My phone has been off since Munich. I didn't turn it off to avoid reading his messages, but to see if I could stand it. The compartment is small, the light yellow, and I have both seats to myself. Until the door opens.
I have just taken off my shoes when the door slides open.
He holds up a ticket. Same carriage, same compartment, same seat. He looks at the number, then at me, then at the number again, and he smiles as if this is the best thing that has happened to him all week. It is a very good smile. That is the first thing I don't trust about him.
“The conductor says it's a system error,” he says. “He also says there isn't another berth until Munich, which is at two in the morning, which is not, in his view, his problem.”
“So you're staying.”
“So I'm asking.” He hasn't stepped over the threshold. His bag is still in the corridor, and he waits with his hand on the door frame like a man who has been told no before and survived it.
I look at the dark window, at the folded blanket, at the empty seat across from mine. Twelve hours. No stop I'd want to get off at. And a stranger whose name I don't know, whose smile is a little too well rehearsed, who has just turned down the chance to sit without asking. The train jolts, and he catches the frame, and somewhere behind him the corridor lights flicker as if the whole carriage is waiting for my answer.
