A sleepless overnight train journey to Cluj, Romania, leaves a disgruntled traveler searching for meaning and finding it in the rolling of a cigarette.
If someone had entered our carriage at that moment, they would have sworn they had stumbled into a mobile charnel house.
And, perhaps, that’s what it was. But had they lingered for more than a second in the doorway, they would have recognized the laborious sound of these cadavres breathing heavily, synchronised to the train’s metronomic ticking.
It was the year’s shortest night, yet it felt impossibly long. By 3 AM, the sun was already a promise on the horizon, a reddish luminescence from the train window, poised to devour the whole of Transylvania under an ocean of arterial light.
Above my head, a bulb flickered with a neurotic intensity. Sometimes it would fail for extended periods, and a collective, unconscious sigh of relief would ripple through the silence as the carriage sank into the benevolent darkness. But then it would ignite again, the light returning even harsher than before, a flash of judgement for those who thought they could be spared.
We were, perhaps, twenty souls in the carriage, and no one knew the person beside them. Yet, we shared a communion deeper than friendship: the desire to sleep, to accelerate time, to nullify the ten hours that still stretched between us and Cluj.
Two Asians sat opposite me. An intruder would have sworn they were asleep. Only I, positioned behind them, knew better. They were stealing glances at pictures of their families, weeping softly, their big and sorrowful shoulders quivering, their hands damp with quiet, saline grief. To their left, two suitcases, bound obsessively in plastic foil, marked them as fresh arrivals from the airport. I hoped they might be returning home, but I think, in the marrow of their being, everyone who saw them knew they had come here with no intention of going back. We could only watch them with devastating compassion- those two held more courage than we could ever possess.
I stared out the window, thinking of nothing, yet everything, all at once. I could taste the specific, corrosive odor of Romanian trains–a composite of dust, damp chill, and pervasive mildew–entering my lungs and flooding my nasal passages. I never knew cold had a smell until I first stepped into a train carriage from an ex-Soviet country. Even now, I don’t know if it possesses an odor “of its own,” or if what I truly sense are the souls of millions who, at a precise point in space and time, found themselves in the same exact air I was now breathing.
The abrasive fabric of the seats scraped my elbows, leaving stinging, reddish welts on my skin. I watched the train rush violently through villages, communes, and towns, pausing only for a breath in the phantom stations, where no one ever boarded, where the air was thinner than a ghost’s memory.
Every now and then, a sigh, a conversation fragment, or a small, strangled laugh would pierce the carriage’s gloom, a sign that its occupants had not fully surrendered to sleep–not that true rest was possible in those conditions, anyway. The sun climbed higher, preparing to pour its angry, molten rays onto every creature who dared hope for one extra hour of oblivion. The windows, smoky (or perhaps just filthy), shimmered in shades of rose under the hammer of the sunrise, as if intent on reminding us that, sometimes, even in the ugliest vessels, a trace of beauty could be found.
We were due in Cluj at 7 AM. Of course, being in a Romanian train, we incurred a delay of well over an hour. The friends I thought I had made on my journey stood impatiently by the door with their luggage, ready to plunge into the warm air of a June morning and transform the last ten hours into a memory. When we finally rolled into the station, I felt that caressing breeze one can only experience after a long confinement on rails filling me with a strange gratitude that I am alive. I took a taxi, eager to unravel the mysteries of this city, buried beneath the enduring narrative of Vlad Dracul (who, yes, for my fellow Americans, is tightly entwined with the famous “Dracula”).
The specific Transylvanian architecture bears no relation to the classical Romanian variety (the socio-communist concrete, cast in beautiful and varied shades of gray and dark gray). The Hungarian specificity is glaringly evident, from the signboards scrawled in Magyar to the brightly colored houses and the gentle, kind people; all combined to make you feel that, for a precious moment, you are in another country, where Bucharest (Romania’s capital, the epicenter of arrogance and bad-taste architecture) is merely an abstract concept, designed purely to distract tourists from Transylvania’s enduring beauty.
I rented an electric scooter and wandered without any specific destination, driven only by the desire to discover what this magical city held for me. I stumbled upon Central Park, and, for a fleeting moment, I felt like a child again. The ducklings on the lake swam with urgency, as if desperate to escape the prying eyes of the curious who might dare to pollute their water with stale bread. A faint scent of linden blossoms filled my lungs, and when I looked up to trace its source, I only saw the sun’s rays dancing playfully to the wind’s invisible rhythm.
I spent the rest of the day traversing Cluj on foot, like a local, trying to spot the hidden, fragile beauties of the mundane. The subtle perfume of flowers drew me toward the Botanical Garden, a temporary paradise filled with multicolored angels. Around me, their pink and reddish wings could have painted a faithful image of the biblical Eden, had it not been for an employee mowing the lawn, utterly devoid of a tourist’s metaphorical creativity. The deeper I sank into the mesh of trees and the green acacia branches, the more I uncovered a new universe, unknown to me, composed of sepulchral silence existing within a setting so vivid and full of life.
Reaching a wooden structure meant for rest, I paused to consult the notebook left for passing travelers. Their writings immediately filled me with empathy, a sense I hadn’t felt in hours, not since the sight of the luggage piled high in the rain. I began to read those notes locked in time and space, feeling, for a second, time freezing around me, swallowing me into a timeless loop:
“Dear reader, I was here on zz/mm/yy with a very good friend of mine. During the walk through this labyrinth of green, she became my girlfriend. I couldn’t be happier! I wish everyone could feel, even a little, of what I feel right now!!”
Lower down, presumably written by the girl in question, was noted:
“Dear reader, my best friend brought me here today to ask me to be his girlfriend. I haven’t felt this much happiness in a long time. I feel like my heart is exploding. I wish everyone could feel, even a little, of what I feel now!!”
I turned the page, reading between the lines the prints left, over time, by various people who had ventured, like me, into a self-discovery journey.
“We came here to celebrate X’s 18th birthday. Three days were not enough to discover the beauty of this city, as we spent all three days right here, in this garden, enjoying nature and cementing our friendship. If someone ever reads these lines, we want you to know that, for a brief time, three very good friends laughed, cried and lived in the exact same place as you. We wish you a good life!”
I started to turn the pages with a mixture of anger and nervousness, quickly, one after the other. I was irritated by this wasted tree, tattooed with such trivial inscriptions, bringing no discernible benefit to humanity. I searched, with the desperation that only deep frustration can provide, for a message where I could recognize myself, which would make me exclaim with relief: “The journey here was so worth it!” Page after page, the notebook grew more scribbled and indecipherable, perhaps from the tears that slowly soaked the pages, or perhaps from the rain that, like me, tried to destroy this notebook, this waste of cellulose that offered no answers to any of my questions. What am I looking for in this place? Why am I here? Why can’t I be like the rest? Why do I feel so slow and behind?
Flipping vigorously, one page tore, cracking halfway and slicing through some written words. I stopped to read something that, unknowingly, would be etched onto my retina:
“Summer has come, cover my heart with something,
With the shadow of a tree, or better yet, with your shadow.
PS: In Cluj, answers are everywhere. Share a cigarette with someone and you will see.”
Something–perhaps a mysterious, universal force–made me close the notebook with a sharp sound, causing a few birds nearby to take panicked flight. I stood up and walked slowly back toward the city. I was hungry and confused.
One cute restaurant caught my eye, so I decided to sit at a table and order some food. While I was consulting the menu, one beggar approached me without any warning, asking me for a cigarette. “Do I look like a person who smokes?” I told him, mostly in jest. He shook his head glumly and made to leave, but it was too late. One of the waiters had spotted him and was approaching furiously, ready to instigate a scandal.
“Poor man”, I thought, “He only wanted to alleviate his suffering”. The waiter approached rapidly, and I turned slightly away, unwilling to witness a classic capitalist confrontation.
“What are you doing here? What do you want? You are scaring our clients!”
“Excuse me, I am leaving now. I just wanted a cigarette.”
I turned back and watched the waiter anxiously bite his lips, knowing that what he was about to do would put him at risk. He looked at me, then at the man in question, then back at me, and finally, he said softly:
“If you have patience, I’ll roll one for you right now.”
“No rush at all.”
Surprised, I watched the waiter take out tobacco and rolling papers from a small cabinet and begin to roll a cigarette for the man, right under my eyes. An act so insignificant, yet so profoundly important to me, who was in the process of discovering something. I saw how the beggar and the waiter managed to start a conversation, even sharing a few laughs. In the end, they were more alike than they thought. Either one could be in the other’s place tomorrow. And they knew it. And they laughed as much as they could. And they smoked hand-rolled cigarettes.
And I ate, smiling. I found exactly what I was looking for.
