Too much happiness_ stories - Alice Munro [126]
There came a time—surely it was near midnight—when they had to leave this train for good. They had reached the border of Denmark. Helsingor. The land border, at least—she supposed the true border was somewhere out in the Kattegat.
And there was the last ferry, waiting for them, looking large and pleasant, with its many bright lights. And here came a porter to carry her bags on board, and thank her for her Danish coins and hasten away. Then she showed her ticket to the officer on board and he spoke to her in Swedish. He assured her that they would make connections on the other side with the train for Stockholm. She would not have to spend the rest of the night in a waiting room.
“I feel as if I have come back to civilization,” she said to him. He looked at her with slight misgiving. Her voice was a croak, though the coffee had helped her throat. It is just because he is a Swede, she thought. It is not necessary to smile or pass remarks among the Swedes. Civility can be maintained without that.
The crossing was a little rough, but she was not seasick. She remembered the tablet but she did not need it. And the boat must have been heated, because some people had taken off the upper layer of their winter clothing. But she still shivered. Perhaps it was necessary to shiver, she had collected so much cold in her body in her journey through Denmark. It had been stored inside her, the cold, and now she could shiver it out.
The train for Stockholm was waiting, as promised, in the busy port of Helsingborg, so much livelier and larger than its similarly named cousin across the water. The Swedes might not smile at you, but the information they gave out would be correct. A porter reached for her bags and held them while she searched in her purse for some coins. She took a generous number out and put them in his hand, thinking they were Danish; she would not need them anymore.
They were Danish. He gave them back to her, saying in Swedish, “These will not do.”
“They are all I have,” she cried, realizing two things. Her throat felt better and indeed she had no Swedish money.
He put down her bags and walked away.
French money, German money, Danish money. She had forgotten Swedish.
The train was getting up steam, the passengers boarding, while she still stood there in her quandary. She could not carry her bags. But if she could not, they would be left behind.
She grasped the various straps and started to run. She ran lurching and panting with a pain in her chest and around under her arms and the bags bumping against her legs. There were steps to climb. If she stopped for a breath she would be too late. She climbed. With tears of self-pity filling her eyes she beseeched the train not to move.
And it did not. Not till the conductor, leaning out to fasten the door, caught her arm, then somehow managed to catch her bags and pulled all aboard.
Once saved, she began to cough. She was trying to cough something out of her chest. The pain, out of her chest. The pain and tightness out of her throat. But she had to follow the conductor to her compartment, and she was laughing with triumph in between spells of coughing. The conductor looked into a compartment where there were already some people sitting, then took her along to one that was empty.
“You were right. To put me where I cannot. Be a nuisance,” she said, beaming. “I didn’t have money. Swedish money. All other kinds but Swedish. I had to run. I never thought I could—”
He told her to sit down and save her breath. He went away and came back soon with a glass of water. As she drank she thought of the tablet that had been given her, and took it with the last gulp of water. The coughing subsided.
“You must not do that again,” he said. “Your chest is heaving. Up and down.”
Swedes were very frank, as well as being reserved and punctual.
“Wait,” she said.
For there was something else to