I read the ticket several times.
If you wish to meet her, you must first arrive without her.
The words were unmistakably mine. I recognised the cramped lettering, the peculiar way I crossed my sevens, the slight downward slant that appeared whenever I was tired.
I turned the ticket over.
The reverse was blank.
When I looked up, the woman had gone.
Eleanor was still at the far end of the corridor, listening to the bell. She seemed not to have noticed the disappearance.
“Where has she gone?”
Eleanor turned.
“Who?”
I stared at her.
“The woman who was standing beside me.”
She looked at the empty space where the woman had been.
“Oh,” she said. “That.”
“Where is she?”
“Back where she belongs.”
“Where is that?”
Eleanor resumed walking.
“You'll have to find out.”
I followed her towards the bell.
The corridor had lengthened. The doors numbered 1, 2, and 3 were gone, replaced by a row of glass cases containing objects I recognised: the ticket from Platform 7, the photograph from the museum, the empty envelope, the notebook with its impossible sentence. Each object had a small white label beneath it.
The ticket's label read:
A RETURN JOURNEY FOR WHICH NO OUTWARD JOURNEY HAS BEEN RECORDED.
The photograph's label read:
TWO PEOPLE AT A MEETING. ONE PERSON REMEMBERS IT.
The envelope's label read:
CONTENTS NOT YET PROVIDED.
The notebook's label was blank.
I stopped in front of it.
“Why is this one different?”
Eleanor glanced over her shoulder.
“Because you haven't finished writing it.”
“But I haven't written anything.”
She gave me a look that suggested she had heard this objection before.
We continued.
At the end of the corridor stood a door with no number. Above it hung a sign:
DEPARTURES WITHOUT PASSENGERS.
The bell had stopped ringing.
Eleanor took a small key from her pocket and unlocked the door.
Beyond it lay a railway platform.
There was no station building, no departure board, no clock. The platform extended into a white mist in both directions, and the rails disappeared into it. A single wooden bench stood beneath a lamp.
On the bench lay a book.
I knew it before I reached it.
The catalogue.
Its cover was closed, and a narrow strip of paper protruded from the pages. I pulled it free.
It was a ticket.
PLATFORM 0.
No destination. No time. No date.
“Is there a train?” I asked.
Eleanor pointed towards the mist.
I listened. At first I heard nothing. Then, very faintly, came the sound of wheels on rails.
“What happens if I take it?”
“You leave.”
“And if I don't?”
“You stay.”
“For how long?”
Eleanor considered the question.
“Until you leave.”
I put the ticket in my pocket.
“I wish you wouldn't answer questions like that.”
“I wish you wouldn't keep asking them.”
She sat on the bench and opened the catalogue.
“I have something to tell you,” she said.
I sat beside her.
“The woman you were looking for has been here many times. She has come to the museum, the station, the library. She has waited in rooms that were built for her, and in rooms that were built for you. Sometimes she has remembered you. Sometimes she has remembered only the waiting.”
“Why?”
“Because she was trying to find the same thing you were.”
“Me?”
Eleanor looked at me.
“Not exactly.”
The sound of the train grew louder.
“She was trying to find the person who would remember her.”
I thought of the photograph in the museum. The woman with her hand resting on my sleeve. The words on the back: We agreed to meet here when we had forgotten why.
“Did I forget her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“You must know something.”
“I know that she waited. I know that you came. I know that, each time you met, one of you remembered something the other had forgotten.”
“And that was enough?”
“For a while.”
The train was close now. I could hear its brakes, the soft metallic rattle as it slowed.
“What happened?”
Eleanor closed the catalogue.
“You began looking for a complete account of what had happened. You wanted to know which meeting came first, which of you had arrived, which of you had left. You wanted a record that would settle the matter.”
“And the catalogue?”
“The catalogue obliged.”
She rested her hand on its cover.
“It recorded every version. Every departure, every arrival, every meeting remembered differently. The more you searched, the more there was to find.”
“Then why didn't it tell me the truth?”
Eleanor looked towards the mist.
“Perhaps it did.”
The train emerged from the whiteness.
It was an old carriage, dark green, with brass fittings and tall windows. It moved slowly along the rails, then stopped beside us. No driver was visible. The doors remained closed.
I stood.
“Is this my train?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“It has no passengers.”
“Then where is it going?”
“Wherever it is going.”
I looked at her.
“You make it very difficult to understand anything.”
“No,” she said gently. “I make it difficult for you to understand everything.”
The distinction irritated me, though I could not have explained why.
The carriage door opened.
Inside was a single compartment, furnished with two seats facing one another. On the seat beside the window lay a small suitcase.
I recognised it immediately.
It was the woman's suitcase, the one marked Things I haven't lost yet.
I stepped aboard.
Eleanor remained on the platform.
“Are you coming?”
“No.”
“Will I see you again?”
She smiled.
“You keep asking that.”
“And you keep refusing to answer.”
“Perhaps you should try asking something else.”
I looked back into the carriage.
The suitcase stood open. Inside were a photograph, a folded newspaper, a ticket, and a small object wrapped in tissue paper.
I lifted the photograph.
It showed the woman standing alone on a railway platform. Behind her was a departure board. The board displayed a single destination, but the letters were blurred.
I turned the photograph over.
There was no writing.
I put it down and unfolded the newspaper.
The headline was familiar.
PASSENGER FAILS TO ARRIVE AT STATION.
Beneath it was the same photograph of me that I had seen in the archive. The article was dated tomorrow.
I folded the newspaper and returned it to the suitcase.
Then I picked up the ticket.
VALID FOR RETURN JOURNEY ONLY.
On the reverse was a sentence I had never seen before:
THE OUTWARD JOURNEY BEGINS WHEN THE PASSENGER STOPS LOOKING BACK.
I stood at the compartment door.
Eleanor had disappeared.
The platform was empty.
I could have stepped down and searched for her. I could have walked back along the corridor, opened the numbered doors, examined every exhibit, and asked every version of every person what had happened.
I knew how to do that now. I had become very good at it.
Instead, I closed the compartment door.
The train moved.
At first, nothing changed outside the window. The platform remained beside us, the lamp shining above the bench, the catalogue lying open where Eleanor had left it. Then the platform began to recede.
I did not turn to watch it disappear.
The carriage was quiet. I sat down opposite the suitcase and looked at the empty seat beside the window.
I had the curious feeling that someone had just left it.
Not recently. Not long ago.
Just now.
I could almost hear the movement of a coat, the soft sound of someone settling into the seat, the small sigh of a person who had been travelling for a long time.
I looked at the empty space.
“Are you there?” I asked.
No one answered.
The train entered a tunnel.
For a while there was only darkness beyond the glass. Then, in the reflection, I saw the compartment behind me.
A woman sat in the seat I had been watching.
She was looking out of the window.
I turned.
The seat was empty.
I looked back at the reflection.
She was still there.
This time I did not turn around. I watched her in the glass.
She raised one hand and touched the window.
I raised mine.
For an instant our hands seemed to meet, separated only by the thin pane of glass.
Then the tunnel ended.
The reflection vanished.
Outside lay a landscape I did not recognise: low hills, bare trees, a river running beside the railway. In the distance stood a small building with a clock above its entrance.
The train began to slow.
A station sign came into view.
THE BEGINNING.
I looked at my watch.
10:02.
The train stopped.
The doors opened.
On the platform stood a young woman holding a suitcase.
She was looking towards the carriage, searching the windows. When she saw me, she smiled with such unmistakable relief that I felt I must have known her all my life.
I stood up.
She took a step towards the train.
Then she stopped.
Something in her expression changed.
She looked at the suitcase in her hand, then at the empty platform around her. She seemed to be listening for a sound that had not yet occurred.
At last she turned away from the carriage.
She walked towards the station entrance and disappeared through the door.
I remained standing.
The train waited.
I could have followed her. The door was open, the platform was empty, and the station entrance was only a few steps away.
But the ticket in my pocket had begun to grow warm.
I took it out.
The words on the reverse had changed.
THE PASSENGER HAS NOT YET DECIDED TO ARRIVE.
I looked towards the station entrance.
Then I stepped down from the train.
The platform was silent. The woman was nowhere to be seen.
I walked to the entrance and opened the door.
Beyond it was a small waiting room with a wooden bench and a window overlooking the tracks. A clock hung above the door. It had stopped at 10:02.
On the bench sat a man reading a book.
He looked up as I entered.
It was the older version of myself I had seen in the mirror.
He closed the book.
“You're late,” he said.
I sat down opposite him.
“I've been told that before.”
“Yes.”
“Who am I supposed to meet?”
He looked at the empty space beside me.
“You've already met her.”
“Then why can't I remember?”
“Because you're still trying to remember the meeting instead of the person.”
I stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
He opened the book again.
“It means that when she arrives, you must recognise her.”
“And if I don't?”
He turned a page.
“Then you'll have to wait.”
“For how long?”
He looked up.
“Until you stop asking.”
I was about to protest when I noticed the book in his hands.
It was the catalogue.
Its cover was worn smooth, and at the lower corner I could see the faint outline of a label that had been removed.
He placed it on the bench between us.
“There's something you should read.”
I opened it at the index.
The entries were familiar.
Archive. See Library.
Library. See Museum.
Museum. See Station.
Station. See Platform 0.
And beneath them, in a hand I did not recognise:
Platform 0. See Passenger.
I turned to the page indicated by the entry.
It was blank.
I looked up.
The older man had gone.
The waiting room was empty except for the catalogue and the stopped clock.
I sat for a long time, listening to the distant sounds of the station. Eventually I opened the catalogue again and took out my pen.
On the blank page, I wrote:
I arrived at the station at 10:02.
I waited.
Nothing happened.
I added:
I was waiting for someone.
The ink dried.
Then, beneath my words, another sentence appeared.
So was she.
I put down the pen.
For the first time, I did not try to discover who had written it.
I closed the catalogue and placed it on the bench beside me.
Outside, a train approached.
I could hear it long before it reached the platform. I heard the wheels, the brakes, the soft hiss of the doors opening.
Then I heard footsteps in the corridor.
Someone stopped outside the waiting-room door.
A hand rested on the handle.
I stood.
The door began to open.
And I waited to see who would arrive.
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