The Tango

The Tango
It’s November in Bulgaria and it’s cold. The sun is recently set and the snowflakes gently falling are each illuminated by streetlights lining the walk in front of the open station. There are few of us, scattered about the floor, waiting for the delayed train. A man walks by, spurring envy in the eyes of all that catch him, his cheeks are graced by rosy patches of warmth. The source of his glow does not escape my nose as he passes within reach.
“Honey, how many levs are left?” I ask.
She checks her wallet.
“Fifteen. And some change” she replies.
I take it. The train we’re awaiting will take us to the mountains of Northern Romania and we don’t have enough to justify converting lev to lei. I walk the fifty meters to the sole concession stand, hold out the money and mutter one of the few Bulgarian words I’ve picked up in our brief stay.
“Rakija.”
The bundled woman hands me a plastic bag and my change. I take the contents over to Paula and smile. The air, informing us of the maladies in our travel-worn coats, will no longer cause discomfort to the core. Following the rosy-cheeked man’s example, I leave the bottle in the bag, unscrew the cap and take a long pull. The harsh liquor brings tears to my eyes, tears in danger of freezing to my cheeks. A burning in my throat, readily diffusing the warmth to my extremities, surpasses the cold in my face. Paula takes a sip and a coughing fit lets me know she too feels the effects.
A horn blasts.
We gather our packs and make for the train. The car greets us with an open door and a frigid, accumulated cold. Temperature notwithstanding, the cushioned chairs are a welcome relief from our packs, and the bottle of rakija promises to turn the cold’s mockery to scorn by way of its liquid defiance.
Leigh, an Irishman working in Sophia sits across from us. Noticing that my red hair is not typical of Bulgaria, he greets us in English and a friendship is formed. We offer him a shot of warmth and he gladly accepts. A round or two goes by and the cold doesn’t feel all that bad. Fearing for the health of other passengers, Leigh asks the conductor to please turn the heater on. The conductor complies and within minutes we’re shedding coats. Another round goes by and I visit the lavatory, struggling to free my legs from the once protective, now sweltering, long underwear. The rounds cease. The windows are sealed. The conductor walks by, sweat dripping off his brow, and speaks to Leigh in an apologetic tone. Acting as interpreter, Leigh explains that the heater is stuck on high.
Paula, then Leigh, then just about everyone on the train mimics my visit to the rattling restroom. The train seems to be slowing; we’re approaching our first stop. An orderly evacuation ensues, everyone relishing in the sweet chill of mountain air. Minutes pass, just long enough for sweat to freeze, and the whistle blows. Reluctantly, we enter our cabin, blood already beginning to boil. It’s been an hour, six to go.


On the bright side, we sweat the consumed rakija out before it could induce a hangover. That ride on the Devil’s train is in the past. Like all our previous troubles, we leave them in the country in which they were born. A bad night’s sleep can’t sway us from enjoying our home for the next few days: Braşov. Having bid adieu to Leigh at the Romanian border hours before, the two of us hoist our packs and begin the compulsory search for a computer.
It’s early and we’re the first ones in the café. I order two black coffees as Paula logs in. We’ve got a new message; CouchSurfing you’ve done it again. In response to the email we sent out last night, Jason, an American ex-pat, has invited us to stay with him and his Romanian girlfriend, Oana. Under his direction, we negotiate the urban tango: metro, bus, walk left, then right… and we’re at his house in time for breakfast.
Cups of coffee and Romanian sweets mark the days that pass with our new friends and with a blink; it’s time to take the train back the way we came. Destination: Bucharest.
Our train is again late, but the sun is shining and we have a CouchSurfer ready to pick us up the moment we arrive. Eventually our train appears and we situate ourselves onboard with newly acquired reading material; a crucial aspect to a three month trip. Brontë and Yeats. We cuddle up and enjoy our books as we fly down the tracks, embracing uncertainty.
The train pulls in to the station, void of the perils of previous trips. As per our instructions, we make our way to the front of station, arrange our packs as seats, and we wait. We wait and we wait. Never before has a CouchSurfer stood us up. We wait.
“Patrick? Paula?” a voice asks from our rear.
I relieve the pent up stress with a laugh.
“Florin!”
He apologizes for his tardiness, we say it was nothing, and he takes us home. Florin is the recent recipient of a degree in philosophy and the conversational turn to things big and deep confirm it. The bus drops us off in front of a massive, concrete pawn shop on a dimly lit street. The uninviting, soviet-style architecture adds ominously to the weight of the night. Florin directs us behind the building, up a flight of unadorned concrete stairs, through halls lit fluorescently and to a door from which smells of heaven waft. We’re starving.
Florin opens the door and his father greets us with a hug, a kiss for Paula, and tea for both. Enter Florin’s mother. Maybe it was the maternal instinct that told her, maybe it was just another example of unprecedented hospitality, but we were yanked from our chairs and our tea was replaced with heaps of food: simple polenta, sautéed criminis, hunks of feta and weak wine. Plates were thrust into our hands and in rapid fire Romanian, we were told to recuperate from our travels, to fill our stomachs, to abolish hunger and want for naught. Before Florin was done translating, my plate was full and satiation on the horizon.
During dinner, we were asked if we would like to attend a concert.
“We’ve got a flight in the morning. At eight. We should be at the airport at six. How long does it take to get to the airport?” Paula the Planner asks.
“An hour and a half with a fast taxi” Florin informs us.
“That doesn’t leave us much time” I mention.
“You’re right! Let’s move!”
Properly stuffed we thank our one night surrogate and Florin begs his father to do the dishes for him so that we might make the concert. Aiming for punctuality, Florin races us to the door and before we know it, we’re on our way to pick up his girlfriend en route to the concert. It’s nine now, we leave in seven hours for Rome.
Ştefania is every bit as charming as Florin promised. We descend to a basement bar and are greeted by a dirty fog of smoke, body odors and beer. The assault on our nostrils pales in comparison to the assault on our ears.
“It smells like sand, sand” the speakers scream.
I need a beer and an oxygen mask. Paula’s eyes tell me her needs are similar. Trying to ration the remaining lei, needing enough for our taxi ride in six hours, I buy four of the bars cheapest and distribute them among us.
“It smells like sand, sand”.
We have, apparently, missed the first bands and the headliners have just come on.
“It smells like sand, sand”.
What does that mean? I follow Paula, who’s trying to find the stage in this underground…dungeon. We turn the corner and there she is. The six foot two singer is stationed behind microphone and keyboard. She’s built, at least two hundred pounds; she wouldn’t look out of place among linebackers. That is to say, if it weren’t for the booty shorts, fishnets and bra that comprise her entire outfit and the lyrics she screams from the core of her being, “It smells like sand, sand”. I need another beer.
The concert rages as Florin and Ştefania mercifully direct us skywards. We’re just not cut out for this. We ascend the stairs and our lungs welcome the cool, damp night air. A yellow fog bringing T.S. Eliot to mind, engulfs us, obscuring the definition of my own hand at an arm’s length. My kind of night.
We tango that urban tango and run through the deserted streets of Bucharest until the neon light of the pawnshop welcomes us home.
Exhaustion takes us as we lay upon our couch. Two hours later, our schedule wakes us.
Goodbye East, hello West.