Arthur Chrenkoff

Arthur Chrenkoff was born in communist Poland in 1972 and as a teenager migrated to Australia. He's a non-practicing lawyer currently working in politics. Since the age of five he's had a passion for books and writing, and intends to make a living out of it one day. He lives in Brisbane, Queensland, with his wife and a spoiled cat.

Excerpt - I

It was the middle of the day and the station platform was almost empty. Smartly dressed professionals working in the city had disappeared onboard the suburban train a good few hours ago, taking with them their leather briefcases, rolled up newspapers and bored looks. School children were long gone too, and the station, buffered from main roads by rows of houses and walls of trees, seemed to be in a world of its own, like an insect suspended in a drop of amber.

I was standing towards the end of the platform, sharing it with three other people. There was a dishevelled schoolboy very late for school, swinging his legs from a bench too high for him, and a few paces away
from him an unhealthy looking pensioner, his parchment-like skin tightly wrapped around his head as if his old skull were a precious gift. He was sweating profusely, dressed in woollen suit two sizes too big that was now suffocating him in the middle of a humid summer day.

And then he was there, an old man in a grey tweed suit, sitting on a bench against the wall of the station building. Later, I would wish that I’d not have paid him any attention and forgotten about him as the train took me away. But now I realise that it wouldn’t have mattered. I don’t have the luxury of believing in coincidences anymore, and I know that if it hadn’t been that day, I’d have met him some other time.

So I can’t really curse myself that I suddenly grew tired of standing alone at the end of the platform and came over to sit on the bench next to the old man in a tweed suit.

Night. A different station. There’s no moon and no stars, all hidden behind the dark shroud of clouds. The only light, a sickly bluish glare, comes from a few lamps swinging underneath the overhanging roof. On the platform, bundles wrapped in blankets and shapeless coats huddle against the wall of the building, barely distinguishable as human beings.

I strike a match and bring it close to my face. I feel the pale shadow of warmth on the palm of my hand as I shelter the flame from sudden gusts of wind. It comes violent and biting, like howling packs of wolves, travelling all the way from the deep bowels of a frozen continent. The tip of the cigarette starts to glow faintly inches from my face. I inhale slowly and close my eyes. The tobacco is raw, fetid, and priceless. The smoke scratches at my eyes and flows down my throat like a vaporous sand paper. But it kills the stench of fear and burnt onion that hovers over the shapeless forms that share the platform with me. The one next to my feet stirs uneasily in its sleep, perhaps dreaming of home, a lost lover or maybe just the warm welcoming darkness of death.

In a few minutes a train will slowly roll alongside the platform. An asthmatic steel centipede will exhale great clouds of steam as its wheels grind to a halt, and the station will erupt out of hibernation with a few frenzied moments of scramble and noise.

A man in his early thirties will step out onto the platform, a flowing overcoat with a fur collar hastily thrown on top of a drab olive uniform. He will look around, slowly and deliberately, a copy of yesterday’s paper
tucked under his right arm as an agreed signal. Our gazes will meet for a moment and I will look into his eyes, burning in the pale lamplight with the sick glow of a morphine addict. He will take in a few deep breaths of the ice cold air, cough perhaps, and disappear back inside the carriage
without acknowledging me. After the last drag, the cigarette will die under my boot and I will follow him onto the train, to the third compartment down the corridor.

I’m straining to hear that distant rumble of the steam engine, but there’s nothing yet. I turn my back to the wind and try to peer through the black curtain. The light of day, a cloud covered sky and the rain that doesn’t fall are an unthinkably distant memory. As is the old man in a grey tweed suit. I can picture him in my mind as if I’d seen him only a moment ago, but he, the bench he sits on and the station - my station - are so very far away they might as well be somewhere beyond these stars that I can’t see tonight.

Although he was sitting down I could see the man was of small stature and rather chubby. His clothes were neither new nor fashionable, but they were tidy and well cut. Even the felt hat resting on his lap was colour-coordinated to go with the suit. The picture seemed just right; a perfect grandpa from a TV commercial shot in warm autumn colours through a misty lens. There was a healthy glow about him that made him look at least ten years younger than suggested by whisks of white hair behind his ears and at the back of his head. His gaze was fixed on something in the distance, his thick rectangular glasses half way down his nose, overhanging a snow white, pencil thin, well groomed moustache that went out of vogue a long, long time ago.

I came over to the bench and sat down on the edge. He turned towards me, smiled and nodded politely. I nodded back, hoping that this would be the extent of our social interaction. I always hated small talk with strangers, the fake politeness, fake concern and fake interest. No casual conversation with a stranger has ever had any consequences for my life. Until that day, that is.

“I hope it will not rain,” he said after a while, breaking the pleasant silence.

I turned and nodded, trying to be polite, but he didn’t elaborate and returned to staring into the distance. I was just about to fall back into my thoughts when he spoke again.

“I do not like these trains.” He turned towards me and added, “They are not real trains, you know?”

He saw the blank expression on my face and waved his hand impatiently. “They do not have... how should I say it... any soul.”

Nothing mundane then. I was expecting a lecture about perpetual lateness of service, overcrowding, or the schoolkids putting their feet on the dirty-green seat, but his was merely a metaphysical complaint.

“Those suburban trains; they are just glorified trams,” the old man went on, unfazed by my silence. “The real trains, now that is something. None of those electric wires, doors that open by themselves, and windows you cannot open at all. Trains were not meant to be like that.”

He hesitated for a moment, as if suddenly embarrassed by his enthusiasm.

“But then I think that is what they call progress and I am just an old man who likes to complain, so do not mind me, please,” he added and a weak smile played briefly on his lips.

It was difficult to pinpoint his accent on a simpleton’s mental map of Europe. I placed him somewhere in Central Europe, for it reminded me of a neighbour I once had. He was a stern-looking man who kept mostly to
himself and listened to crackling foreign stations on his long waves receiver. For some reason he terrified me, unlike my older brother who displayed an unhealthy fascination, imagining him a war criminal, hiding from his blood-soaked past on our quiet suburban street. Only when the man died and his estranged son came up from interstate to take care of his father’s affairs, we learned he was Estonian, a slave labourer in Germany during the war; a victim, not a perpetrator. That truth seemed to disappoint my brother. I would wonder whether in some twisted sort of way he really wanted to live next door to a pensioned monster.

“And one other thing; those suburban trains are just that – suburban trains,” I realised that the old man was still talking to me.

“How far can these trains go? Just to the outskirts and that is it. Trains should be free like horses; go, go, go” he cackled. “Go across the empty fields, through forests, down the valleys...”

He paused suddenly and lowered his eyes, “Gosh, you must be wishing you have not sat next to me.”

Suddenly he seemed almost bashful. His fingers drummed on the bench next to his leg, yet his face radiated some exuberant energy, as if he had just won a hundred metre sprint.

I didn’t quite know what to say. “No,” I murmured, but meant yes.

Still, the old man seemed harmless enough. I glanced at my watch. Five more minutes of waiting.

The old man took a white handkerchief out of a coat pocket and wiped his brow. “You see, I was a stationmaster in Europe, years ago, during the war,” he went on, but more subdued now. “Do not get me started on trains, I can go on whole day,” he chuckled again, but it was a humourless response.

I bet he could go on whole days. “I won’t,” I promised.

The train arrived just on time, its rumble breaking slowly like a distant wave above the white noise of the city.

“I--,” I stood up and pointed towards the train when it came to a halt in front of us.

The retired station master did not let me finish. “Well, have a nice day,” he waved me on. “Who knows, I might see you again some other time soon, young man.”

No promises, old man.