Travel cheques

Many years ago I was in Turkey. I had to come back to Greece and there wasn’t a direct train from Istanbul. I had to reach the border and take a train for Alexandroupoli.

When we took it, it was a hot day. Our clothes smelled of apple tea and hookah. Someone close to our sofa smoked mint tobacco. We didn’t have clean clothes, so they were the same we had last night in Turkey. We left the hostel with our heavy backpacks.

Before leaving, we always had to check them and figure out how to find the space for food and weird stuff we had bought during the journey. In my backpack I had to carry a half-kilo tin of Kalamata olives bought right there in a Kalamata market. 

Some fellow travelers were guys in rock band t-shirts who played backgammon. They screamed and laughed. I didn’t get what they said. I just had a few phrases to say pretty simple things, and I wasn’t even sure of the pronunciation. 

When we reached the border, we jumped off the train. We were in the middle of nothing. We just had to wait. Around us people who had the same feelings. Backpackers who were waiting to know how to go then. They didn’t know.

Nobody told us we were waiting for the next train for the first Greek station. We just knew we couldn't go back. We couldn’t go ahead. We were just stuck. Then we saw someone. There. One man dressed in something like a uniform. I don’t know where this man was from. There was pretty nothing around him.  

We weren’t in a station. We were in a remote location. Nothing close to us. Just old buildings and the smell of rails and dry grass. Farther the sun. Hot. Then the smell of gasoline.

The man moved on and asked us for tickets. We had the interrail ticket, but it wasn’t enough. He told us we had to pay an extra. Nobody told us when we left Istanbul. We told him if we could pay it when we arrived in Greece, but he told us we couldn’t.

So. How much? About three euros. Ok. No problem. I opened my wallet and I picked up money. Three euros. No station, no train. Dry grass.

So I remember a trail of people behind me gave him money and everyone got their chance to go ahead and win a trip to Greece.

Two girls aside were speaking and didn’t get behind the queue. I turned my head and looked at them. Then if there was a place to sit down and wait. We didn’t know the hour the train would arrive. We just knew we had to wait. 

The man said with his hands that we had to keep calm and wait. Keep calm. In that no man’s land events happened despite the time. So, keep calm. The two girls were speaking. I saw them and they seemed nervous. They looked around for something. 

I asked them if they needed help and they told me they had no money to pay the extra fee. No cash. They came from Istanbul like me and were going to Athens. If they had no money to pay the extra fee for the train, they would have no choice. They had to go back to Istanbul, get the money and catch a new train the next day. 

So I checked how much cash I had with me. In my wallet, during the journey, there was money, but mostly tickets, notes, and phone numbers from all the people I met. Searching through all of this, I had found enough money. I could pay for them.

They didn’t expect it and at the beginning they didn't want me to do it. But they had, because they hadn’t other way to go ahead.

They wanted to give me a traveler’s cheque that I could use later to get the money. I knew they needed to make things right. And I didn’t stop them. I just waited until they wrote it and I took it with a smile.

I just had to go later to a bank and change it to have my money back. But I preferred to keep it. No amount of money could have replaced the value of that ticket. It was a concrete way to remember that moment. 

One hour later the train for Greece arrived at the station. We jumped right on the train with our bags. Looking for a place, walking up and down the trains I lost the two girls. I didn’t find them again at the station and I don’t know what happened then.

So. I don’t know where they live right now and I don’t remember their faces. What they do and who they are in love with. I just hope that with a little kindness in a small border station I’m somewhere in their memory.