Unsent Letters #35

The subway

Photo by Heye Jensen on Unsplash, rendered black & white by me

Dear L.,

You know how much I love riding the subway, crossing the city underground from one end to the other inside those trains that run like blood flowing in bursts through the veins of a body, yet always reaching its destination. The mystery of descending the steps of a station on one corner of a famous street, diving into a sea of earth, steel, and concrete, and resurfacing at another corner on the city's edge, unfamous, rarely mentioned except in an old Buzzati novel, almost forgotten, where the air feels different, the trees sway at the lightest breeze, and time flows with a strange cadence.

How many times did I force you to accompany me on those infinite journeys when we were in college? Suddenly, I would be seized by the urge -- usually after nine or ten o’clock at night -- to descend the stairs of the subway station at the corner of Via De Amicis and Via Olona, or walk a few minutes to the Cadorna station, board a train, any train, and travel to the end of the line. There, we would resurface in a different world, breathe in the air, look around for a while, and then head back down to board the train in the opposite direction, repeating the same ritual at the other end of the line. I can picture you nodding with a hint of a smile -- one of those where your eyes smile first and the rest of your face follows, curling the corners of your lips without opening them. Yes, I know you didn’t love those expeditions; not particularly. But in the name of our close friendship, you would submit and follow me, not that reluctantly either. And I, in turn, would do the same with your obsessions, like going to the airport to watch planes take off and land. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten that one time when, a mere two or three weeks after we met, you came over after dinner and, in response to my question, what shall we do, where shall we go?, you promptly replied, let’s go to Linate to watch the planes. You carried an umbrella that evening, even though the probability of rain was a tiny fraction of one percent. So I guess we’re even, aren’t we.

My love for the subway continued after our college years, when each of us, as if wrapped in a protective layer of warm gauze, slowly became isolated within our respective worlds of deadlines and responsibilities, losing sight of each other. The difference -- and not a small one to me -- is that while back then we would ride together and talk, now I spend some of my solitude reading, and some observing others. And it’s for the others, I’ve discovered, that I would spend all my time down there if I could, in that in-between world where humans transit, and as they do, they think, and as they think, their guards drop, their thoughts appearing on their faces as if inviting you to observe them. It doesn’t happen everywhere; it happens down there, where you find yourself in a magical dimension, feeding on others in a way you never could anywhere else. And every time you emerge from below, your soul is full of humanity, overflowing with fragments of unknown lives -- fragments that, for a brief moment, allow you to experience their moods and cries, their anger and joy. All hidden, yet visible.

And observing people becomes more intense the fewer there are left in the carriage, as the train approaches the end of the line. Until, at some point, observing turns into studying -- studying their body movements, their expressions, the way they handle things like a book or a bag (if they’re looking at their phones’ screens, I’m not interested), or scratch their heads, how they suddenly realize the next stop is theirs, as if regaining their presence after a time of absence, or waking from a soft torpor.

Last night, overwhelmed by the thousands of thoughts that have become a constant in my life these past few years, I went out and walked to the Lanza station, in front of the Piccolo Teatro, where, almost like an automaton, I boarded the train to Gessate. It was unusually crowded for a ten thirty ride, especially on a Tuesday, but right around the stops of Cimiano or Crescenzago, it started to empty. So I stepped out of my thoughts and, still unfocused, involuntarily fixed my gaze on someone seated opposite me, about ten meters to the left, as if he were a magnet for my eyes. I was pretty sure it was Roberto Bolaño, or someone who was the spitting image of him. He was looking straight ahead and up, as if reading the advertisements posted there. He wore his curly hair short, and round glasses, like he did in the final years of his life, and seemed to be absorbed by what he was reading. Which I found amusing, since those ads are usually about low-cost cosmetic surgery or painless procedures for eliminating bodily excrescences. But maybe he wasn’t staring at that, or the ads were about something else. He craned his head toward me, and I looked away. A moment later, when I looked back, he was gone. The train car was empty, two stops away from the end of the line.

At eleven forty-four, when I stepped off the train, the platform at Gessate was empty, enveloped in a surreal silence. Outside, the air was still and the parking lot deserted; not a sound, not even in the distance. I looked around at a world completely different from the one where I had boarded. My phone said that the time was still eleven forty-four, even though I knew that a good ten minutes, at least, had passed since I had last checked. On a bench no more than twenty meters to the left of where I was standing, Bolaño, or his doppelgänger, sat smoking a cigarette, his legs crossed. Didn’t he get off three or four stops ago?, I thought.

He gestured to me to come closer. Instinctively, I pointed at myself, tapping my chest with my index finger. Who else is around? he said, spreading his arms wide. You know, he started when I was close, reading is always more important than writing. He took a drag on his cigarette. Some might tell you otherwise, but the truth is that writing develops by reading. Then he looked at me. Read, always read, never grow tired of reading, he whispered, squinting against the smoke. Read at your desk, read in bed, read while walking. I had a friend who used to read while taking a shower: he would hold the book in one hand and stretch his arm out of the falling water. His books were always damp, he concluded with a smile. For me, writing was more important than reading only on one occasion, he said, seriously. I was already sick when I was working on 2666, but I kept at it and writing in that case helped me cope with the disease; I don’t think reading could have exerted the same effect. Then I died and left it unfinished.

When I realized that it was really him, a thick, sulfurous vapor rose out of nowhere and his figure started to fade, leaving only his eyes fully visible, of a scintillating yellow, behind the vapor. Until he vanished completely, and the air cleared. In that very moment, I felt his absence, a sudden longing for him to return and say more. He was gone, this time for good. Maybe I’ll see him again on the train ride back, I thought, as I turned toward the station.

But the train was empty, and my phone's locked screen read eleven forty-four.

---

"Unsent Letters" is a series released every other week. These are imaginary letters to fictitious or real individuals who may or may not have influenced my life, not always mirroring actual events.

If you liked what you read, I’d be truly grateful if you shared it.

And if you’re not yet a subscriber and just stumbled upon this page because someone shared it or by divine intervention, and you liked it, please do subscribe to receive my writing every week in your inbox.