Night Train to Rome

No, our spontaneous decision was not an act of penny-pinching. We could easily have afforded dramatically higher prices than the headline that greeted us at the station. 19.90 Euro and a relaxing overnight trip to Rome! We could have flown first class if we had wanted to, probably at a cost of almost 100 times the ticket price for a fifth of the time and potentially more comfort, but... it didn't matter, it didn't count.

It may have been Julia, my wife, who first mentioned the idea or hinted at it as we waited on the platform for the express train that was supposed to take us from Vienna to the imperial city in the south. It seemed like a joke, like a smile of remembrance of long-ago internet trips. Like a grotesque idea -- along the lines of: We're independent, the apartment is taken care of, one of our children already has the key to water the flowers, and... Why not? Free, independent, and above all, spontaneous! And at our age, when we're supposed to be comfortable -- well past the halfway point of life, as Dante and Hölderlin so flowerily put it.

"You're crazy..." was on the tip of my tongue, albeit meant kindly, when her suggestion fluttered so casually and easily from her lips as she glanced at her watch to confirm her statement. "We still have an hour and a half to get a suitcase and the necessary clothes and toiletries... then the rest is SHOPPING in Rome... and a hotel, so if we're flexible and spontaneous, it'll be a piece of cake!"

"Really easy..." -- that was another matter, but the idea was crazy and, precisely because of that, tempting and all the more typical of my wonderful wife, whom I love so much precisely because of her spontaneity. I booked tickets and reservations and a great hotel right near the train station -- and we would then spontaneously spend a long weekend in the Eternal City instead of one of the usual ones in our neighborhood. Reason? Apart from the fact that we didn't need one, were both financially and economically independent, freelance and self-employed, the kids were away from home and well taken care of: So what? Why? Why not? We had our passports with us, both physical and electronic on our cell phones, and of course our credit and debit cards: What more could you want, we rejoiced inwardly, because crazy ideas are sometimes the best ones.

And it was our wedding anniversary the following weekend anyway. A second honeymoon after exactly twenty years! There was no reason not to. On the contrary, everything pointed to it.

The night train to Rome was pretty empty when we boarded just before departure, having completed all our physical and virtual errands in Vienna.

We acknowledged this with a certain sense of relief, because due to the truly spontaneous decision, there were unfortunately no sleeping cars available. We hadn't expected to get one anyway, but it would have been our preferred way to travel, having our own little shower, a cozy cabin, and even a small breakfast, piccola collazione. Too bad, but what could you do? A normal compartment with six seats would have to suffice: three on one side and three across from us, with a window, of course, and a small folding table that could be used as a partition or for whatever else you wanted to do with it. The seats were hard, but there were only two of us, we were exhausted in a way, and strangely content.

My wife sat opposite me, her legs crossed, the lights dimmed, the aisle outside empty. The train started moving--that deep, rolling hum and gentle jolting that I have always loved, bringing back memories of Interrail: back then, many years ago, in the last millennium. So different from the car, which we had decided to leave behind this time. Who needs a car in Rome! Twelve hours of driving, planned to be relaxed, as opposed to the intense concentration required behind the wheel, especially when driving into the night. We wanted to arrive in Rome relaxed, hoping to spend a kind of second honeymoon in the Eternal City, where Julia and I had now been married for almost two decades.

We didn't talk much -- not because we had nothing to say to each other, but because we were a little tired from the somewhat hectic last hour, wanted to unwind from everyday life and just relax, looking forward to a certain dolce far niente or shopping in Rome and strolling through the Roman Forum again, via Appia venire, testing my very real, if dusty, Latin on the many inscriptions... enjoying a good meal, a great red wine and... yes: celebrating our wedding anniversary the way I still liked to with my wife: in bed, maybe with breakfast in bed... amore and amare! I looked at her. Julia! My wife--in her early fifties, long dark hair tied in a loose bun, a few strands of gray hair mingling with it. A very well-preserved, truly desirable body because it looked so mature. A little too voluptuous, as she used to complain, a kilo or two too many, which I didn't necessarily agree with because the extra weight had settled so beautifully on her still very firm breasts.

Her light summer dress was simple, but it outlined her figure all the more clearly because it fell gently and thus had a wonderfully erotic hint of transparency. Or rather, the lightness of the dress allowed the light to flood through, always offering a hint of her body shape, allowing it to be guessed quite well. Sometimes, probably because of this, Julia still showed a slight insecurity in her body language that almost no one noticed--but I saw it. I knew it. And I knew that she always seemed to be particularly aware of strangers' glances, even if she never admitted it to anyone. Not in the form of self-affirmation or a precursor to flirting -- but... it's hard to describe: I felt that she was comfortable being alone, especially when she was wearing a relatively short dress, which her age and, above all, her legs definitely allowed her to wear. But there seemed to be a slight insecurity about how she came across to others. Or whether her dress was still appropriate for her age and perhaps a little too short, too colorful, too low-cut. Insecurity? Probably not -- but the subtle leap to convincing self-confidence seemed to be missing. Strange that I felt this so intensely at that very moment, while I looked at her with loving admiration.

But I think I must have simply dozed off. It felt like two or even three hours, because the air outside smelled different when I woke up with a start. More like the south, more like dolce far niente, more like bella Italia and the land where lemons bloom.

And then, shortly after the border with Italy, the compartment door opened. Damn, we're not alone anymore, I muttered under my breath, while Julia didn't seem to react at all. Two men got in. Tall. Dark. Athletic. In their early thirties, maybe.

No, more like mid-twenties, was my next impression. One wore a light leather jacket over a tight shirt, the other had a backpack slung casually over his shoulder. Their language sounded soft, melodic, but very masculine -- Italian. The familiar singing quality of the language, always tantalizing, whether in the opera or sul treno.

"È libero qui? Possiamo entrare?" asked one of them in Italian, his smile friendly, almost too confident, so that we could already understand what he was asking. The question was easy to understand from the context alone, but although my Italian wasn't perfect, it was bastante bene, as they say.

"Certamento," I nodded politely. My wife glanced up at me briefly, then at them--just as nice, but alert, with a sparkle in her eyes that could be interpreted as a gentle warning signal, but I didn't really notice it. A short message that she was definitely sending me, as far as I could tell. But should I really have said that this was "riservato," which of course wasn't true and wasn't noted on the reservation cards? So the seats here were "libero," "liberi" even, if you knew how to use the plural correctly in Italian.

The two sat down, one next to me, the other directly across from my wife. The one sitting across from her had medium-length, slightly wavy hair, tanned skin, and three days' stubble that made him look older. He was probably under twenty, I was sure--but that didn't matter. His gaze was open, calm. But there was something else I was beginning to recognize in him: not intrusive, not demanding, certainly not threatening. More like... observant, interested, curious. Or maybe--I was beginning to understand Julia's first instinctive glance--interested and open to anything... a kind of romantic openness, seduction included, flirting always possible... just... typically Italian, perhaps. Che vero?

The other one was dark--not really black, but enough that his origins must have been considerably further south than Sicily. And his Italian wasn't perfect either; he had a dialect that was new to me--probably one of the many that had somehow arrived in Lampedusa years ago.

The conversations started off quite innocently -- the usual banalities, a kind of introduction, nothing formal. Where we were from, what our names were -- although Julia was only really interested in that. Where we were going. That Rome was beautiful, that the beer in Italy was better than its reputation -- actually a ridiculous statement, since we both preferred Montepulciano anyway. Red wine from Abruzzo was better than birra from wherever, whether alla spina or from the bottiglia. The two were called Orlando and Giorgio. Both from Florence. A long-planned vacation through half of Central Europe was now coming to an end. Interrail, as I understood -- a sign of even more youth than I had initially thought. Both under twenty. They laughed a lot. Too much?

I wasn't sure. Not that they smelled of it, but they had certainly had a beer or two. Orlando -- the black one, of course, even if that seems difficult to understand.

O as in Othello, no, that wasn't what I thought. Orlando Furioso, rather, the mad Roland. Although whoever translated Ludovico Ariosto's work must have made a similar dyslexic mistake, like crocodile and cocodrillo, or even worse, kolbassa and klobasse... but it would take too long to explain. I smiled to myself -- also because literary twists and turns began to unfold so wonderfully in my mind.

But what surprised me was that my wife was talking more than usual. Normally reserved with strangers, she began to recount anecdotes from our previous Interrail trips -- about a rainy night in Prague, about the museum in Rotterdam where she stood alone in a hall for hours. About that very traffic jam in Paris, where the taxi driver had asked us not to get out, but to stay in the car for free, even if we could have walked there a hundred times faster. Somehow, I later found out, he had probably discovered through the rearview mirror that she wasn't wearing any panties, and it may be that my wife had given him a glimpse or two, nolens volens. But Julia didn't mention any of that--luckily, I thought, because I was really on pins and needles, wondering what else she was going to reveal. She did talk about the parking attendants in Munich, where women weren't allowed to step onto the grass in high heels, bringing back memories of Virginia Woolf's unforgettable essay and "a room of one's own"... but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have meant much to them if I had drawn the comparative parallel:

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate -- that would have been a good hint, I smiled to myself as I greeted them and they entered the compartment. But had they really read Dante, like me, even in the original?... Never mind, I smiled to myself. So we skipped the descent into Inferno and stayed in Purgatorio, or even Paradiso, which my wife and I had created for each other. The two of them were obviously not very well versed in literature, more into Måneskin and the like, hardly Verdi or Fabrizio de André. They listened to her -- really listened. One with his head slightly bowed, the other with a slight smile. But both very well trained. Surfing -- the kind with a paraglider... a kind of volare, nel blu, di pinto di blu... That floating figure with a blue face, which you have to imagine being painted blue again and then flying through space... volare...

I sat back, silent. Observing. Her voice changed slightly, I knew that. A laugh that went deeper than necessary. A glance that lingered a second too long -- not on me, but on my wife. On her legs, above all, that good hand's breadth of skin showing above her knee. Well tanned and firm. Could it be that this was a kind of flirtation? Or at least a tingling precursor to it?

Julia's descriptions made me think more of Florence: the place where the two of them were supposed to have come from. Florence -- at a time when we weren't even married yet, probably 25 years ago or even longer, because we were together for almost three decades, albeit with a year apart in between, before we decided to get married and commit to a life together. So Florence, probably 25 years ago -- the two of them weren't even born then. A summer rain straight out of a picture book and an equally cheerful sky. A downpour that took us by surprise, but at the same time made us dance in the sun-heated streets, enjoying the wetness that poured down on us from the sky. Julia was wearing a white blouse -- I can still see the image in front of my eyes. She wasn't wearing a bra underneath, just like she isn't now -- her wonderful size and firmness allowed her to go without. It was also more practical -- not only for her, but for me too, I smiled to myself. And her soaking wet blouse clung to her like a second skin. What's more, it revealed her wonderfully firm breasts and nipples, hard from the wet, with a clarity that even complete nudity could not have better depicted or revealed. And I had a hard-on in my pants, so that I could hardly walk with the desire to see her like that and knowing what we would do immediately in our hotel room, also because we had to tear the wet clothes off anyway. And other observers of the spectacle probably felt and experienced the same. Hundreds, I had the impression, couldn't help but zoom their eyes, as if by magic, on this wetness, these breasts, these areolas, and these nipples. In the first park, I literally pounced on her -- only inadequately pushed into the bushes, she blew me, giving me wonderful relief. She even swallowed, which was rather rare -- but it was probably the intoxicating context, the relief from the heat with equally liberating surges from my loins as I spilled myself between her lips.

And just two streets further on, with hundreds more horny glances, I was already wild and hungry again for my then not-yet-wife, my girlfriend, my lover, my Julia. This time at another bush in another park. And this time, I pushed up her skirt, pulled her panties aside, and took her from behind--with such intensity, lust, and horniness that I couldn't hold back for long. That was just as well, because we were almost caught by the Carabinieri--in flagrante delicto, so to speak. She complained about the sticky wetness that smeared down her thighs, smelling so erotic, with that wonderful pouty mouth of hers, while she waddled along in clothes that were totally wet for other reasons. I still remember that laugh and that seductive look in her eyes... and then in the hotel... I don't know how many times we made love. We fucked and rammed until we couldn't anymore and her pussy was sore and I really couldn't get it up anymore -- that would be the drastic way of putting it, but it's very close to the truth. That's the image I thought of when I remembered Interrail and episodes of the two of us.

Somehow I was glad that Julia didn't mention it. Because compared to the museum, where there was no one else, that would have interested the two of them infinitely more.

The lighter-haired one in front of her -- Giorgio, I think -- let his hand rest on his thigh. Broad, strong, relaxed. His fingers twitched slightly every time my wife laughed -- and I had the impression that he had to restrain himself very much so that his hand didn't land on my wife's bare knee as if by accident.

The bottle of red wine turned out to be cheap Czech plonk that they had left over and suddenly conjured up from their backpacks. And the bottle wasn't even a bottle, but a Tetra Pak of wine -- well, suspicions were already rising in the direction of "I'll risk an eye with every sip." But the dark juice tasted surprisingly good, although it may have been relabeled, which was now common practice in the EU. I would have classified it as a Valpolicella, without wanting to pretend to be a wine connoisseur. The Italians had brought other things with them too -- they wanted to "share something," they had said, with that insolently casual grin that didn't come across as arrogant, but natural and always with that subtle erotic hint of flirtation, if not seduction.

There were four of us drinking, small plastic cups balanced on the fold-out table. Four of us and probably too much, because we didn't stop at just one "bottle," i.e., Tetra Pak. My wife drank slowly, but she warmed up faster than usual--the day had been long, the alcohol hit at the end of a long day and heavy limbs, sluggish bones. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, her hair began to slip out of her high bun, and her smile became deeper, more subtle, and her gaze more dreamy, a little more thoughtful, much more feminine and attractive than she already was. After all, she was probably older than the two of them put together. I certainly was, having always been a few years older than my Julia.

And then, I didn't think it was possible--and I didn't know why--Julia brought up another episode. Interrail again! Something along the lines of, "You're from Florence, aren't you...?"

I don't know if my mouth opened so wide that my chin must have hit the table. But there it was, the episode I had been thinking about so intensely before. Telepathy with a corresponding delay. Or perhaps it was due to the red wine, the loose tongue, the slightly cheekier thoughts that seemed to be spreading. I wanted the ground to swallow me up when she described it. From her point of view, it wasn't really different from what I remembered and had experienced and enjoyed with her. With one subtle exception, however, or rather an addition and interpretation. That she described the looks of the others very precisely, not a hundred times, but in such a way that they relished undressing her with their eyes, soaking her up and clearly wanting to do all sorts of things to her. And that it was only a matter of time before it had to happen. And that I was only allowed to act as the instrument of her lust, that also came across clearly in her words. In English, because my Italian wouldn't have been good enough for that -- and hers certainly wasn't. Cazzo, yes, that was clear, and troia and... I didn't want to explore further how that would have been expressed.

Something like esecutore della passione... executor of passion. That had been my role. Not bad, much better than just a fleeting spectator who had been allowed to admire her almost completely naked breasts under her wet blouse.

The two of them grinned broadly and even more broadly, shifting a little restlessly in their seats -- and Julia looked at me somehow with different eyes. Or maybe I already had a slightly clouded gaze, half succumbing to tiredness and then also a little tipsy. The Czech red wine was probably more of a blend with something stronger in it, if I wasn't mistaken. No, no -- definitely not knockout drops or anything like that, surely not, they weren't like that. Or maybe I couldn't handle as much as I used to.

Around half past eleven, Julia pulled her feet up and lay down across the two seats. She laughed again at some slightly risqué comment from Orlando, then closed her eyes. The train jolted through the night, the curtain was half drawn, the light dimmed, and she struggled, probably like me, with the excess red wine and the sleep that gently lulled her temples.