Today I came face to face with the pure goodness that lives inside me, and it brought me to my knees, shaking and unable to bear its revelation without breaking into uncontrollable sobs. Of all the days when I have been thankful to be alive, this one will remain special.
The day started when I stepped out of my home with my bike to go to work as usual, and locked the door behind me. On opening the main door of the building, I realised that it is raining outside. I went back in, put my cycle back in its place and decided to take the tram, U-Bahn, to work. Tram line 6 that passes by my stop was running perfectly well at that time.
At work I had dealt with a few tasks when I began to feel an uneasiness in my stomach. I decided to go back home after my 14.00 meeting, instead of trying to push through the rest of the afternoon. An upset stomach can be better handled at home. I stepped out of work around 15.00 and walked towards the nearest U-Bahn stop, Schneiderberg.
At Schneiderberg, I absent-mindedly walked to the platform that is meant for trams going to the outskirts of the city. I realised this as an oncoming U-bahn line 5 towards the city center was visible on its way into the stop. I hurriedly crossed over to the right platform just in time to catch this tram. It was quite crowded, but since it took merely three stops to Steintor where I should get down, I decided to go for it rather than wait for the next one. At Steintor I can catch the Line 6 towards my home.
In the autopilot mode that sets in after spending a couple of years in a city, I made my way to the platform for Line 6 at Steintor. The line 6 goes upto Nordhafen and the next one is scheduled in a minute. As I waited the minute out, I read the news on the big projector. The tram arrived as promised and I got in.
As I got in, places to sit were sparse, but I decided to sit on the folded chair where bikes can be parked inside the tram if you want. I noticed a girl with her Starbucks and AirPods and thought to myself, human beings of 2022 would be represented like this in the big book of natural history. Starbucks in hands, AirPods in ears, head bent down onto phones, nose and mouths behind black masks. I made a mental note of how I could write about this idea on my blog and immediately smirked at myself because blogging is something I haven’t done in an eternity. All I do is to make mental notes of observations I find interesting, or to remind myself that writing is my chosen form of creative outlet and throttling it might be one of the reason why I end up feeling mentally unwell much more often than ever before.
After the chain of thought about failure at blogging, I noticed the old German woman who sat down opposite me. Her hair was short and serenely white. She had the shopping trolley, typically seen with the elderly in Germany. It has wheels. She was dressed with care, black socks that went upto her knees and black shoes. I remember thinking that the last time I dressed that carefully was to go to school. What caught my attention was her eyes – she had bluish green eyes which were flaring occasionally. My eyes might flare when I am angry. But in hers, those involuntary flares were the most prominent element that registered in my brain the fact that she is a very old woman. I noticed her wedding band secured around her ring finger and I momentarily felt my own on my only ring-clad finger. Two married women, I thought.
At An der Strangriede, the tram stopped and the pilot announced something in German. I did not understand what it was, but passengers began to disembark the tram with disgruntled faces. It looked like the tram cannot go further. I often get down at that stop and walk home because it is a nice amount of distance to walk. So I was not bothered by the fact that the tram is discontinuing its trip. But I could not leave the tram for another reason.
The elderly woman opposite me, the Oma, has not understood what is going on. She is looking around with puzzle in her flaring, greenish-blue eyes. Although the announcement from the pilot was in German, it had been feeble and unintelligible. And she had clearly not understood it either. In what followed, I was simply following my most basic, raw human inclination, unaffected by logic, unaffected by rationale.
I stayed back in the tram, like a guarding dog for this Oma. There were a few others who remained in the tram, probably because they made alternative plans with the information from the announcement, or because they were also clueless. An Indian girl who was dressed in a Kurti walked up to me and asked if I understood English and if I understood what is happening with the tram. I replied that while I know English, my German was not good enough to understand the situation. She had been trying to get to her destination with Line 6 for three attempts now, but the tram always stopped at this stop and turned left instead. I checked where her destination is and suggested that maybe the best way to get there is to walk. The Oma is eating some bread now.
Chaos ensued as a man who was waiting at An Der Strangriede for the Line 6 to go further, blocked the door from closing with his trolley. This happened right in front of us. If the doors cannot close the tram cannot go, and a couple of minutes later the pilot arrived at the door that has been barricaded. ‘Inside or Outside?’ she demanded to the man. The man complained of how he wanted to go simply a little more ahead on the route of Line 6 but has been left waiting on the platform for hours now. The pilot explained things to him in a stern manner. The man refused to move his barricade and eventually the pilot left, perhaps to summon the Polizei. I watched as a girl on the platform gently removed the man’s barricade with a smile and some kind words that might have been along the lines that what he is doing is not helping anyone. He gave in to her and removed himself, but the doors of the tram had been affected in some technical manner and they were beeping like crazy. The pilot returned to try to solve this. The Oma watched everything.
After more attempts from the pilot to quiet the doors, the tram finally began to move out of An der Strangriede. Instead of going straight to Nordhafen, it curved left towards Haltenhoffstraße. The Oma noticed this change of itinerary and began to fathom that the tram will not reach her destination as planned. At Haltenhoffstraße everyone has to get down because now the tram will return on its track back to the city center. With everyone the Oma also got out, and began asking ‘where is this place?’
A man dressed in green overalls who had been with us in the tram paused to explain to her. But he was also struggling with his German and he left. I could still not leave and walk towards my home. I went upto the Oma and she asked me, ‘where are we now?’. I replied, ‘Haltenhoffstraße’. No recognition in her eyes. I asked her, ‘Where would you like to go?’. ‘Vinnhorst’, she replied. Vinnhorst is further north from my stop on Line 6. I saw the pilot move through the tram and ran upto her and asked, ‘Could you please help the old woman out on the platform?’. ‘What happened? I don’t have time, I have to take the tram back’, she replied. I stubbornly repeated my request and she came with me to the Oma. The Oma told her, ‘I have to go to Vinnhorst.’ The pilot replied, ‘Vinnhhorst? I don’t know, the tram won’t go there anymore. It is best to ask the bus driver there.’ The Oma and I went towards the Bus 136 to Stöcken that was parked there. I waited as Oma asked the driver, ‘How can I go to Vinnhorst?’. The driver replied, ‘The bus won’t go to Vinnhorst, there has been an accident on the way. You have to walk.’ Vinnhorst is too far to reach by walking, I thought to myself. But the bus driver was showing the Oma the way to walk. She turned to me and asked me, ‘Where do you need to go?’. I said, ‘Hainholz’. She paused for a moment and said, ‘Vinnhorst is shortly after Hainholz.’ I asked, ‘Yes, but isn’t it too far to walk?’. She said something along the lines that it is alright for her to walk, and asked me if we shall cross the road. After crossing the road I told her that I can book a taxi for her if she wants. But she seemed lost and did not answer my question. From that point in Haltenhoffstraße until the end she and I have talked a lot. I in my broken German, slowly, not fully sure what she is saying but grabbing on to the crucial information. She, repeating a lot of things in her conversation about how strange this whole traffic situation is, how line 6 should not come this way, how bus 121 is going. I mentioned again that I can call a taxi for her with my phone, and she said that she has no mobile phone. She said, ‘We can go walking, my destination is shortly after yours.’ I said, ‘that is perfectly fine by me.’ We walked upto the Line 6’s original route and recognition returned to her eyes, and I felt glad. We walked upto Nordstadt Bahnhof as she talked about how this is the way for Line 6. I narrated how in the morning I had travelled by Line 6 without any problems. I asked her if she needs help with her trolley bag, because Nordstadt Bahnhof stop is slightly uphill. She said that it is okay, paused and opened the trolley to explain to me that it is mostly empty except for some bread and pointed to her bag strapped across her shoulders and explained that she keeps her money and cards in there. By this time Oma and I shared a camaraderie owing to our unfortunate experience with Linie 6 and the ridiculous flow of German from my mouth that I was myself surprised by.
As we got to Nordstadt Bahnhof, it looked like Line 6 had resumed operation because one passed by. So we decided to stop and wait to see if another one will arrive. As we waited she continued to talk about the day, how ‘verrückt’ it was, and that she is eighty-eight years old. She took off her mask and I got to see her beautiful, 88 year old smile. She asked me if we should continue to walk instead of waiting and I said it is better to wait for a while. I could not let her walk till Beneckealle, which was her stop. It comes three stops after mine. She continued to talk to me and ask me things in German to which I kept smiling and replying, ‘I cannot understand you’, because I was unable to follow her.
I wished I could.
Some time later the next Linie 6 arrived and I said ‘Yay’ and jumped to the road. She laughed and followed me. I helped her up the stairs of the tram and we sat down to resume the rest of our journey.
She began to say that she wants to give me something because of how ‘nett’ I have been. She took out her purse and fetched a 20 Euro. I said no, I do not need anything and added that if she really wishes she can give the gift to a kid. She mentioned something about her ‘Enkelkinder.’ She then opened a smaller purse, and I said, she can give me 2 cents if she really wants to give me something. She gave me a 2 Euro coin and added another 2 Euro coin in, saying, ‘today has been so verrückt I want to give you double 2 Euro’. I laughed and rose from my place because the tram arrived at my stop. I got out waving her bye. And she rose up from her place and turned to the window to keep waving at me. Up to the point that the she lost me from her field of view, the eighty-eight year Old Oma waved at me through the window.
I had barely turned back and begun walking when my eyes began to well up. I sniffled and teared on my walk home and as soon as I got into my home, it turned into an outburst which brought me on my knees and down on the floor.
I had no idea why I was crying like a baby. It could be the general stress I have been under that finally found a small outlet to break out. It could be my immense loneliness that also found an outlet. Or it could be that I had witnessed the entity that is ‘me’, in its rawest, purest form of being alive. And it was too much to handle without breaking down.
In that moment, I didn’t need any other reason to be alive. My existence somehow made sense all by itself. Usually it is something external, namely work, that I use as the justification for life.
And for some reason, I miss the Oma of Linie 6. Terribly.
[All conversations mentioned in this story were originally in German, and have been translated to English for ease of expression.]
Alleys 
You must be logged in to post a comment.