It was dark when I reach the station. I have a ticket to Rome, but it was not an overnight train, so there was still a need to find a room for the night.
The departure board showed that my train will be delayed. Maybe something dropped on the railway track again. By the looks of it, it will be pass midnight by the time I reach Rome. Oh well, just have to sit around and wait.
While sitting at the waiting hall bench, looking at the departure board updating, at the Lazio sticker slapped on the bench, the large italian family greeting each other, and the two Korean girls applying their face moisturizer; I thought to myself: why not just spend the night at the Rome station. I supposed the station must bigger than the Florence one. If there still trains leaving throughout the night, the station would probably be open till morning.
When the train pulled into the station, the station was still brightly lit, although the shops were all closed for the day. I walked around inside the station, there were plenty of benches to go around. Some other passengers, probably those who missed a late train out or have an early train in the morning, were already settled on the benches with their luggage. There is a McDonald's right across the street by the side of the station. It's open for 24hr, so if I got hungry in the night, I could still head out there. I drop some coins into the platform vending machine, out came a bottle of energy drink. That's for the night ahead.
What I didn't count on was that the station does close for the night. Going by the arrival-departure board, after midnight, no trains arrive at or depart from this station until around 5 in the morning. It am not sure if all railway track lead to Roma, but it came as a surprise the station doesn't open 24-7.
I started to see security guards going on their round in their golfcart. The first to go was a Chinese couple at the end of the bench. They have huge luggages under them and were fast asleep when the guards woke them. Unable to communicate, the guards somehow got another Chinese guy to come and act as translator. They were persuded to leave the station.
The guards then turn their attention to the rest of us on the bench. Those with no ticket for train in the morning were asked to leave. My first strategy to get them off my back was: "No Italian, sorry. You speak English?". They do speak English, time for plan B. I lied that I am planning to leave on a train in the morning, but since I have a railpass, I have no tix to prove it. They seem to be satisfied with that and left me alone for now.
But now, I saw a couple of guys walking around with a small card in their palm, approaching the passengers stuck for the night. They were working for the hotel, the card advertising the hotels. They wasn't very successful, if you think about it, most of us still here in the station probably have no intention of checking into a hotel.
Some of us who survive this first round of 'purge' started a little chit-chat. To my right, a couple (I imagined them to be Romanian or gypsies) started a conversation with a young Indian guy. He look like one of those selling their kitschy ware before the Duomo. It sounds to my ear they were talking in Italian. It started in a friendly way, then their conversation stop abruptly, and the gypsies left the bench. Later, from the corner of my eyes I could see the Indian weeping, and wiping the tears with the back of his hands. I am not sure what the gypsies said, maybe something that reminded him of home, or something not very nice.
About an hour later, the golfcart were making their rounds again. This time, the guards insist I leave the bench. All of us still in the shopping area were being rounded up and ask to get to that one area in the station that we were allowed: the leftmost platform. That somehow harden my resolve to rough it out the night here.
The bunch of us started playing hide-n-seek with the guards, moving on to another rows of bench in another section of the shopping area. There were a white guy typing on his laptop, and a Indian family, a baby girl in the stroller. The guards seems to leave them alone. I couldn't morph into a white man, and I am Singaporean, we don't make babies that easily. I decided to pull out my laptop and organize my photoes, of course all the while pretending to be a business type hacking out his powerpoint presentation while waiting for his first train out of Rome. That seems to work. Until the Hongkies came along.
I could see them getting down their tour bus, the whole group of them. They probably have a connecting bus waiting for them. Initially, they were told to sit together at the leftmost platform. This they obeyed, setting up their canvas camping chairs and getting comfy. Then a few of them ventured into the shopping area, saw the few of us on the benches, and they start shouting for their compatriots to come over. I guessed they were from Hong Kong because they were speaking Cantonese: "嚟兜妖歪呀！！！" There are seat here!!!
So, abandoning their camping chairs, the bunch of them headed our way. All that din attracted the golfkart patrol. It didn't take long for them to rush over to investigate. This time, they got tough with everyone: white man, family with baby, guy pretending to hack out his powerpoint presentation. All were asked to get over to the platform.
That platform is actually relatively clean. It's just outside a row of shops, passengers probably don't board or alight from that side of the platform. That were so tiled seats on it. These seats and the pillars were taken. I pick a clean spot by a shop window and lay out the newspaper (those given out free for us 1st class train passengers.)
Each of us spent our night here in his own way. Most were fast asleep; others sprawled on the floor with their bag carelessly by their side, as if inviting anyone to pick at the content. A few rolled up their pungent tabacco and were smoking. One man by the pillar in front me was seated up all night, sometime the profile of his face appear from behind the pillar and then disappeared behind it again. It was not just men roughing it out here, there were some women, too. A chinese woman got a good night sleep, only waking up once with a dazed look, squinting at the lights and scatching her head: "where the hell am I?". I tried to get some light nap, careful not to go into a deep slumber, I worried about waking up to find my luggage gone.
Half way through the long night, I notice two young chaps walking down the platform. They looked like Arab or North African. They were eyeing the each of us on the platform. They stopped near me, and then went and check out the young man fast asleep by the pillar next to me. One of them tap on the shoulder of the sleeping guy, and when they were sure he was not waking up, they started checking out his big suitcase. I casted a suspicious eye at them, that got their attention. One of them, in tight pipe jeans and leather jacket, came over and started speaking to me, in italian? arab? I shrugged my shoulder, indicating I don't understand a word he was saying. Then he came close, leaned towards me, and placed his index finger on his lips. The meaning was loud and clear: whatever you witness next, keep your mouth shut. With a smile, he headed back to his prey. I knew a crime is in progress. I don't want to confront them head-on because it was not my property in danger. There was another reason, their prey was another young guy who looked arab or north african; and their target was a suitcase in pink. There was a linger suspicion in me that the three of them may be in cohort: two of them pretend to steal from the third and a fourth come from behind to grab my stuff while I was stupid enough to play hero.But I was not ready to allow them to walk off from a theft like that (all that it takes for evil to triumph is for good man to do nothing...and all that crap). I knew there were others awake at that hours who also saw what was going on, but none seem to want to get involved. By then, the two of them were wheeling off with the suitcase. I gather my things, zipped up my bag and tied my shoelace. I was in fight-or-flight mode. I went over to the sleeping guy, wake him after a few violent shaking and pointed to where his suitcase was a minute ago. "Your suitcase??!!" Finger pointing to the floor and then to his chest. "Yours??!!" "They took it, over there, quick!!!" Finger pointing to the two making off with the suitcase. The dazed guy took a few seconds to realize the point all that finger-jabbing was trying to make. He ran towards the guys, there was a short confrontation before the suitcase was returned to the rightful. In the meantime, I was ready to run for the golfkart patrol if those thieves got nasty. Luckily, it didn't come to that.
At regularly interval, the golfkart would make its appearance and run down the length of the platform. If they see someone fast asleep or careless with their belongings, they put the headlights to highbeam or toot the horn. I was beginning to appreciate these guards are on our side.
The guy came back and thank me and quickly went back to sleep. The excitment pumped enough adreline into my system. I was finding it hard to get back to sleep. I pulled out a guidebook and fill in the details of my iternary in Rome when the day break. That kept me up until the first shop in the station rolled up its shutters.
That shop was a bus company. Those continuing their journey by bus got up and headed to the counter. I saw the Indian, the one I saw weeping, gathering up his luggage and heading for the bus.
It was another hour or so before the second shop open up. Between now and then, the trains on the tracks were powering up, their engine purring for the warm-up. When the lights came on in the station cafe, it spelled the end of our 'vigil' at the platform.
Almost everyone who don't have a train or bus to catch gravitated towards the coffee aroma. I ordered my breakfast and a cafe ginseng. My energy drink was wearing off, and I need the caffeine and ginseng to get me through the day. When the golfkart patrol came in, some of those who spent the night on the platform greeted them good morning and exchange pleasantry.
The golfkart patrol was off-duty. The job of chasing away the loiterers and vagrants rested on the shoulder of the cafe manager. Anyone who parked their butts on the chair without ordering were asked to leave. Although when a mascular 1.8m African man did the same, the manager stood in a corner feebly shaking his head.
It would be another half an hour before the subway station below the train station open for business. One italian pushing a stroller asked me what time the subway will start running. How am I supposed to know, I am a tourist. I thought he was pushing his baby out for a morning ride, but there were no baby in the stroller.
I checked out outside the stations, there were a group of young men, and the two thieves were among them. Dawn was breaking in the Eternal City, and the barbarians wer
e at the gates. 
No comments:
Post a Comment