The Next Stop

by Dimitris Politis

  He could not take his eyes off her. “Who’s hidden behind that mysterious smile? Is it a mask or a mirror of her soul?” he wondered, and desperately sought a simple answer in her face. Half-closed, curvy full lips, revealed just a hint of brilliantly white teeth. He had to admit that, in spite of his misgivings about the smile, everything about her coalesced into a sensual and irresistible femininity. She was a revelation. That exquisite and enigmatic smile was the star that stole the show. It revealed an open, accessible person who caught you by your dreams.

  As was its intent. To draw the attention of anyone around. To draw unto itself as many eyes as it could. Encaptured in an advertising poster, this loveliness was designed to appeal to every stranger who happened by. All in an effort to persuade Keith and all the countless commuters not to lose a minute but run as fast as possible to buy the new electronic super mass transport ticket card. It would magically solve all the problems of getting around Brussels, promised the advertisements around the perfect face out of Max Factor by Photoshop on the other side of the station. Underneath her photograph, the French phrase Bougeons mieux (‘let’s move better’) deliberately mispronounced to attract attention, completed the message in this array of brightly illuminated posters, a stark contrast to the dingy walls and joyless atmosphere of the station. The bold lettering in a darker shade of the green-blue of her eyes made the banner eerily striking. The whole effect made him think of a picture by a well-known photographer who emphasised parts of his photo with brilliant colours to draw the eye and convey its meaning.

  Just below the angelic face of the blue-eyed beauty, a filthy bench of eye-searing orange was nailed to the greasy floor. Its cheap plastic had lost its youthful sheen long before. Five battered seats were impaled on the shoddy metal base which seemed to have come adrift from its place over the years. As a passenger tried to sit on it, the seat rocked like a rotten tooth. Two shabby middle-aged women and one youngish man with a peculiar military haircut had captured three of the five seats. From a distance, it seemed that they were having an intense and playful discussion under the seductive portrait, though Keith could hear none of it from the opposite side of the station.

  Every day, every morning, he stood like a zombie in the same place at the same time, waiting apathetically for the tin-can-on-tracks to take him to the dull routine of his job. Wednesday again; yet another week had reached its mid-point. Again his dreary daily routine appointment found him in the dismal environment of the metro station, surrounded by other half-awake sullen faces. He had always hated waking up in the morning. And the older he became – how old was he? Forty? Eighty? It didn’t seem to matter – instead of getting used to it, every morning his aversion gradually worsened. The earlier it was, the worse it was. Even on a normal day, his brain felt like a well-beaten omelette and he was useless to anyone including himself before eight thirty a.m.

  Today he had reached the station twenty minutes earlier than usual and all he could do was gaze groggily at that sweet smiling ad that dominated the other side of the station. There was nothing else to look at.

  Occasionally, he could manage to absent himself from the dreary melancholy of his surroundings. It was easier when he cut off audio contact; those of his brain cells which had struggled to wakefulness literally vibrated to the music from his iPod headphones set as loud as he could bear. Now he was immersed in the velvety voice of Sting just coming to the end of I Can’t Stand Losing You as he made a vague effort to focus on the hard day which he knew was coming. But concentration eluded him once again; the plaintive words of the song were sucking him in...

  He lost track of when and where he actually was. The smiler on the advert seemed to morph by magic with the rest of the bleak station and transformed into a misty image of a remembered smile on a beloved face, as the words of Sting filled him with immense sorrow. I can’t stand losing you, I can’t stand losing you reverberated in his brain again and again; he was shivering under an alarming onslaught of pain-drenched memories. Whenever that feeling of unbearable loss struck it flattened him; he was left helpless wondering if he would ever again be free.

  It had been twelve years since that December 28th when his life had practically ended. He had barely succeeded into fooling himself that he was still alive, wearily pushing himself through one day at a time, like a carved marionette operated by unknown hands, going through the motions of living. His life seemed to drag on, disengaged from origin or destination, empty of the elemental vitality of the ups and downs of human emotions. The transient pleasures or troubles of every day added neither zest nor flavour. If he thought of his future at all, it was as a long, empty corridor without windows. So he avoided thinking about it.

  He wished he had slept well enough to shake off the weight of all these black thoughts, at least for today. He had to be strong and totally focused that particular morning. He summoned up his best effort and tried with all his might to erase the lyrics of the song, which seemed to resound even louder in his ears. He tried to concentrate on the friendly face of the stranger on the poster opposite him – the only person in the whole station that morning who held an encouraging smile.

  The fog of remembrance gradually dissipated and he fell back into the dingy reality of Roodebeek station.

  More would-be passengers were standing sullenly on the opposite platform near the grubby orange bench. This station, like every self-respecting underground station, was filthy. According to the battered marble plaques nailed over its entrances, long ago rendered illegible by an accumulation of grime, it had been solemnly inaugurated twenty or so years earlier, back in the early eighties. It was all too evident that just a quick swipe of a broom and the morning collection of the rubbish bins that had morphed into gaudy, overflowing and reeking mounds, had to suffice. Sad neglect ruled every corner. Rows and rows of fluorescent bulbs fastened to the blackened ceiling mercilessly revealed dirty marble, black slate walls and tattered plastic flooring. Even this harsh light seemed to lose its brightness in the overall gloom, leaching out any trace of colour. He often thought that a station like this was a perfect fit for an unloved city like Brussels.

  Out of habit, he threw a quick glance at the information display board suspended from the ceiling announcing the trains’ location minute by minute. Its lights were flashing; the next train would be in front of him in less than a minute. The clock on the platform showed 7:25 a.m. “Perfect! I’ll be in my office before anyone else. Twenty to eight latest. Won’t be a soul there till eight fifteen”. He braced himself for the morning battle for the remaining free seats that would soon follow.

  He glanced at a tall thin person who was pushing in beside him; it was probably a woman, but what a gargoyle! In the grey fluorescent light, her out-thrust chin, sour face and bulging black eyes suggested nothing so much as a basilisk, that monstrous serpent of ancient Belgian legend whose eyes could kill. Her only human attribute was the tangled and badly-dyed blond hair, displaying the black roots of its true colour. It was doubtful that any comb had passed though that repellent jungle lately. He hastily averted his gaze lest she slay him outright, she seemed so very angry. On his other side stood a grey-haired man with a cheerful little girl of ten or so, bent under the weight of a pink school backpack. They were chatting away like mad and smiling, keeping an eye on the electronic announcement board, as if looking more often would make the train come sooner.

  Seconds later, the two bright headlamps of the train emerged from the depths of the mouldering tunnel, dragging with it a musty smell. Everyone on the platform took an unconscious step closer to where the doors would be. With a slight hiss, the carriage stopped at the precise spot that Keith had chosen. The door opened before his feet. Without losing a second, he hopped quickly first into the carriage and pounced on one of the three available seats. The basilisk followed on his heels and her exophthalmic eyes skewered him as he took his seat. It was clear that it would have given her the greatest satisfaction to have the powers of a true basilisk as her belliger
ent look would have killed him. But she had no choice, and sat herself down on one of the two seats just opposite and glared at him, hostile and irritable, bristling for war. He ignored her. The father and the little girl entered the carriage and tried to move further in to find a corner to stand in. In passing the basilisk, the unfortunate man accidentally stepped hard on her foot. He turned around at once and apologised profusely. It was all the excuse she needed. She exploded, screeching in French with a heavy Belgian accent in the most vulgar manner, making the greatest possible noise and expressing tremendous agony, clutching her foot as though an eight hundred kilo elephant had trodden on it. The man’s continued apologies fell on deaf ears. Some passengers who had observed and understood looked away to the side, others appeared offended by the language of the harridan who was hollering a storm of abuse, others simply turned their backs.

  “Where does she find the energy to be so aggressive so early in the morning? Like a human malignant tumour!” wondered Keith. Faced with her exaggerated carrying-on, he couldn’t help a small ironic smile as he became an unwilling witness to her overblown, even comical performance. She had not taken her attention away from him for a minute in spite of the dramatics, and threw him another even more poisonous look. He decided that he had no appetite whatsoever this morning to get involved with her, a madwoman in the early stages of mania, seeking her next victim. He ostentatiously pretended to be looking in the opposite direction. He had much more important and momentous matters on his mind this morning. To be entangled within the morning exercises of a capricious female was the last thing he needed today.

  When the doors closed and the train started off, the small space inside the carriage was stifling and claustrophobic. The feeling that he did not want to be there in that particular place at that minute rose up and almost smothered him. He urgently needed to escape from that narrow box hissing over the gleaming rails. To jump right out – if only he could. He squeezed his brain out of the limitations of the present and managed to escape the cramped carriage, hovering and flying swiftly out into an immense abyss of space-time, free of the dark underground burrow, heading back into the past, to the evening of the previous day, Tuesday, in another part of Brussels.

  Crouched over his computer screen after ten intense hours of hard work, he was drooping now with tired eyes. He had been trying to reconcile accounts and was enjoying a cheeky little orange beam of winter sunset that had managed to bounce off the surfaces of the dark glass towers of Brussels and creep onto his windowsill on the sixth floor of the Berlaymont Building. The vast X-shaped architectural achievement of the ’sixties, a symbol of the city, housed the central offices of the European Commission – and his office.

  He always found it most relaxing to work lost in endless figures and strict accounting principles. And when at the end he managed to tally complicated accounts and bring them into balance, this harmony was transmuted into total satisfaction and balance within him. Only then did the job offer any real pleasure. Well, if nothing else, at least one thing was going right in his life. Under the invaluable guidance of his grandmother, Maura, he had chosen a profession which not only ensured rapid access to a well-paid job, but suited him down to the ground. This brought some sense of achievement into a life which fate had sent off the rails into a void. Few seemed to derive so much satisfaction from their work these days.

  But today he had more need than ever to be completely focused, decisive and calm. On Monday night in the same building and the same office, even the same position, he had made a puzzling discovery. While he was searching for a document in the open electronic files, his eye accidentally fell on a surprising unofficial memo which must have been saved there by mistake. The note from the private office of the Lithuanian commissioner, Lukas Paulauskas, who was responsible for agricultural and rural policy, bore a signature which he knew well. From the commissioner himself, it urged the director of his department to bypass the open calls for tendering procedures and to sign an extremely profitable agreement for nineteen million euros with a certain company on behalf of the European Commission. The contract assigned to that company the task of creating of a transnational database in which to record all agricultural subsidies and monies shared among the twenty-eight member states of the EU, in an effort to provide more transparency and order in the distribution of the agricultural grants – financed by the taxes of EU citizens. This database was also to help the European Commission to reshape European farm policy.

  This curious document riveted his attention immediately.

  With a lightning search of the internet, he discovered that half of the board members of the company nominated bore the same surname as the commissioner. It was obvious that it was to be a family business. Paulauskas’ memo, though designated ‘internal’ and ‘confidential’, certainly suggested a personal interest and showed, if nothing else, inexplicable conduct on the part of the commissioner. Keith could not bring himself to believe that he had actually sat down, dictated, signed and sent this memo to the service. It could easily be used at any time as incriminating evidence against him. It could wreck his career. “It’s ludicrous! Didn’t it occur to him to make some phone calls on the sly, as usual, or even better, get someone else to do it for him? He put his own signature clear as day on a thing like this?” He questioned the amazing enormity of the commissioner’s recklessness. It was incomprehensible, coming from an experienced politician who had begun his career twenty years earlier with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. When the Iron Curtain collapsed, he had found himself suddenly among the leaders of the socialist party in the newly independent Lithuania, miraculously divorced from his former active communist past. The first thing such an experienced politician would do in such a situation would be to hedge his bets. And this chap was not simply experienced, but a classic old hand. He should know all the tricks of the trade. He would not leave any traces of evidence which could incriminate him.

  Confronted with this discovery, Keith was both puzzled and apprehensive. He had doubts. He had questions. And the dilemma swelled up behind his first shock: what should he do now? What could he do? He turned it over and over in his mind. Should he discuss it with a colleague, someone higher up perhaps? There would have to be an official report to the celebrated bloodhounds of the internal service who prosecuted fraud. The rules of the European Commission were well-known and exceptionally strict for all its employees, Keith included. Any time you came across anything suspicious, even if all you had were suspicions, the internal rules required that you report it to your manager and the internal fraud squad.

  But that had not been always so simple, or even effective. Easy as it was to make the complaint, much harder was the procedure to be followed. If the accused were someone of high position and connections, the righteous accuser could find himself in a very tight spot. In the past, those who had dared to make such reports had been met with serious distrust and a ferocious war of nerves from the system until the final outcome of the case, with the often common result that they had to resign from their position or move to another service, or retire early usually on ‘health’ grounds. It was inadvisable to challenge even the least of the high flyers in ‘the system’; it took nerves of steel. Because shedding light upon such a scandal could cost the organisation very dearly. A similar revelation in the past had brought down the whole commission, and the commissioners all had to resign. No matter what, there would be consequences from such a disclosure, not to mention the colossal risk to his own career.

  After hours of debate with himself and with many misgivings, he thought that before actually making an official report, he would approach his immediate superiors the following day and see if they had any knowledge of this memo and then discuss what to do. He would do it as discreetly as possible, late in the afternoon when his co-workers had taken their prying eyes home for the day.

  His work that Tuesday seemed to grind on endlessly. Despite his efforts to appear calm and normal, it was evident that his fidge
ty behaviour was attracting comment because a couple of colleagues had stopped by and repeatedly asked, “Are you all right?” “Is anything wrong?” “Anything I can do?” He had to pretend an unbearable headache to get them off his back, not without various remedies being thrust upon him.

  He had chosen to speak to Anna Aggerblad, the public relations director. Swedish culture is very righteous and always rewards justice, transparency, honesty and frankness. He had worked with her many times in the past. He didn’t know her very well on a personal level, but at least professionally, he knew what she was like and they had worked well together in the three years since her appointment.

  The long-awaited hour finally arrived. By half past six, all the other employees of the department had already left, with the exception of one or two who seemed to be glued to their desks in the offices along the sixth-floor corridor. Light from their half-open doors on either side of the long corridor burrowed into the deep blue thick-pile carpeting. The wide corridor of pharaonic dimensions led to a common centre with three similar passages leading to the corners of a giant St. Andrew’s cross, the backbone of the building’s impressive architecture.

  When the last feeble ray of golden light from the west decided to retire from his window, Keith finally got up from his chair and looked at his watch. Its hands showed exactly twenty to seven. It was time. He swallowed twice, then walked resolutely the few steps to the other side of the corridor. He reached Aggerblad’s door. Her secretary’s office was empty. He tapped softly three times and heard a feminine voice inviting him to enter. He took a deep breath and entered the vast office, all clean straight lines and blond wood in the minimal Scandinavian taste. One black leather armchair for Anna, two huge leather sofas, and on the other side, a vast rectangular conference table made entirely of thick greenish glass, surrounded by gleaming metallic chairs. The furnishings were discreetly framed in deep green tropical plants, almost lost in the sheer space of the office.