Union only a few months ago, and was still not included in the list of Schengen countries.
The time came for the inevitable inspection, and my backpacker neighbor was awakened by the conductor and was asked to show his ticket and passport. After inspecting our documents, the conductor moved on and I was left alone with BackpackerBoy.
He yawned and stretched on his chair, then settled his pierce blue gaze on me. I smiled tentatively, and seeing my smile, he asked, "
Wohin sind Sie gehen?
"
I replied, "I'm sorry, I didn't understand."
He smiled then immediately switched to English. "I said, where are you going?"
"Salzburg," I replied. "You?"
"The same."
"You're backpacking as well," I commented, pointing to his large knapsack.
"Yes. I'm travelling my way to Salzburg then Italy. And you?"
"I've travelled to Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic, and now Austria. I'll be going on to Munich, then back to Paris."
