Chance Encounters

 

CHANCE ENCOUNTERS

My penchant for talking to strangers has to come from my parents’ DNA. As a child I would wait as either my mother or my father would chat for what seemed like hours. Most of the time I want to go home to play or go for that promised ice cream, but every now and then, what they were saying was fascinating.

After they were through talking, I’d ask, “Who was that?” and almost always they’d answer, “I don’t know.”

Looking back over the decades, I found I’d collected so many memories of conversations of people I’d met by happenstance on the street, in restaurants, planes, trains, buses… just about anywhere people were.

Some were momentary when we went separate ways. Others may not have become friends so much as acquaintances where contact was maintained over years until they dribbled out or didn’t.

Here’s a sample.

Daughters on a train: My 17-year-old daughter Llara and I were on a train from Cologne, Germany to Paris. It was what my cousin called a milk train, stopping at a number of small cities and towns. It was also the type of train with compartments like in those of old-time spy movies. Two seats each for three people faced each other flanking the large picture window. Six people could be seated comfortably, but it was only Llara and me. There were windows on the door and on both sides of it, facing out to the corridor.

I had noticed a woman, no more than in her thirties, walk by three times. Her coat was wet and her thick hair was covered with a plastic rain hat. On the fourth time she opened the door and asked in German if she could join us.

My daughter, who had studied German for four years, responded.

Picking up an accent, the woman switched to English.

We began a conversation.

She was on the way to see her ill mother, a trip she made at least three times a week. The woman worked in Cologne as a secretary, but her mother still lived in the woman's childhood home.

The conversation morphed into mother and daughter relationships. She commented how Llara and I seemed to like each other as well as love each other, responsibilities of one role to the other and how they could change over time.

At the time both my mother and my beloved stepmom were well and healthy. Years later when my mother was dying of cancer and my stepmom sunk into dementia, I often thought back to that conversation. I would picture that train compartment with rain pelting the windows, the woman’s thick brown hair.

She reached her destination halfway to Paris. After reaching for the door handle, she turned. “I went up and down the train to decide where to sit, and you two looked interesting. I was right.” We wished her well and courage dealing with her mother. She wished us a pleasant vacation and hoped there would be no rain in Paris.

The acrobat: On the TGV from Geneva, where I now lived and Paris where I was going to spend a week with my former neighbor Marina, a Syrian doctor now practicing in the City of Light. My assigned seat was next to a woman of indeterminate age, but older than me, I thought. She was slim, well-dressed, dyed blond hair.

I can’t remember who started that conversation. She wanted to speak English because she didn’t have many opportunities. As a Jewish child, she had been hidden during the war on a farm outside Paris. After the war she became an acrobat with Ringling Brothers Circus. Now she was retired.

Her descriptions of traveling with the circus matched many movies about circus life. I wondered if she were telling the truth.

We parted at the Gare du Lyon. We never exchanged names. I wondered if she had been manufacturing a history, but not long thereafter, while visiting the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida, I thought I spied a younger version of her in a photo.

The Chinese student: Going from Geneva to the south of France, I sat next to a Chinese student. Like all students she was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.

She was studying for a masters in business in Grenoble. All her life, she said, opportunities had been denied her in China because her father had been a dissident and was in prison. Her mother had worked her fingers to the bone, and she had used that English expression, to protect her daughter and give her a chance in life, which was how she was able to go to university in France.

We exchanged emails and stayed in touch.

She did find work in China but wrote how terrible the company was.

Switching into mentor mode, I wrote back telling her it was an opportunity to shine, by bringing solutions to management.

How she did it, I will never know, but not only was she promoted, but she was offered a good position in Basel. We drank hot chocolate in Geneva at Auer Café when she had to be there to see a client.

She complained about her boyfriend. This time I did not offer any advice.

We are connected on LinkedIn and periodically check in but the time between contacts gets longer and longer and I suspect will fritter out totally.

The lost Russian woman: Geneva, Genf, Ginerva, gray, grigio, gris, grau all start with the letter G; that must be a symbol of how the city of Geneva is often trapped for days under gray skies. This day we had just submerged from over a week of cloudy, dark days to the other way the city can present itself as radiant with blue, blue skies.

I had had my regular checkup with my doctor. His practice was located near the airport. Rather than take the bus to walk downtown, I decided to walk in the sunshine through the section of UN alphabet agencies. Even though Geneva is a major city, there was a field of horses and small, wooded areas.

At the main UN building with its two rows of flags of all the member states, I was approached by a woman who wanted to know how to get to the train station.

“There’s the number 5 bus stop there.” I pointed. “However, I’m walking there if you’d like to walk with me.”

Our conversation covered ordinary topics. We were mothers of a single child, but when it came to books, our conversation blossomed. Her knowledge of English literature far exceeded mine of Russian, although I barely held my own on the classics.

We exchanged emails and that began a regular exchange that has lasted two decades.

She invited my husband and me to St. Petersburg and we found ourselves walking up a dilapidated staircase as we expected from what we had read about Russia.

When she opened the door, we didn’t expect the beautiful apartment that she owned. She told of how when she was first married with her baby son, she had lived in a flat the size of her current living room. That tiny space was shared her in-laws and several other people.

If there is a gold medal for hosting, she would win it. Also, for being a tour guide. She tried to show us everything possible about that magnificent city.

My greatest thrill was seeing the room where Rasputin was stabbed and the door where he staggered out and fell in the water.

We were intrigued when after a ballet, she went into traffic, stopped a car and negotiated a ride home.

I was also thrilled when she took me to a bookstore, where we bought a copy of my novel Chickpea Lover: Not a Cookbook in Russian.

I deliberately never email anything about politics, not wanting to compromise her. However, I need to ask her for the cucumber recipe she made for us.

The Algerian taxi driver: Mohamed became my regular taxi driver when I went from my friend Marina’s flat to the train station. Over several trips we solved the problems of the world. I learned about his life in Algeria as a child.

Once we arranged for him to take my daughter to Charles de Gaulle airport. “Take good care of her, she’s the most precious thing in my life,” I told him.” His smile broke through his long beard.

“Mais oui, Madame.”

“Shukran,” I said.

“Awfan,” he replied.

On one ride, he called his sister. “You two would love each other. The next time you’re in Paris we will go to her house, she’ll make couscous. You like couscous?”

I did love it, but the meal never took place. It was a couple of years before I got back to Paris and by then he had left the taxis company.

Two waiters: My husband had been raving about this breakfast buffet at an Orlando hotel where he attended an annual conference annually. This was the first time I’d joined him. He had not underestimated it. Even though it was a buffet there was wait staff to meet our every need, and it was a great opportunity for more chance encounters.

Luigi admitted to being Italian saying, “At least my little fingernail is.” He told us he speaks Italian, English, Spanish. He had been a waiter at the hotel for 14 years and says the wages and benefits are good, including the health insurance.

The waiter Jean-Paul was originally from India, has two daughters, the older in university. Before working in hotels, he was a waiter on cruise ships, but he didn't like to be away from his family. He took our napkins and folded them to form a slipper. He made Mickey Mouse ears for my husband. I was decorated as the Statue of Liberty.

A wheelchair attendant: Thanks to a fall and a bad leg, my husband insisted on wheelchair access at the airport. I didn’t argue.

Rose, a Haitian immigrant to Miami, was assigned to maneuver me around the airport. She did not look her 40 years but much younger.

I opened the conversation by asking her how much she walked each day pushing people to and from planes.

“A lot,” she said. She revealed her life story as she walked.

Her childhood dream was to be a doctor, but in her broken country and with no funds it was impossible. She made her way to Florida, learned English and by working two jobs was able to help her mother move out of danger to the States. Over the years, she married and  had three children.

In one more year, she will be certified as a nurse. Her journey has been hard. Her husband recently died.

“I was so tired, I wanted to quit studying,” she said, but my older girl wouldn’t let me.” That girl is an all-A student and has her own dream to fulfill her mother’s of being a doctor.

I did tell Rose about how much cheaper universities were in Europe and although I couldn’t guarantee it would work, they should check it out.

Our conversation was interrupted by an angry man who wanted a wheelchair for his lame mother. He berated Rose although she has nothing to do with the chair assignment process. Shee made all the necessary calls without losing her politeness and did what she could to calm him.

This is a woman whose persistence and courage will stay with me forever.

 

The Saudi researcher: My husband really wanted to go to the 48th International Inventions exhibit in Geneva. I was neutral, but I learned long ago that neutrality usually leads to some great discoveries.

I passed the Iranian stand, and next to it was the tiniest exhibition booth I have ever seen. One could stand in the middle and not hold out both arms. It was woman-ed by a woman in a burka from Saudi Arabia.

"Mahaba," I said and added I did not know much more Arabic.

We decided English was easier for her than French.

She was a researcher working through a university to find natural antibiotics. She explained to me about her 4 white rats and 4 levels of tests complete with slides of results.

Since no one seemed to even notice her, I felt I was not taking up her time that she could spend with someone more important to her needs.

She was impassioned with her work.

She apologized for it, opening the door to a slightly more personal discussion.  

There was so much more I wanted to ask her as she fiddled to keep her head scarf in place.

There was much I wanted to ask her. How was it to be a woman at a university in a country where women were so limited? How did she become interested in her field? Was she married? Children? What was her daily life like? How did she feel about the burka?

I didn't ask anything, but I told her under different circumstances I would love to share a cup of tea with her. She agreed. I could tell by her eyes she was smiling. 

She asked if she could take a selfie of us.

I said yes.

 

There are many more chance encounters: a Danish economist, a woman who had a jam and jelly company and how she had designed the label, a nun in street clothing, a Finnish teacher to name just a few. I do know that every encounter has added something to my life, a bit of knowledge, a warmth, gratitude for my own life.