Reminiscences 10

Which Way?

At first, this seemed like it wouldn’t be a big problem. Ben was used to the London underground where many a time he had negotiated his way around even previously unknown areas without a map of his own, just using the signs, tube network information and handy ‘you are here’ maps dotted around all over the place. However, he soon discovered that Bucharest was a different kettle of fish.

As he descended the stairs down onto the platform, he began looking around for a map of the different stations. He thought he would just pick one that looked like it was somewhere central in the city and head there. To his dismay though, there was no sign anywhere showing a map of the stations and not even a handy little sign at least stating which direction each line was heading. There were two possibilities and Ben was now faced with the slightly risky task of jumping on one of them and going on a magical mystery tour to see where it would take him.

He could have tried to ask someone for assistance, but his Romanian certainly wasn’t up to discussing such things, and he didn’t fancy his chances of finding someone whose English was. He thus spent a few despondent moments on the platform contemplating what to do. It wasn’t by any means the end of the world, but on the other hand, he didn’t really want to get lost in this unknown city, where most people spoke a language only slightly discernible to him.

As he weighed up his options, a solution became evident. Underground trains glided in and out of the station, stopping to his left and right as he was standing on the platform between them. He noticed that inside of one of the trains there was what looked like a map of some kind, and so this gave birth to an idea. If there was a map inside the trains, why didn’t he just take the opportunity to spy through the open doors while people were getting on and off the train in order to work out which direction he needed to go?

He braced himself and when the next train came to a halt alongside him, he skilfully manoeuvred himself to a position where he could see into the train while people were alighting. At first, he tried to look through the window so as to not obstruct too much the passengers, but this proved tricky as the glass wasn’t so clear. Gradually, he shuffled to one side so that he could now peer through the open sliding doors giving himself a much better view. The map was however small and not so easy to read as he wasn’t familiar with it. He moved closer to the doorway to get a better look. As he was trying to decipher what was what, suddenly he heard a voice shouting. At first, he tutted in his mind, people these days, always there’s someone disturbing the peace! All of a sudden though, he realised that there was no one else around him.

'Ce faceți? Îndepărtați-vă de la ușa! Nu vedeți că trebuie să plecam!' cried out the voice again.

Ben looked to his side and saw an angry looking man, dressed like a train driver, from whom the shouts were originating. It immediately dawned on Ben that these were not the cries of wanton merriment, but rather the anger of an annoyed train driver who couldn’t start his train because a lost Englishman was standing too close to it to close one set of doors!

Suddenly a wave of embarrassment came over him. His map reading efforts were holding up the whole train! He quickly withdrew from his position, trying to look as cool and innocent as possible. This appeased the train driver who turned and returned to the cabin at the front of the train. Within a few seconds, the train then whirred into life and departed.

Ben was frustrated because, in spite of his embarrassing deed of delaying the train, he was none the wiser as to which direction to head in. Reason nevertheless soon took over and he realised to himself that if he just jumped into one of the trains he would be able to study the map at leisure and even it wasn’t the right direction, there was nothing much lost. He could just get off at the next station, cross the platform and head back on the next train in the other direction. Logic was such a helpful thing. Why didn’t he use it more often?, he mused to himself.

His plan worked a treat, with one slight flaw. Due to his embarrassment, he couldn’t bring himself to get on the next train going in the direction of the train that he had held up, so instead, he waited for and then jumped on the next train going in the opposite direction. Sure enough, he was then able to approach the station map and begin studying it. A problem though was that there wasn’t a station marked with a word like ‘centre’ to enable him to work out where to get off for the city centre. Maybe Bucharest didn’t have a centre, he thought to himself.

Although a setback, Ben’s powers of logic were now well warmed up and so he struck upon a simple solution. He picked an interesting looking station ‘Universitate’ (he felt like he had a good idea what he would find there) and decided to get off there. Then, he could go for a wander around, get a feel for the place and when the time was right, return to this station and hop on the train back in the other direction until he reached his starting point ‘Crângași’. Pure genius!

Image by Rama Krishna Karumanchi from Pixabay