The 6:41 to Paris Read Free Page A

there wasn’t much of a discount once you crossed the border. And I didn’t have anyone to go with me. So most of the time I stayed in France. There was that trip to Florence. Another to London. And a week in Brussels. Not much to show. I’ve never even set foot in the United States, despite the factthat I used to go on about how much I wanted to see America.
    I could start traveling now.
    I could transform the Métro into the regional RER. Paris into Charles de Gaulle airport. Mathieu into the rest of the world. My head is spinning, sort of. Not what I expected when I left the house this morning.
    Shit.
    It nearly made me forget to get on the train.
    Here I am, dreaming of escape, and I almostgot left behind on the platform.
    The doors slammed shut right behind my back.
    That was a close one.

I love to hear the sound of the doors closing. It signals the beginning of an egocentric and self-indulgent interlude. For the next two hours, nothing can really happen to you. Everything is taken care of. You can decide to immerse yourself in a novel, or succumb to the trance of the music coming from your headphones. You can also vanish into the screen of your laptop, into emails, spreadsheets,numbers, reports, and establish a direct yet disembodied connection with the outside world.
    I don’t do any of that. I daydream. Train journeys are rare opportunities to let go and lower my guard. Whereas in the Métro or the RER I can’t do that. I’m always on the alert.
    The seat next to me has not been taken.
    It stays empty.
    The train starts to move.
    I’m of two minds.
    On the one hand, I’mrelieved. It’s true that it’s a bit weird, the closeness you get in a railroad car. You’re only a few inches away from another person, another story, and you know that in the event of a crash, your skin will mingle with theirs. And then, these SNCF seats aren’t comfortable. A little more room would be great. Room enough to stretch out and doze off, if you feel like it, allthe way to the Garede l’Est—and catch up on lost sleep. We’re all trying to catch up on lost sleep. When you’ve got a neighbor, you have to sit up straight, almost like at school, and when the conductor goes by, you almost feel like raising a finger and saying, “Present.”
    But another side of me wants to protest. Why am I the only one without a temporary partner? Am I giving off the sort of body odor that immediatelydeters any hypothetical candidates? Am I that ugly? Do I frighten them? Intimidate them? So here I sit, the only person sitting alone in the whole car—isn’t there even some old lady who could come and keep my thoughts from going round in circles? Or some vague acquaintance I could chat with about the weather or the passage of time?
    I wonder what the other passengers think when they look at me.They see a woman who is neither young nor old, fairly well preserved. A somewhat inscrutable expression, lips that could stand to be a little fuller, a deep line across her forehead, two others on either side of her mouth. Light makeup. Nicely tailored clothes. Discreet elegance. Relatively slim figure. Why isn’t she traveling first class?
    For the simple reason that the 6:41 is a regional train,where the differences in comfort between first and second class are minimal. And besides, the number of first-class seats has been so drastically reduced that the half-car devoted to first is often jam-packed, while there are still empty seats in second class. Well, usually. Today the entire train is jammed. All that’s left is the orphanedseat next to me. A privilege I would not have enjoyedin first class, where I would probably be stuck next to some corpulent senior executive reeking of aftershave, who would spend the entire time calling his superiors or his underlings, in spite of the notice requesting cell phones in sleep mode.
    And besides, I like to travel second class. I feel like this is where I belong. My accountant laughs at me. He reminds me that