Brief Encounter

Six Seats to Istanbul

Photograph: Erwin Jung, Interrail & Eurail Travelers

Our writing on music in Soho has taken a short holiday. In its place is this piece that I wrote last week for my writing group. The brief was ‘food’.

There were five of them, two of us and six seats, although they didn’t arrive in our compartment until the train had nearly cleared the city.

It lurched out of Thessaloniki in that reluctant, uncertain way that trains often do, especially those that have a day and a night ahead of them before reaching their destination. We were heading east, to the very edge of Europe. To Istanbul.

We heard them approaching along the corridor. They arrived not quite all at once: father first, then the mother, then three children folding themselves in around bags, parcels, something wrapped in cloth and a couple of big cases that were heaved up into the rack above us. There was a moment of recalculation on our part as the space we had imagined shifted shape before our eyes. This was accompanied by lots of smiling and laughing. We shared no common language, but managed to explain to each other where we were from. Us: London. Them: Baghdad.

We had done what we thought you did for an overnight train. Crisps. Cheese. A couple of apples. A few cans of Coke. It felt sufficient and modern. We were young and self-contained. But the mother was having none of it.

I’d barely removed the crisps from my bag when she waved at me to put them away. And so it began. Cases were heaved back down to the floor and stacked between us, a tablecloth appeared as if by magic and draped over them. A bag opened. Then another. Things appeared and were swiftly arranged: plates, small bowls, knives. Containers were opened. Food laid out. Within the blink of an eye a small banquet had appeared in the centre of the compartment.

From that moment until the train, again with reluctant uncertainty, pulled to a halt at Sirkeci station in Istanbul, we became part of their family. They fed and watered us, made space for us, and slept alongside us.

First came the bread: round, soft, slightly blistered flatbread that the mother tore with her hands, in a well-practised gesture of sharing, passing pieces to each of us. This was followed by things I could not name then, and cannot quite name now. I lived in London in 1980, when avocados were still a novelty and feta the stuff of cheesy holiday romances.

A small tin was opened: inside, something glossy and green packed tight. She tipped them gently onto a plastic plate where hands reached for them. When I bit into one, there was rice, lemon, something herb-sharp, something faintly oily that coated the mouth and stayed there.

Another container. Inside, a pale mound; possibly yoghurt, perhaps something else. She indicated that we should spoon it with bread. It was cool and garlicky.

Then something grainy, but not grains. It was probably cous cous, but this was yet to be found further north than Marseilles in Europe’s culinary geography of the time. There were lentils and herbs folded through it, and torn fragments of meat. A red sauce was offered to drench it with which was hot and peppery.

At some point, eggs appeared: hard-boiled, and peeled in a deft single movement. One of the children sprinkled something over them: a spice that was earthy and dry.

There were cucumbers. Small ones. So unlike the big watery tasteless ones I was used to. Intense, crisp and full of flavour. And tomatoes: huge and deep red that she cut in an instant, their juices running onto the bread. We tore, we dipped, we scooped, we ate. And with mouths full, we all smiled at each other, humming and grunting our approval.

And there was something sweet at the end: dates and figs. But not the dried ones - no Eat Me dates here. Big, plump, juicy, sweet and rich. The children laughed as they ate them.

They watched us with a kind of open curiosity. A couple of times the youngest boy pulled a face at me, and I pulled one back. Much hilarity ensued. The father nodded, as if confirming something had gone right. And the mother continued, assembling and offering, directing the entire meal, transforming our small compartment into something else entirely.

The food was passed, broken, shared, reassembled. It required hands, attention, a kind of mutual agreement. This was a meal where any distinction between family and strangers dissolved, where language gave way to food; indeed, where food became the language. We found other ways to express the joy of taste, the surprise of what each new bite revealed, the delight of new sensations. It may have been just another small cucumber to them; to me, it was a thing of wonder.

A table without a table. A family without a shared language.

The train moved through the night. We slept, or drifted, or simply rested inside the rhythm of wheels and the occasional murmur of unfamiliar voices. When we awoke there were delicious pastries with honey.

The train slowed as it approached Istanbul. Everything had been packed neatly away, the compartment returned to itself, the children gathered and readied for the next part of their journey home.

We passed factories and houses, apartment blocks and noisy roads. Warm air drifted in through the open window, softening as the train slowed. And in that slowing, the quiet certainty that something was about to pass: a brief encounter that I would always remember.

Then the rhythm of wheels slowly ceased, giving way to the chatter and shouts of the platform. Men and boys in dusty clothes wove paths through the crowd with circular trays suspended from their necks, brimming with sesame breads. There was a man with an ornate brass jug strapped to his back and a stack of tin cups chained to his belt. Cigarette boys worked the crowd. Technically we were still in Europe. Just. But this was unlike any part of Europe I’d ever seen.

We all stood for a moment on the platform. Smiles. A few words were said, their meanings implied if not understood. Hands pressed briefly together.

The mother touched her hand to her chest, then to mine. That much I understood. Then the crowd took them, and they were gone.

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Thanks to Rhiannon, Ray and Tom - my fellow writing group members.