The Christmas Train Read online

  suddenly wasn’t on a train heading to Chicago; he was in Tel Aviv. They’d chosen that coastal city because of its proximity to Ben-Gurion Airport; one was never really more than two hours’ flight time from the sort of stories Eleanor and Tom were there to cover. The Middle East was nothing if not unpredictable in its predictableness. You knew something would happen; you just didn’t know exactly where or what form it would take.

  Mark Twain had visited the Holy Land and wrote extensively about it in The Innocents Abroad. The book was published in 1869, a year before Zion was resettled by the Jews and almost ninety years before Israel was established as a sovereign state. Twain had found Palestine to be very tiny, writing that he “could not conceive of a small country having so large a history.” Tom understood exactly what he meant. The place that loomed so enormous to folks all over the world could be traversed from end to end in hours by car. The walled city of Jerusalem seemed but a handsome miniature the first time Tom saw it. Yet the intensity there, and the people who called it home, lived up to its reputation as one of the most magnetic places on earth.

  They’d traveled the country in search of stories, although Eleanor had also sought out more personal experiences, once even being baptized in the Jordan River. Twain, too, had swum in the Jordan River after a long, dusty ride from Damascus, though more for hygienic than spiritual purposes. Tom and Eleanor had bought Jordanian water in clear bottles molded to look like Jesus and sent them back home, together with holy air in a can, collected in churches of antiquity in Israel. Tom had always understood that both items were immensely popular with American tourists, who’d rush home with the air and water and bestow it on their own places of worship. He supposed they did so in the hopes of raising them a few pegs in the eyes of God — hedging their bets, so to speak.

  During the years they had lived in Israel, the pair had also ventured to Bethlehem one Christmas with a tour group because Eleanor had wanted to see the place where the son of God had been delivered into a sinful world. Though he was not a particularly religious person, it was still a humbling event for Tom to be in close proximity to where an event of that magnitude reportedly took place.

  In his trip to Bethlehem Mark Twain had reported that all sects of Christians, except Protestants, had chapels under the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. However, he also observed that one group dared not trespass on the other’s territory, proving beyond doubt, he noted, that even the grave of the Savior couldn’t inspire peaceful worship among different beliefs. Some things clearly hadn’t changed since Mark Twain was a pilgrim in the Holy Land all those years ago.

  The two American journalists had been one of the very few in Israel who celebrated the holiest of Christian holidays. Tom and Eleanor had put up a small Christmas tree in their apartment and cooked their holiday meal and opened presents. Then they looked out on the darkness of the Mediterranean and took in the sights and smells of the desert climate while celebrating an event most Americans associated with snow, a jolly fat man, and crackling fires. Then they fell asleep in each other’s arms. Those Christmases in Tel Aviv were some of the most wonderful of Tom’s life. Except for the last one..

  Eleanor left the apartment to do some last-minute grocery shopping. About forty minutes later she came back and said that she wanted to go home, that she was tired of covering the perils of this strange world, that it was just time to go home. At first Tom thought she was joking. Then it became apparent she wasn’t. In fact, while he was standing there, she started packing. Then she called El Al to get a flight home. She tried to book Tom one too, but he said no, he wasn’t leaving. Everything had seemed wonderful barely an hour before. Now he was standing in the middle of their tiny apartment in his skivvies and his whole life had just collapsed.

  He questioned her as to what had happened in the last forty minutes to cause her to make this major, life-altering decision for both of them, without bothering to consult him first. The only answer she gave was that it was time to go home. They talked, and then the talk snowballed into an argument, and then it cascaded downhill from there. By the time she had her bags packed they were screaming at each other, and Tom had become so confused and distraught that to this day he had no idea half of what he’d said.

  She took a cab to the airport, and Tom followed her, where they continued their argument. Finally, it was time to go up the escalator to get on the shuttle bus. That was when Eleanor, her voice now calm, asked him once more to come with her. If he really loved her, he’d come with her. He remembered standing there, tears in his eyes, feeling only a deep stubbornness fueled by anger. He told her no, he wasn’t coming.

  He watched her ride up the escalator. She turned back once. Her expression was so sad, so miserable, that he almost called out to her, to tell her to wait, that he was coming, but the words never came. It was like the night on the train from Cologne, when he was supposed to propose to the woman he loved but hadn’t. Instead, he turned and walked out, leaving her, as she was leaving him..

  That was the last time he’d seen Eleanor. Until five minutes ago, on a swaying train headed to Chicago by way of Toledo and Pittsburgh. He still had no idea what had happened to make her leave. And he still had no rational explanation as to why he hadn’t gone with her.

  With a jolt, Tom was transported back to West Virginia on steely Amtrak rails. He lay down on the couch, and the warm compartment, the hum-hush, siss-boom-bah of the wheels, his overwrought mind, and the darkness outside combined to push him into a troubled doze.

  Whatever it was must have hit Tom’s sleeper car directly. The sound was very loud, like a cannonball clanging off the side. He almost fell off the couch. He checked his watch. Six-thirty, and they were slowing down fast. Then the mighty Capitol Limited came to a complete stop, and looking out his window, Tom saw that they were not anywhere close to civilization. He smelled something burning, and although he wasn’t an experienced railroad man, that didn’t seem like something you’d want your train to be doing.

  In the darkness outside he saw lights here and there, as presumably train personnel checked where the broadside had come from and what damage it had done. He went out into the hallway and saw Father Kelly.

  “Did you hear that?” the priest said. “It sounded like a shot.”

  “I think we hit something,” Tom replied. “Maybe there was something on the track and we ran over it.”

  “It sounded like it hit our car, and we’re in the middle of the train.”

  Well, that was true, thought Tom. “I don’t know, I just hope we start moving again soon.”

  Regina walked by with a worried look. She was carrying a huge cluster of newspapers all balled up.

  Tom said, “Hey, Regina, what’s up? We’re not moving. Did Amtrak’s credit card bounce or something?”

  “We hit something, that’s for sure. They’re checking it out. We should be heading on shortly.”

  He looked at what she was carrying. “I take it you’re really into newspapers.”

  “Somebody stuffed them in the trash can. I don’t even know where they came from. Only newspaper on this train is the Toledo Blade, and we don’t pick that up until early tomorrow morning.”

  She walked off. Tom was starting to feel very smart for building extra time into his travel schedule. It looked like he was going to need it. In Twain’s day, the trip from St. Joseph, Missouri, to California measured nineteen hundred miles and by overland stagecoach took about twenty days. While Tom had to go over a thousand miles farther than Twain had, he was being pulled by something a little more potent than equine power. And yet it was beginning to look like Twain’s travel time might not be in any real jeopardy. Tom started thinking of small islands where he could hide out from Lelia when he didn’t show for Christmas. The list was short and not very promising.

  Agnes Joe joined them. She was still wearing the nightgown, but she had a robe on over it.

  “We hit something,” she said.

  “Appears that way,” Tom
replied, as he tried to get past her. However, he found that when Agnes Joe faced him head-on, the woman’s body actually spanned the entire width of the hall. Amtrak really needed to build its trains larger to accommodate the widening of Americans.

  She pulled an apple from her pocket, rubbed it on her robe, and started chomping. “I remember once three — no, four years ago — we were heading up right about here in fact, when, bam, we stopped dead.”

  “Really, what happened?” asked Tom.

  “Why don’t you come in my compartment, set yourself down, get comfortable, and I’ll tell you.”

  Father Kelly and Tom exchanged glances, and then the priest scooted into the safety of his rabbit hole, leaving the journalist all alone. So much for the support of the Church in times of crisis, thought Tom.

  “Well, I’d like to but I have to get ready for dinner. My reservation is at seven.”

  “Mine too.”

  With the look she gave him, Tom began to think she really had a thing for him. All he could do was give her a weak smile as he finally managed to squeeze past and into the safety of his compartment. He locked his door, drew his curtain, and would have slid the bed against the door had it not been bolted to the wall.

  He dressed for dinner, which meant he splashed water on his face, ran a comb through his hair, and changed his shirt. He peeked out the door, checking for roaming Agnes Joes, saw the coast was clear, and still ran for the safety of the mess car. Unfortunately, though not a world-class sprinter, he was still moving faster than the Cap.

  chapter ten

  As Tom surveyed the dining room, his mind once again drifted to his rail-travel touchstone, North by Northwest. In the film Cary Grant, on the run from the police and the train conductor — as a poor fugitive from justice, Cary had no ticket — comes into the elegant dining car. The splendidly attired maitre d’ escorts him past fashionably dressed diners, to the table of the ravishingly sexy Eva Marie. Turns out she’d tipped the waiter to seat Cary with her. Beautiful women were always doing that to poor Cary Grant. They order, they drink, they laugh; they conduct a sort of sophisticated verbal foreplay right there at the table, one of the more subtly erotic movie scenes ever Tom felt. Right now, in the role of Eva Marie, he could only see Eleanor. And wasn’t that pathetic, he told himself — pathetic that there was no possibility of it coming true.

  On Amtrak, diners were seated to encourage conversation and the forming of friendships, however fleeting. In this tradition, Tom was seated across from two people, a middle-aged man and a woman who, unfortunately, looked nothing like Eleanor, or Eva Marie for that matter. The guy was dressed in a suit and tie. Across the aisle from them at another table were Steve and Julie. They were drinking glasses of red wine, holding hands, talking in low voices, and still looked very nervous. Young love: There was nothing better or worse, Tom decided. Except perhaps old love, unrequited. Actually, after seeing Eleanor, he was sure of it.

  By what he could overhear from the other diners, the subject of the stalled train was dominating the conversation. At least the longer the train was stopped the longer he’d be on it with Eleanor. And how exactly did that help, Tom asked himself, since it was so clearly obvious how she felt. He’d held out some hope that she still loved him despite how it had ended. He’d kept that thought safely in his pocket all these years and it had carried him through some troubling times. Now that pocket was empty; actually, it had been ripped right off his pants.

  “This is the second train I’ve been on this week where something has happened,” said the woman across from Tom. She introduced herself as Sue Bunt from Wisconsin. She was dressed professionally, was about fifty or so, tall and on the heavy side, and her hair was cut very short. The guy in the suit was next to her. Tom knew they weren’t together, because the man had been seated right ahead of him. Sue had already been at the table alone.

  “How about that,” the man said. He didn’t offer up his name.

  “I usually don’t take the train, but the flights aren’t as convenient in my circuit anymore,” she explained.

  “What do you do?” Tom asked, deciding to get into the spirit of conversation.

  “I’m a sales rep for a health-food company,” she said as she slathered her roll in butter.

  “Happy holidays,” said the waitress as she came over and presented them with complimentary glasses of eggnog, a Cap holiday tradition, they were told.

  “Happy holidays,” they all replied, and then Sue asked the waitress about the condition of the train.

  “Conductor said we’ll be up and running in no time. We just ran over something on the track.” She wore a Christmas hat, and Tom noted that the windows and tables were strung with holiday lights.

  They placed their orders. The menu was very good, and Tom could actually smell the meals being cooked in the downstairs kitchen, which would then be sent up to the dining car via dumbwaiters. He ordered the prime rib and, instead of the salad, asked for a screwdriver as his appetizer. He was just putting it to his lips when he felt himself being propelled to the side of the dining car. He turned and there was Agnes Joe wedging next to him, leaving him about six inches in which to eat his dinner.

  “Hi, Agnes Joe,” the man and Sue said in unison.

  Tom looked bewildered. Did everybody on this train know the woman?

  “Hi there, honeypies.”

  When Tom looked her over he was stunned. Agnes Joe was wearing nice dress slacks — stretched to the fabric’s absolute breaking point, no doubt, but still nice slacks — a tasteful sweater, and her hair was done. She had on some makeup, and she didn’t look nearly as old as before. It was such a stark transformation that he could only stare.

  “Hi,” he said dumbly.

  “Hello, Agnes Joe,” said the waitress as she came up. “You want the usual?”

  “That’ll be fine, with extra onions.”

  “I take it you ride the train a lot,” Tom said as the waitress walked off.

  “Oh, I love the train and the people on it. Good folks. I tried flying for a while. I’m a licensed pilot in fact, general aviation, but I prefer the trains.”

  For Tom the vision of Agnes Joe crammed inside the cockpit of a two-seater Cessna, her hammy fingers curled around the yoke, her enormous feet on the rudder pedals, wavered right on hallucinatory.

  The man turned to Sue. “You say you’re in health care?”

  “Health foods, as a sales rep. I used to be a legal secretary, but I couldn’t take working for lawyers anymore.”

  Well, Tom had also had his fill of the species americanus legalis cannibalis during his divorce, and more recently with Gordon Merryweather. He held up his glass to her in a sign of empathy.

  “What do you know about ginseng?” asked the man.

  The guy was in his fifties and seemed like a normal business type, yet he had exhibited some fairly strange physical ticks that set him apart from his fellows. For example, his mouth kept opening really wide, at which point he sucked in air like he couldn’t get his fair share. Then his eyes would bulge out, causing Tom to think he was going to pitch headfirst into his salad any second. He’d also lick his lips, so furiously you thought his tongue would cramp up or simply fall off. Finally, he had the incredibly annoying habit of looking like he was going to say something, his lips puckering, his fleshy neck quivering, his eyes blinking rapidly, his hands rising to the sky, all building to some titanic outburst of wisdom or at least scandalous gossip, and then it all would just collapse; he’d simply pick at the olive in his drink. After the fourth time he performed this maddening feat it was all Tom could do to keep from going over the table at the man.

  “Ginseng?” Sue said. “You mean the herb?”

  “Yes. Let me tell you why I’m asking.” He gave each a conspiratorial look and lowered his voice. “I met this woman. An Asian woman, or Oriental, or whatever the PC term is these days, I can never remember. I guess it’s not ‘slanty-eyes,’ is it?” he said, trying for humor and failing badly.
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  “No, it’s not,” said Agnes Joe. “And please don’t go there. Tolerance and understanding of other cultures make for a peaceful world. On top of that, I have ancestors of Japanese descent.”

  Tom looked at the massive woman and wondered if she were actually carrying some of these ancestors on her person. And he noted that her vocabulary and diction had kicked up a notch too. What was that about?

  The fellow continued. “Right. Sorry, bad joke. Well, this woman, she seemed, you know, to be attracted to me. And I was definitely attracted to her. We went out for dinner one evening, and she brought up this ginseng thing. To make a long story short, she actually sent me some ginseng. I guess it was from China.”

  “Actually, ginseng is grown in Wisconsin,” said Sue, as she put even more butter on her roll, such that there was no longer any bread actually visible. “The soil is perfect for it.”

  Tom stared at her. The state of Wisconsin had perfect ginseng soil? This sounded crazy to him, but what did he know about it? Maybe the Green Bay Packers were all ginseng groupies.

  “Okay, Wisconsin,” the man said, “but the point is, she sent me this stuff, and I’m not sure what to do with it. I mean, do I cook it or drink it or what?”

  Tom said, “Just because she gave it to you doesn’t mean you have to use it.”

  “Well,” said the man, eyeing the ladies a little nervously, “I assume she gave it to me, you know, because it’s supposed to possess certain performance-enhancing attributes. At least that’s what she intimated. I should add that she’s much younger than me.”

  Tom began to realize where this was going when Agnes Joe said, “You mean so you can romp like a young stud in the sack with a woman half your age and not let her feel she’s cheating herself with some old bag of bones.”

  There was a long period of silence before the man finally said, “That’s sort of my point, yes.” And then he went back to massively sucking wind and picking at his pitted olives with renewed vigor.

  “I’d mash it up,” continued Agnes Joe as her gaze bored into