Author: Ryszard Kapuściński, published: 10 August 1996

On the morning of 30 July I took the train from Pinsk to Brest. The distance of 180 kilometres takes three and a half hours — just over 50 kilometres an hour.

The day before I had actually looked forward to this slow pace, since I wanted one more look at the landscapes of my Polesie. Unfortunately it proved impossible: the windows were so coated in grime and mud that nothing was visible. This was old, encrusted mud, layered upon itself like geological strata — mud that one might call eternal. Nor could the windows be opened; they were sealed shut, once and for all. Because of these plastered panes the carriage was in semi-darkness, as if blacked out, even though the sun was shining outside.

One could not get off when the train stopped at a station either — that privilege belonged only to those leaving for good, reaching their final destination. Those continuing had to stay in their seats. The system works like this: only one door opens in each carriage, guarded by a conductress (one per carriage: twenty carriages — twenty conductresses). They are generally young women with a strong sense of authority — they know how much depends on them: they can let you in or not. They shout, give orders, issue threats. The passengers are obedient, meek, even content — glad simply to be travelling at all.

And yet to step off the carriage even for a moment, even for a minute, seems like a lifeline, a salvation. For in the carriage reigns a stifling fug. It is impossible to describe its oppressive consistency. There is the smell of socks, shirts, skirts and aprons, of armpits and legs, something in those baskets smells, something in those oilcloth bags, something rises from the floor and walls — an indefinable odour, sourly sweet and bitterly sugary, omnipresent, persistent, constantly attacking, gagging. One does not know how to breathe: shallowly means suffocation, but deeply means suffocation too — only that shallow suffocation is clean, one’s own, ecologically uncontaminated, whereas the deep kind is loaded with stench, sticky, clogging, as if someone were pushing a sweaty fist down one’s throat.

Between stations, as the train rolls through the boundless plains of Belarus, the conductresses occupy themselves with their make-up. Each has her own private compartment, and in it a mirror. By the time we pull into Brest, they are so solemnly elegant that one might expect a fashion show to begin on the platform.

In Brest, crowds push at the ticket windows. They push, but in silence. If anyone starts to shout — and an ordinary passenger has no authority, no right to do so — passing militiamen will eject him from the queue. The pushing therefore proceeds in silence; at most one hears sighs or groans from those who fail to get a ticket.

I join the pushing too. By asking in all directions I had established where the international ticket office is. Those pushing here are people with exit permits to the West. They push too, of course, but this is a crowd of a higher order, so to speak. These are the New Belarusians, class brothers of the New Russians. Here one can spot a fashionable suit; here one catches the scent of French perfume. Even the pushing itself is more refined. Because on the one hand they know that without pushing they will not get a ticket, but on the other they are conscious that such behaviour is rather inelegant, uncivilised. On the few centimetres of the ticket window ledge a fascinating confrontation takes place, a ceaseless clash of two civilisations. On one side, a breath of the wide world — the elegant passengers drop names: Brussels, Paris, Aachen, Hamburg. And they produce wads of dollars, francs, marks, and guilders. On the other side sits a solitary woman — there is only one cashier for this crowd — and carefully, in her old pen, fills out large tickets with many columns. Then she begins the slow and cautious business of converting these currencies into Belarusian roubles. It goes on and on without end. Nothing can be done, nothing improved, nothing speeded up. Separated by a small window, two worlds face each other, two cultures, two measures of time.

In this confrontation between the world of Brest and the world of Paris and Brussels, Brest triumphs again and again. First, Brest will not be led by the nose and will not be rushed. Brest has its own time, and everything here must proceed accordingly. Second, Brest makes a mockery of the West’s naive and arrogant theory that money can do anything. Here, however much you wave your fan of dollars, the cashier will not sell you a ticket: no seats, she announces, and snaps the window shut.

Fortunately I had a return ticket and merely needed to have it confirmed. Now I began looking for customs control, which at Brest takes place at the station, not on the train. Different people gave me different answers to my question about the customs office, but eventually, following the thread, I found it. I entered a large, gloomy hall, its centre occupied by customs desks with X-ray machines for baggage — all out of service, as there was no electricity. Brest station was once built in the style of Stalinist showcase architecture — the gateway to the Soviet Union — all pomp, gilding, marble. But all that is the past. The plaster is peeling, the door frames will not close, the chandeliers are broken, twisted, blind.

At the far end of this vast hall a customs officer sat at a desk, reading a newspaper. I approached to ask if I could be cleared. I gave the train number and destination. He read on, did not look up, did not answer. A second customs officer sat nearby; I wanted to turn to him, but he sat with his gaze fixed in the opposite direction, motionless, somehow unreal, staring blankly at nothing. I stood there, the situation becoming absurd; despite repeating my question, the reading one kept reading, and the motionless one kept staring into space — both in an extreme form of autism, closed somewhere in their own deaf, inaccessible world.

I decided to retreat — but only partially. I was afraid to disappear from their sight entirely, as that might arouse suspicion: if he left, why had he come in at all? I knew that the heads of these customs officers worked differently from mine, so I now tried, not without effort, to follow the thread of their cunning and suspicious thinking. And since the foundation of that thinking is the assumption that every traveller has bad, criminal intentions, it was clear that they saw in me someone trying to deceive them — in what way, how, oh, there could be a hundred different answers to that.

So I stood in the middle of the hall, already distanced from the customs officers but afraid to step outside, and the atmosphere around me thickened, even though on the surface nothing was happening — one officer read, the other stared fixedly, there was complete silence.

Only after a while did another passenger enter, and I immediately felt more confident. The ratio was now two to two: two guardians of the law to two potential offenders. This second passenger began filling in the customs declaration. I followed his example. More passengers appeared. We stood and waited to see what would happen next. Perhaps an hour later, my customs officers disappeared somewhere, and I saw two new ones in their place. These sat at the tables, and the formalities began.

I watched, fascinated, for such things are rarely to be seen in the world anymore. The man standing before me in the queue was travelling to Berlin. The customs officer told him to empty all his money onto the table and arrange it in piles — dollars here, lire here, pesetas here, marks here. He began to count. Something did not add up. He began again. Still did not add up. He told the passenger to hand over his wallet. The wallet was worn and had many compartments. This very fact aroused suspicion: why so many pockets, so many hidden folds? The examination of the wallet began. In this pocket — nothing. And in this one? Nothing either. Hmm. But something still does not add up. Count again! Dollars, lire, pesetas, marks. In the end the scolded, upbraided passenger was allowed to move on. Next. Again something does not add up. Again the counting, the recounting, the rummaging in the wallet. In fact, everyone has some sort of error, shortcoming, mistake, discrepancy, inconsistency, oversight, imperfection. Everyone must be questioned, contradictions in their answers caught, questions put again, heads shaken in disbelief.

But that is not all. Those of us who have been questioned, counted, and customs-approved must still pass through passport control. For this we are directed to a new hall. A new hall — a new wait. Power, to assert its full authority, needs the distance of time. The higher the power, the longer the wait. And besides, as interrogators say, waiting softens people up. I wait perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps half an hour. There they are! The border guards enter their booths and examine passports. More questions, more: but where, and what, and nods of the head — whether disbelieving or approving, one cannot tell. But in the end we have a stamp in our passports and can hurry to the train, which has long been waiting for us on the platform.

Can we? We cannot! A soldier stops us and orders us to wait. Not in the way that each person stands and waits where he likes — no, we must wait in a close-packed group. The soldier is serious and keeps careful watch that the group maintains a proper, compact shape. Someone tried to stand aside and was reprimanded: stand in the group. We must help the soldier — he has received an order: keep everyone in sight, count them constantly. People strain toward the train standing just beside us. Their mouths water, but — no. Wait, stand in the group, until the order comes. Everyone stands apparently calm, but inwardly uncertain. Everyone knows that although another world is close, their whole journey can be sent back to zero at any moment: perhaps the stamp was put in the wrong place, perhaps the money should be counted once more. So the tension in the group rises. An electric current runs through it, setting it into a state of concealed trembling.

At last the soldier steps back — the way is clear! The group rushes to the train.

We cross the bridge; below, a slow river, a sandbank, tall reeds. In the next compartment a group of young Russians is travelling to Prague for a song festival. One of them plays the accordion, all of them sing. They sing Yablochko and Kalina, they sing Chyornuyu noch’ and Vzyalby ya banduru, they sing Dnipro ty Dnipro Shirokiy and Ne zabudy mnya. At a certain moment someone starts Artilleristy, Stalin dal prikaz. Laughter breaks out, then silence falls in the compartment. Artilleristy…

source: kapuscinski.info