Confessions of a Left-Handed Man: An Artist's Memoir

Estranged on a Train

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EstrangedonaTrain With SNCF anything is possible. —French railway promotion E ver since I was thirteen, when I first saw Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest, I’d fantasized about having an affair aboard a train. So when, seven years later, I found myself alone in the sleeping car on the night train from Paris to Toulouse with a beautiful, sophisticated Parisian woman (Michelle: ash-blond hair, green eyes, no makeup), I was beside myself with anticipation. When the conductor came by to check our tickets and told her she was in the wrong wagon, my heart fell. However, the conductor went on to say that she might as well stay where she was, since we two had practically the entire train to ourselves. “But what about the signs?” asked Michelle, referring to the little white cards marked “reserve” posted beside every couchette. The conductor smiled and shrugged as if to say, “With SNCF (Systéme Nationale de Chemin de Fers Français), anything is possible.” So went the publicity slogan of the French National Railway System. In any event, Michelle and I were left alone. We spoke. About books mostly, and Henry Miller in particular, since he turned out to be Michelle’s favorite American author, Sexus being her favorite of his books. A good sign, I thought. She asked me, “Qu’est-ce que tu aimes?” meaning “What do you like?” I could have told her many things, such as how I liked leaning against an open train window at night with Europe whizzing by and the wind whipping my hair, and an attractive woman who likes Henry Miller by my side. Instead I said, “I like Nelson Algren.” Being French, she knew who Nelson Algren was; already I’d discovered that the French know our writ- Estranged on a Train 77 ers better than we do. But Michelle had actually read Algren—both The Man with the Golden Arm and A Walk on the Wild Side. I’d struck gold—French gold in an empty sleeping car at night! Since sleep under strange circumstances never came easily for me, I had my trusty Valium supply on hand: four tiny canary-yellow pills in a prescription vial my mother had given me and that I kept in my pocket. But now I had second—and third, and even fourth— thoughts about taking any. Alone in the dark sleeping car, the French countryside rolling by under a veil of stars, our forearm hairs commingled as we stood side by side with the humid night air blowing past our faces. . . . I thought of the last scene in North by Northwest, where Cary Grant hoists Eva Marie Saint up into his couchette and the train plunges into a dark tunnel . . . We spoke in hushed voices for several hours, sharing my bottle of water, Michelle having forgotten hers at the station. And she wasn’t tired; I got the feeling she could talk all night. If only she’d come right out and proposition me, pull me into her couchette with her. She was Parisian, she was sophisticated. Eva Marie Saint would have done no less. Besides, I was too shy to make a move. Finally I said I was going to my couchette, that I’d be lying down there, adding that I wasn’t really tired and, if she wanted to, if she felt like it, she could take the couchette next to mine and we could continue our conversation. Michelle gave me a look. The look was half-sly, half-annoyed. “Is that all right?” I asked. “Oui.” She gave a toss of her limp bangs, then refocused her gaze back out the window, into darkness. “You’re not afraid to sleep in the same compartment with me, are you?” I asked. She smiled. “No,” she said. “I’m not afraid. I’ve slept with many strange men in many trains before.” The ambiguity was, I felt certain, intentional. “But I’m not tired. I’ll be here for a while.” “Will you join me—I mean, when you get tired?” “Tu ne veux pas me draguer?” Draguer is an interesting French verb. It means literally to drag up or to dredge, what a minesweeper does. In this context, however, it meant “pick me up,” as in seduce, though by the sound of the word you’d think something more like rape was implied. 78 Estranged on a Train “No, no,” I lied. “Of course not...