Night Train to Sicily

After I returned from my beach trip, I had to quickly organize my things in order to catch the 9 p.m. night train for Sicily at Campo di Marte, the smaller train station in Florence. It would take precisely 12 hours to reach Catania Centrale.

As soon as I got on the train, I could feel the difference. The people were not stuffy, confined or presumptuous. I loved it. Southerners are raw. Plus they have particular sense of humor that is light with a touch of sarcasm.

The men are men; easy going, but rough at the same time. And they do not apologize for using their animal instinct. It is attractive.

Everyone on the train was smoking out of the window. My favorite is watching a Southern man, preferably Sicilian, smoke a cigarette. Just at the point when the smoke drifts up to his eyes, stinging them, he squints, takes a drag, exhales and slouches back; holding the cigarette with force yet a stroke of gentleness — the way a woman should be held.

Northerners would not dare try to smoke on the train; but this train was headed South where there are no rules.

My compartment had six bed bunks or cuccette. When I entered, all I saw were seats, no beds. It worried me a bit. My roommates, two couples and one guy traveling with his black cat, caught onto to my distress and assured me that the seats would be converted into beds.

Everyone was curious about me. They helped me load my heavy suitcase to the top level of the compartment. When I was not looking, they checked my tags to see where I was from. I know this now, because in a later conversation, they told me I was from Cleveland.

Once I was situated, some trouble began. Two train attendants came about, and asked me if I was traveling alone. “Yes,” I said.

It was past 9 p.m. and the train had not left the station.

“Can you help us? There is a room with five women and we made a mistake and gave the sixth ticket to a man. Would you switch with him,” they asked me. “But you are not obligated, you are not obligated.”

“Uhh, I don’t know,” I said. “I hate to stay with five other women. I don’t know.”

“You’re not obligated.”

“Well where would I sleep, I don’t want to sleep on the bottom. I don’t know. Who are these women?”

I did not give a direct answer because I felt pressure, but I really did not want to move.

The two men left to check about where I would lay my head. Meanwhile all of my roommates were telling me “no stay here, tranquilla (I do not know the exact translation for this in English, but it is a term that signifies calmness/no worries). It’s their fault, not yours. You’re already situated.”

The two men came back.

“They said you can have the top bunk. Will you switch? Remember you are not obligated.”

The train still had not left the station. Was I holding it up? “What if I said no? Does that mean we wait until the man finds a spot,” I asked.

No answer. The two men looked worrisome and one walked about from my compartment back to the other, preparing for the switch. The other continued to ask me to switch, always reminding me I was not obligated.

Then two carabiniere (police) came to the door. One had medium length dark brown, almost black hair and dark eyes — very attractive. He stared me down. Italian men, especially those south of Rome which is where most carabiniere arefrom, feel no shame about openly scanning a woman. It is always the same move. The mouth stays shut and the eyes speak for him, fixating on her until she returns the stare, just as this policeman was doing to me now. I was too busy trying to pacify the train attendants, who were in a compromising situation, to return the gesture. They were also watching me waiting for an answer. “Remember you’re not obligated,” they repeated.

“You say I’m not obligated, but you are all making me feel obligated.” That is when I finally said no.

They left. I guess they were kicking him off the train. My roommates were still telling me to stick by my decision. “Don’t move. We all get along and we’ll keep each other company.”

The train attendants and policemen passed in front of my door, with large knapsack bags in hand. Obviously the bags belonged to the man with the wrong ticket. Close behind them was a tall, lanky African man who looked like he spent weeks trekking across the Sahara.

He stopped at my door. He begged me in broken Italian to switch places. My roommates took one look at him and held their breath. Silence fell over the compartment. No one said a word, but their eyes —widened — flashed back at me panic. “NO!!!! Don’t leave us with him,” their eyes silently screamed.

I felt bad for this man, but I had already said no. Plus, these people would kill me for leaving them with an African. In the end, I reaffirmed the “no.” And everyone in the compartment exhaled.

Unfortunately, the African was kicked off the train. I find it hard to believe that I was the only woman traveling alone. I think that maybe they really did not try that hard to find him a seat. The train company made a mistake in giving him a spot in a room designated for women only. He should have been placed in another compartment. On the other hand, he did just buy his ticket. The others on the train, such as me, had reserved our seats weeks in advance.

Daniela and Giuseppe, the younger of the two couples, fixed all the beds. The room was compact, with just enough space for everyone and everything. She had to straddle the lower bunks below in order to reach top bunks.

Daniela and Giuseppe fixing the bunks.

Looking down from the top.

I liked my group. When I first got on the train, I was still feeling a bit low from the trip to Bibbona, but being with Sicilians and Calabrese, rejuvenated me. Hearing Sicilian dialect was like coming home.

In the morning, the train stopped in Calabria. The train cars rolled onto the traghetto, the ferry that crosses the Strait of Messina. Once the cars were curled inside the ship, we were allowed to go on deck.

“Qual ѐ la Sicilia,” I a little boy curiously asked his father. Straight ahead was the Pearl of the Mediterranean. There is Sicily.

Sicilia!!!!! Che Bella!

From the traghetto - the ferry makes its way to the city of Messina.

*Leading photo: the train curled inside the traghetto.*