Suitcase

Part of the Compliance series

My suitcase is too big. I am sure I ought to have known this, and I want to kick myself. I was relieved to board the train after dragging my things and myself through the cold rain, after frantically searching for the right waggon. The cozy embrace of the old fashioned carriage with the little metal grid steps leading inside, its rounded windows, and smell of old wood. A relaxing night in the top cot lulled by the soft swaying of the moving train. That is how it should have been.

But when I find my compartment, my suitcase is too big. It doesn’t fit on the little shelf on the side. It just about doesn’t fit under the beds. It doesn’t fit anywhere.

I go to find an employee. He sits in the staff compartment, sipping coffee behind a halfway opened door that communicates I am forced to be available but please don’t disturb me. I go to disturb him, and he shifts a few millimetres in his seat, lifting his bushy eyebrows and dragging his eyes away from his book reluctantly.

“Do you have a luggage room?”, I ask, after showing my ticket.

He frowns as if he does not understand me, then he shakes his head. Briefly I consider elaborating my problem. The longer I take to think, the more ridiculous I feel standing here, his eyes still on me, but clearly wanting to be elsewhere. I mumble a thanks and get out.

In desperation, I leave the suitcase sitting in the middle of the compartment, between the two bed frames on either side. The five other beds are deserted at least, nobody else came in at my station. It will have to do. I climb to my bed at the top and get comfortable, trying not to think about the large suitcase beneath, blocking most of the way. Eventually, the low rumbling and soft swaying reminiscent of an unremembered blissful past in the womb lull me to sleep.

When I wake up again, there is commotion in my cabin: A young man has gotten in. I can see his close-cropped hair from above as he makes some grumbling comment and then quickly manoeuvres his backpack and finally himself over the suitcase blocking the way from bed to bed. Fortunately, he is agile. He climbs up to my level and gets in opposite me. When he notices that I am still awake, he gives me a brief glance-over but does not speak, and I quickly shut my eyes again.

The next time I awaken, it is one in the morning. It is warm up here in the top cot, but my tired body is still alarmed at the idea of exposing even a tiny bit of itself to the air outside the blanket. There are voices audible below, and I am indignant. Do they have to make such a bustle? Then I suddenly remember the suitcase, and the adrenaline rush causes me to fling off my blanket after all. I peer down.

My massive suitcase between the two beds leaves almost no space to walk. The couple that has just entered is awkwardly trying to arrange themselves in the two lowest bunks around it. I get on the ladder and climb to just above the suitcase, and they look up.

“This yours?”

“I’m sorry”, I say. “I tried to put it under the bed, but it won’t fit.”

“Obviously”, says the man.

“I guess we could use it as a table”, says the woman and gives a half-hearted little laugh.

“I could try to move it a bit”, I say, even though it is utterly hopeless, and make a show of pushing it around a little.

“No need”, the guy tries to say and exchanges a glance with his girlfriend. He searches his pockets for his ticket, and I realise that the door has been opened behind me. The employee from earlier is standing there.

The man hands over their tickets, and after finding them to his satisfaction, the employee turns to look at the suitcase.

“And what is this monstrosity?”, he says.

“It’s my suitcase”, I say. “It doesn’t fit under the bed.”

The employee frowns.

“Of course it doesn’t fit. It is much bigger than what we can transport according to the passenger regulation. Didn’t you check it beforehand?”

I look at him, flustered, and try to remember all the things attached to this trip that I looked at in the past weeks. Why didn’t I read the passenger regulations? Is that not an obvious thing to do?

“I’m sorry”, I say meekly.

The employee lets out a sigh and looks at the suitcase as if considering an especially difficult mathematical equation.

“I’m not sure if we can… how to solve this”, he says. “It’s obstructing the other passengers.”

I shoot a hopeful glance at the couple, but their faces remain carefully blank.

“It’s a security risk”, the employee continues. “The pathway here must be clear in case of fire.”

“What about outside?”, I suggest.

“The corridors outside must also be clear in case of fire. The suitcase has to go.”

I stare at him.

“Like, leave the train? Isn’t there space anywhere?”

“Not for this.”

“Can’t you make an exception?”

He just gives a half shrug, which I think means that this is above him.

I look at the suitcase where it is hunkering between the beds and am suddenly gripped by a sense of fierce, defiant loyalty to my oversized travel companion.

“If the suitcase goes, I go”, I say, my chin up.

It does not have the desired effect. The employee just shrugs.

“Have it your way”, he says.

And so I find myself on the little platform of some small town train station in the middle of Germany at one thirty in the morning, with my head shrinking away from the cold and a growing sense of existential dread in my belly.

There is a large building on one side of the platform, clearly the train station. Unfortunately, it is closed at this time of night. On the other side of the tracks I can see houses, faintly illuminated by some street lights. All the windows are dark. I have a vision of the residents lying in their warm beds, and the groggy confusion they would display if I were to ring at one of the houses and awaken them. In my mind’s eye I can see an overtired triple mother, frowning at me, saying: “What are you doing here of all places at this time?”

I check my phone, but the battery is low. I was going to charge it in the train, but of course, I forgot over the suitcase situation, and now it is too late. Why do I get thrown off so easily? I have just enough time to open maps and figure out the name of this town, and the fact that it has no hotels, not even a pub. Then my phone dies, before I can even check if there is a taxi company. Maybe I should ring a random doorbell after all? It would probably be the smart thing to do, but I am embarrassed. It is also the middle of the night, and I find myself unable to overcome the steep energy barrier towards inconveniencing another person. I am not that desperate yet.

There is a little paved walkway on the side of the tracks, with a field to the right of it. Dragging my enormous suitcase behind me, I cross over to the path and start walking, in the direction that the train was going. I am not entirely sure what that will accomplish, I certainly won’t walk the entire way. But it is action, and action is the thin fence keeping desolation outside.

I last about half an hour. The town is no longer visible, and there are no more lights anywhere, beside the moon occasionally surfacing from behind the clouds. I am surrounded by dark fields, the growth at this time of the year is about knee-high. Whatever is growing there is swallowing every bit of light, and only the paved path is a lighter grey. The underlying dread about the situation finally worms its way up in my overcrowded mind through the embarrassment and anger about the scene on the train. Where am I actually heading? At this rate, dragging my gigantic suitcase behind me, I will not reach anywhere even if I keep going the whole night.

What makes me finally stop is the sight of a forest ahead of me. It is already dark out here, the only reason I can see anything is likely light smog coming from the surrounding villages, however far away they are. In the woods it will be total blackness. And I am bone tired, after all, it is the middle of the night.

Then I feel the first drop.

No, I think angrily, it can’t be raining. It is too much bad luck, the universe cannot be this unfair. The face of the train employee flashes in front of my eyes and I curse at him, and imagine him seeing me now, and how he would blush with rightful shame over what he has done to me. Then I rage at the clouds above me and at my grotesquely large suitcase, only barely resisting an instinct to kick it square in the side. At this point, a trickle of rain makes it through my collar and runs disgustingly cold down my back, and I sigh and start at a trot towards the forest, dragging the plastic giant along. I half walk, half run along the path, my breast raspy, my clothes slowly starting to soak through. For a moment I consider taking refuge inside my humongous suitcase, and just sleeping through the night there. But then I would have to throw out some of my possessions. As I round the last curve before the forest I stop dead, elated.

There is a hut.

It is a tiny hut, a triangular structure of two wooden roofs reaching down to the floor, with a wall in the back end and an open front. But a hut nonetheless.

Barely believing my luck, I rush towards it. There is no space for my vast suitcase, but it doesn’t matter: The suitcase is hard plastic, it can survive the rain. Inside there are two benches under the left and right roof, and I throw down my backpack on one of them and sit down on the other. The hut is made out of sturdy wooden beams and no water is coming through. It is cramped and dirty, but right now it feels like home. I grin a little bit as I sink down on the bench, and look over at my suitcase.

“See”, I say. “We’re good. As if I would abandon you.”

I take out some of my extra clothes and try to make myself comfortable, but the excitement is still too palpable in my body to fall asleep. I look up at the beams above me and listen to the rain drumming on the wooden beams for a while, peace descending on me with every drop. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last. It never does: I am, after all, human, and the calm always draws a crowd. It starts with the reconstruction of the scene on the train, with every corner of my mind pitching in about how the embarrassment was experienced there. Then follows the detailed analysis of every decision made, and in between, to add variation, some doubts about the quality and safety of my current dwelling place. At least those last ones I manage to silence by a moral exhortation to gratitude. My phone is dead, and while I do carry a small flashlight, I have already finished my one book earlier in the day, so I am out of things to occupy myself with.

Outside I hear the battering of the rain, and I am hoping fervently that it is enough to keep away whatever animals exist in this part of the country. It certainly ought to be enough to discourage crazy criminals from wandering the land.

Finally I give in to the unease and get up again. A thought has been humming away steadily at the back door of my mind, and I can bear it no longer, I grab the backpack and pull out my train ticket. I illuminate it with my flashlight and leaf through the multiple sheets that I printed because I could not be bothered to limit it to one page. The back pages are covered with small print, the infamous passenger regulation, and I begin to scan it for information about the luggage. Was I in the right? Or in the wrong? What else did I miss that could have become my doom?

And I know, I really do know. This is not the time nor the place. I was so relieved to have found this shelter, I felt the peace descend on me, should I not stick with that for tonight? I wish, I wish, that I could take the little hut with me, my island of protection from the elements, in my backpack, or in my heart, at all times. Then, perhaps, things could be different. Until then, my lot is the passenger regulation.