When I was a child I sometimes got to visit kids whose parents were far wealthier than mine. What I loved about these visits was that I got to play with imported toys that one didn't see in normal life; of these, what fascinated me most were the beautifully made, highly detailed train sets. It seemed amazing to me that someone could go to such trouble to make toys for mere kids - what I didn't understand was that there were an awful lot of grown-ups, mostly men, who also loved to play with these highly expensive miniature trains. Of these sets, the best ones would come from Germany and Switzerland, and when you sit in a train belonging to one of these countries it's easy to see why.
To catch my train from Venice's main station, Santa Lucia, I take a vaporetto around the northern edge of the city. Coming through the canal traffic jams and the hustle and bustle I can only associate with an Italian city, I make a dash for the designated platform - French or Italian trains may leave a minute or two late but the German ones were likely to be strictly punctual. I settle into the window seat of the second-class compartment and I feel I'm suddenly surrounded by orderly German train architecture in the middle of much Italian-ness. Cliché-driven illusion or not, the Deutsche Bahn gaadi pulls out exactly on time, with minimum metallic throat-clearing. Almost at once we are crossing the rail bridge to the mainland, at the centre of one of those busy transport scenes from Western children's books: below us, boats of different sizes ply to and fro while above us jet planes descend to their landing approach, looking for all purposes as if they are about to put down on the sea itself. Looking left, I can wave goodbye to the huge cruise liners lined up in their liquid parking lot.
The train from Venice to Munich initially heads inland and westwards, stopping at Padua, Vicenza and Verona before turning north. Leaving Padua, outside the big glass window the last of the summer still holds sway over the countryside and the sun makes the vineyards shimmer. Italy is full of great wines all over, and this is the region which produces the Soave, some great Prosecco, the famous Valpolicella and Bardolino, and that favourite heavy hitter of international vinicionados, wannabe and connoisseur alike, Amarone. It being too hot to drink wine, I make my way to the restaurant car and procure myself a bottle of cold German beer to go with the sandwich of doggie-bag leftovers that I've carefully constructed that morning. Suddenly life feels good - beautiful late August landscape passing by, a comfortable seat in a clean, uncrowded train, the cold fizz of crisp hops in my mouth, all the best that Europe can offer.
The train stops at Verona, the town of Romeo and Juliet, and things shift somewhat. As we pull out of the station there is a low-level commotion in the corridor outside. I can hear the conductor speaking in very slow German to people who clearly don't understand him. Then, one by one, I see new passengers stumbling past the inner windows of the compartment: heavy, cumbersome suitcases, towering backpacks, women in headscarves carrying babies, teenage boys with anxious faces under their back to front baseball caps. The large conductor comes behind the group, shepherding them, not unkindly, towards another carriage. Before leaving for the station I've read the news on the net; riots are breaking out around the main station in Budapest, Syrian refugees are rushing to get on trains to Germany, the Austrian train system is under stress, everyone is heading for Munich.
After we pass Trento, I make another expedition to the restaurant car. The character of the train seems to have changed. It's hardly a large mass of people, especially by Indian standards, but about 50 or 60 people seem to have got on at Verona, all without tickets, and the conductors have distributed them across the train while 'protecting' the reserved first and second class compartments. As I sidle past, I see my new co-passengers sitting in the corridor seats, standing near the bathrooms, or squatting on the open floor areas where the carriages interlock. By the looks of them, sharp-featured, African, they are not from Syria but Ethiopia or Somalia. Many of them look exhausted and worried, but their clothes seem to be in good nick, the belongings they're holding on to more or less intact. Suddenly, with that peculiar embarrassment reserved for those slow on the uptake or out of the loop, the obvious hits me: the news is focused on the situation in Syria and the refugees it is 'pumping into Europe', but the fact is there are many crises in the Middle East and Africa and the escapees are coming in from all directions.
The train becomes sinuous as it reaches the foothills of the Alps, the vineyards now sit in the laps of hills, the light is now mellowed, leavened by flurries of mist. From the bucolic mountain vista we suddenly enter an industrial zone, chemical factories, construction works, impassive plants that I imagine are making electronic surveillance systems and weapons. At some point we stop in Bolzano/Bolzen, the town names in the South Tyrol taking on twin names in Italian and German as we approach the Austrian border. I know a friend used to run a film festival here, and other friends curated a huge art show here a few years back, but at this moment all that seems very unreal. At Bressanone/Brixen I get off on the small, chilly, hill-stationey platform for a cigarette and watch as Austrian border guards inspect the train. One detachment walks through inside the train while another bunch of them bend and look under the train with torches, making sure no one is hiding between the wheel-carriages. As I shiver and puff, the large conductor stands next to me, smiling in his uniform shirtsleeves and explains that this was all part of the Austro-Hungarian empire till the Italians snatched it in the First World War. At Innsbruck, I find him talking to one of the ticketless travellers, asking him whether he has any papers at all. It's a friendly query, not officious or aggressive at all. The man replies equally candidly, shaking his head in a 'no'.
Past the Austrian border, the mountains get steeper. Auto-aqueducts accompany the train route, towering over us, flinging fast moving vehicles across themselves as we wind our way through the mist and sheer rock. The train stops at Innsbruck, yet another name inscribed in my teenage thriller-reader's trivia-geography, and then we are in flat Germany under a rapidly darkening sky.
Munich's Ost-Bahnhof is a cold, grey characterless station and it takes me some time to find a bar where a local friend can come and meet me. He comes, suitcase gurgling behind him, having just arrived from Berlin and about to head off to Seoul. We drink a couple of beers. He tells me Verona, for some reason, is a key station on the route refugees take from Africa to Germany. He also tells me that the story is different at the main rail station in Munich, that refugees are arriving in droves, that the citizens of Munich are greeting them with food and warm clothes. I'm tempted to go and see but I have a night-train to catch to Berlin.
My sleeper compartment on the Berlin train is so far at one end that it's off the platform - I have to climb into the adjacent carriage and make my way to my berth. Inside, I'm reminded of the Rajdhani 2nd AC and this trance lasts till a friendly German man comes and plonks himself down on the berth opposite. "Hallo!" He says before cheerily popping open a bottle of beer and taking a swig. As the train slides forward I find myself thinking of how history spins its massive wheel and how little of that wheel you can see at any given moment. I can't escape thoughts of what trains in the night meant in this country 70 years ago, imaginations from my teenage years of the Gestapo and the Stasi, of the darkness associated with Germany. It's crazy (and yet not that crazy) to think that this, of all European countries, is the one that's thrown its doors open the widest to the desperate people pouring into the continent; it's mind-boggling to think of Angela Merkel, 'the murderer of Greece', overnight becoming the mother providing a home to the world's war-scarred waifs; it's crazy, but there it is.
Come morning, passing through the southern suburbs of Berlin, I see that I'm in the last compartment of the long train. Just outside is the closed door and its long window through which you can see the track peeling away, stretching all the way to Verona, all the way to Africa, and, forking, all the way - if I allow myself the fantasy - to Damascus and Aleppo.
