Thousands of Afternoons Ago

I was given the train ticket and told to be at Gare de Lyon at least 15 minutes before the train departure. The lady, who looked like Dalida, added that another student would take the same train heading also to the city of Vichy and we would have two adjacent seats.

The other student turned out to be an early forty man from Sri Lanka. One of his eyes was artificial or what we call a "glass eye". We communicated in English because he could not speak French well. Few minutes after the train started to leave, two loud arguing voices were heard. The louder sounded like angry African French female and the other was a calmer old female. It turned out that an old French lady did not like the noise caused by the African lady's children who occupied wrong seats next to her, and she asked the mother to behave her "monkeys". The whole fight/argument focused on using the word "monkey" which made the mother furious but I could not understand exactly how the old lady justified using the word. What surprised me most was the passivity of the passengers because similar situations in the Middle East would have attracted at least 2 or 3 persons to give their views or to support one party or another, but at the time I was not used yet to life in Europe.

We arrived Vichy and it was hot and the air was thick. We found a driver waiting to transfer us to the administrative building of the school. I paid farewell to my companion because from that point our routes were different. I went through the registration procedures, and at the end an energetic secretary gave me a map of the city and a paper on which she typed addresses of hotels, and asked me to search for a suitable residence. My class was scheduled to start the following day at 9.00 AM.

I left my suitcase at the office and went out with the map in one hand and the paper of addresses in the other. All the hotels were located within a walking distance. I started with a shabby hotel where the girl at the reception was wearing very short shorts and holding a cigarette in her hand. A few kids of hers, I assume, were running around. Nothing seemed appealing, neither the hotel nor the room but I wanted to feel settled down as quickly as possible, so I checked in immediately and went back to get my suitcase. In a matter of hour I was in my room, lying in bed. The big window was open to a calm courtyard and the heat started to cool down a little bit in the afternoon. I could hear the radio from afar and Joyce Sim singing Coming Into My Life.

At that moment I felt my stay of one month in Vichy would be long and boring. Very long and boring