The Romanian Visa Paradox - V

PART V - The Bag Ladies Aberration

       To add insult to injury, the train from Szeged back to Békéscsaba got delayed and when I arrived in Békéscsaba, the train to Arad was just leaving. Which means I had to wait for the next train.  Which means a ten hours wait at the train station. Well, yes, I could go for a walk in the city but from what I could see of the area surrounding the train station, I preferred to stay put rather than risk myself in the seedy streets of an unknown city in a country in which I can't speak the language and no one speak English.

        So I decided to stay at the waiting room of the station. Which was absurdly huge and therefore very badly heated for the December winter. No kidding, I think that waiting room could hold hundreds of people. And it was practically empty. Just me and 2 or 3 other people scattered throughout the immense room.

        As I had brought a book to read I chose the bench on the farthest end of the room, close to a window and a heater. I sat down and started to read. 

        A few minutes later an old woman entered the room. A typical mid-60s homeless train station bag lady. She entered the room and started to cross it. In my direction. She was getting closer and I was thinking: damn! Just my luck. This huge salon and the lady wants to sit near me?? She was getting closer.

        It turned out that she wasn't going to sit near me. She was going to sit ON me! No kidding, she came to sit on the chair that I was seated on! I said "Hellooo! This seat is taken!" and only then she was startled to notice that there was someone already seated on that chair!

        She mumbled something apologetic in Hungarian and seated on the chair next to me. Damn. There we were. A huge empty room that holds hundreds of people and the two of us seated side by side. Well I didn't want people to think that we were sort of odd couple so I tried to see if I could spot any other possible place to move to. The only other chairs close to the windows had no heater nearby. The only other one that had both window and heater, on the other side of the room was already occupied. I guess I was stuck with the bag lady. 

        I thought I could live with that. 
        Until she started talking. 

        To me.
        In Hungarian.

        At first I just shrugged to her trying to show that I don't speak Hungarian. But she insisted and kept babbling. I finally got fed up and made a signal with my hands for her to stop and I spoke slowly in English: Look, lady. I don't want to be rude but as I don't speak Hungarian, I have no idea what you're talking about!

        Her eyes went wide open and I suppose only then she realized that I am NOT Hungarian.  Well, I haven't seen any Hungarian that look as Japanese as I do. But then again, she haven't seen me seated there and almost mistook me for a chair.

        Well, she finally gave up telling me the latest gossips and I went back to my book while she just mumbled quietly to herself.

        A few minutes later and guess what? I guarantee you won't believe this. Another bag lady enters the room and starts marching towards me. This one was probably in her early 50s but had her hair in pigtails like a schoolgirl. 

        She saw me seated there, alright. But she seated on the other chair next to me. So there I was, in a huge empty waiting room in a train station in the middle of nowhere in Eastern Europe with two bag ladies, one on each side. Really, I was almost looking up and yelling to Him: Is that all you got??

        And of course, the second bag lady starts talking to me. In Hungarian, of course.

        And then she starts pointing to the other lady and her tone turns sarcastic.

        The other lady eyes go wild and she starts yelling at her and pointing at me. And I really hope they were not saying things like "I saw him first, go find someone else to rob!!"

        I really wanted to get the heck out of there. But on the other hand, I didn't want to sit down on the unheated side of the room.

        At one point the second lady looks at me, points to the first lady and says: "Ai grija!" Just like that. In Romanian. Which made me even more confused. She couldn't possibly know that I understood Romanian. So what the fuck was that??

        Anyway, they finally started to tone it down and reach an agreement. I was hoping it was not "Ok, we share then. I hold him, you stab him and we share the spoils."

        After the fight subsides, the first lady reaches for one of her bags and started fumbling with things inside it. She then pulls out two breads: One long and one round. She looked at them pondering for a while and decides for the long one. She then gets a plastic bag with cheese and one with ham and a can of butter and puts them on the chair next to her. She then takes out a knife, cuts the bread in half and proceeds to spread butter on it. Then as soon as she scoops another dollop of butter from the can she accidentally drops the knife on the floor. The train station floor. The filthy train station floor where thousands of people walk with their muddy shoes, where old men spit after chewing tobacco, where kids drop their chewing gum and the crowd step on it until it becomes part of the pavement. 

        That floor. 

        The lady then looks around like a guilty child, leans down, picks the knife with the now filthy butter and... keeps spreading it on the bread like nothing had happened. She then puts the cheese, the ham and offers it to me. I politely decline and she proceeds to eat it.

        Then, the second lady, probably hungry after observing  such elaborate  sandwich making ritual, grabs her own bag and starts fumbling with it.

        First she takes out a small branch of pine from it. She smells it with her eyes closed, like savoring some sweet memory. She kisses the branch and puts it on the chair next to her. She then takes out a train ticket, looks at it lovingly, like a child looking at her favorite doll. She kisses it too and puts it next to the pine branch. Then she puts her hand up to her mouth and spits her chewing gum on it. She rolls it in a small ball and put it on the chair, next to the other objects. Then she finally starts taking out her sandwich ingredients. A loaf of bread, butter, cheese, ham and a tomato. And she takes the tomato out of the bag in a very elaborate gesture, like a magician, to make sure the other lady sees it. Like a poker game: I see your ham and raise my tomato.

        She diligently assembles her sandwich, again slicing the tomatoes with very elaborate gestures, making sure the other lady sees it. When it's finally assembled she offers it to me, which, again I politely decline, and then proceeds to eat with gusto.

        When she finally finishes eating, she proceeds to put all the things back in the bag, except for the chewing gum, which was fairly stuck to the chair seat and stretches as she tries to detach it, which she, of course, put back in her mouth and proceeds on chewing as if it was freshly unwrapped from its package. 

        After the meal the two ladies finally settled down and even took a nap and I had the peace that I wanted to continue reading my book. Later in the afternoon the two of them left and the waiting room continued peaceful until evening.

        I finally boarded the train to Arad, where I had to get off and wait to board the train to Ploiesti.