A Random Check
One Ticket to rule them all,
One Ticket to find them,
One Ticket to bring them all,
and in the Deutsche Bahn bind them;
In the train station of Hamburg, where the Shadows lie.
I. The Window Side Seat Thief
Overdressed, overheated, and out of shape, I ran up the stairs to catch the next train. I had a little over twelve minutes, yet still, my recent experience with the German trains taught me to be cautious and arrive a few minutes before the train was set to arrive at the station, let alone depart. I crossed the way from platform 12 to platform 8 in record time, and by the time I arrived at the platform for the connecting trip, I found the train there half empty.
As I stood in front of the carriage where my seat was booked, I remembered the deception of the last train I took, where the carriage numbers were disorganized. I looked at the sign next to the door, and it read “5” in almost fine print. I looked right, left, right again, then left again before I finally boarded the carriage. But I stepped out again, checked the little “5” one last time, then finally boarded the carriage. There were plenty of empty seats in the carriage, and mine was at the end of the carriage. I walked to the end of the carriage, where my seat was occupied by a young man with blonde hair and blue eyes.
I did not care. I looked at the young man, inspected the seat numbers thoroughly, and then decided to sit down next to him. Perhaps he had mistaken the numbers, or maybe he enjoyed the window view, which I did not necessarily care much for, having made the trip several times in the past. I took the novel I had packed to read during the long and terrible journey home out of my luggage, then placed the luggage in the overhead rack. And then I sat down. At that moment, I heard it. The crunching, slurping noises that erupted from my neighboring passenger, whom I shall call the ‘window seat thief.’ I covered my ears with my headphones and pretended to be busy with everything else to avoid any contact with the window seat thief until he had finished eating. However, contact was made immediately when the young man splashed the sauce of his burger in my general direction. Then more contact was made when he stared at me. For but a moment, I thought that he was upset that I destroyed the burger dressing that unintentionally landed on my sleeve when he was eating. For ten whole seconds, he continued to stare, unflinchingly. I removed my headphones and looked at him. He did not speak, so I asked, “Do you want to get out?”
“Yes,” he replied immediately, as if he had long been waiting for this answer.
I got up, moved out of the way, and the window seat thief took off running for no apparent reason. A few minutes later, he returned, and when I stood up for him to sit back down, he ignored me and began to inspect his backpack. I stayed standing, waiting, anticipating, but then he looked at me, smiled, and walked off to the other section of the train carriage—presumably to the bathroom. I waited, continued to read while standing, and lost my focus several times. When the window seat thief returned, he slid back into the seat that he had stolen from me. I sat back down, adjusted my headphones on my ears, and restarted the chapter of the novel.
My eyes wandered over the words in front of me and came to a stop mid-sentence. I turned the page. That’s when I noticed he had started staring at me once more. I turned, removed my headphones, and said, “Do you want to get out again?”
He nodded.
I stood.
I waited.
He took his backpack and moved around the train.
I sat back down.
Then, and only then, I reclaimed my window seat.
After a moment, he returned. And he stared. And he waited silently.
“Oh!” I exclaimed when I finally noticed him, “I thought you moved to another seat! Sorry!”
“I can do that,” he said as he scratched his chin. “This carriage is practically empty.”
He left, and I felt the sweet taste of victory.
II. Random Check
Intently, I continued to read with little to worry about. It was after the window seat thief took another seat that I realized how nice this train ride could shape up to be. There was a wall behind me, which meant that no one could repeatedly bump their knees against my seat. There were no drunk Germans or Danes aboard the carriage to chatter at the top of their lungs, and there were no crying infants. There were only twenty-something people aboard the carriage.
It could not have been more than 20-30 minutes since departing Hamburg that I saw the shadows approach from the far, dark end of the train. They approached in unison, in marching steps, steady, speedy, loud, and intent. I paused from reading as the shadows hovered over me, and I removed my headphones hastily to overhear part of a conversation that was directed at me, all in German.
Let me paint you a picture.
A Middle Eastern bald man with a 5 o’clock stubble, sitting at the end of a carriage, wearing headphones that likely spilled rock music, wearing reading glasses. Whether the coffee mug or the blazer had anything to do with the image or not is beyond me. But the only difference from many of my other experiences is that I was sitting alone.
I fit the image. Perhaps.
“Sorry, I do not speak German,” I interrupted the smirking, bulky, blue-eyed, blonde man who hovered above me.
“Ah, do you speak English?” he asked.
I narrowed my eyes and cocked an eyebrow, not at him, but at myself. I had interrupted him in English after all. “Yes?” I responded questioningly, more at myself than at him, “I am speaking English right now.” I said, reassuring myself in the process.
“Ah,” he said, paused, and smiled, “Great, then I have a few questions to ask you.”
‘In English?’ I thought to myself.
“Yes, of course!” And while I pulled out my wallet with my Swedish identity card, I thought of multiple intriguing conversations that I could discuss with him: American politics, the Israeli-almost Palestinian ‘conflict’, and why bikes do not have seat belts were among the first few. I handed him my identity card which he inspected thoroughly for no less than ten whole seconds.
“Where are you travelling from?” he asked.
“Kassel,” I responded automatically.
“Why were you in Kassel?” he asked.
“My girlfriend’s uncle was getting married,” I responded.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Copenhagen,” I said, “then Sweden,” I responded quickly.
“Why Sweden?” he asked.
I looked at him carefully, then I looked at the Swedish identity card that remained in his hand, then back at him. It could have taken a second longer than I had anticipated, but I responded, “I…live in Sweden?”
He passed the ID to the gentlewoman behind him. At that moment, I realized that it wasn’t just the two of them, but there were four distinguished gentlefolks aboard the train, hovering over me, and, ironically, a German Shepherd who seemed unhappy with his career choice.
“Ah,” he paused for a moment.
The woman handed the ID to the person behind her after a few moments, then the person behind her handed it to the one behind him. The dog, unfortunately, did not get the honor.
“A few more questions,” the first man said.
I shrugged, “Sure!” and I thought to myself, ‘finally, the good questions are coming! Now he can ask me about the lovely novel I was reading, or the quality of the headphones I was wearing, or better yet, the brilliance that is coffee. Maybe he could ask me about my favorite roast!’
“Do you have any illegal alcohol on you?” he asked. And he was serious.
“What? Is there illegal alcohol in Germany?” I blurted, then I shrugged, shook my head, and nodded all at the same time, “No. I mean, no.”
He nodded. My answer sparked a wondrous smile on his lips—even if it consisted of a straight line over his overly thin lips. “Do you have any illegal drugs?” He asked.
“No,” I responded.
“Do you have any weapons?” he asked.
‘The pen is mightier than the sword,’ I thought of confessing…I had plenty, plenty of pens.
“No! Of course not,” I answered, a little shaken.
“Do you have any explosives?” he asked.
I chuckled. I smirked, and I raised an eyebrow. “Explosives?” I asked. To confess to the pens was one thing, but to point out that I had an explosive sense of sarcastic humor was another! I dared not answer truthfully.
“Could I check your luggage?” he asked.
“Explosives? No, I do not have weapons or explosives, and please, by all means, check my luggage,” I responded at last.
III. Dirty Laundry
“Which ones are they?” he asked.
On the overhead rack above my seat, there was a large black backpack and a small purple suitcase. There was no other luggage near me aside from a metal suitcase with six locks at least three seats away. My patience wore thin. I smiled at him, or perhaps it was a smirk, I do not recall, for sometimes my face expresses disinterest in the conversation before the words even form in my mind.
“The ones above me,” I answered.
He pointed at them, almost respectfully, and when I nodded, he pulled them off the overhead rack and placed them down. He placed the backpack on the seat next to me and took the suitcase to the empty seats across to inspect it. The woman stepped forward to inspect the backpack while he went through the suitcase. I smiled at her and then turned to my book. There was no way that I could actually read the novel then; it was almost a disguise. It was almost not to watch them. But almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
The man thoroughly inspected the purple suitcase until he found it: the plastic bag. It did not contain any of the things he may have wished it to contain, but it contained some dirty laundry that I had forgotten to wash. He stuck his hand into the bag like a brute, then he pulled it out, flinching. He inspired me.
My backpack—often regarded as the greatest backpack for travel by myself and friends—had several pockets, compartments, and sections. It had a padded section for the laptop, a section for headphones, a section for keys, a bigger general section, and a separate compartment for shoes, which of course I did not always use for shoes. Instead, as it was separate from the rest of the backpack, I stored my dirty underwear from the day before traveling in it.
As an honest, law-abiding citizen, I realized that the extent of my honesty mustn’t be limited to the constraints of the conversation. So, I looked at the woman who was inspecting my backpack and snapped my fingers for her attention—admittedly something that I do not ever do.
“There is a hidden compartment in this backpack,” I said quietly, smiling at her.
And there it was, the brilliant spark that emitted from her violently vacant eyes. “There is?” she asked intently.
“Oh, yes,” I said, and I pointed at the compartment that she did not inspect: the shoe compartment.
She smiled at me and the favor I had done her. She unzipped the compartment. She slid her bare hand in it, and then she took out my dirty boxers. Her lips twisted, her nose squinted, and her features contorted. She looked at the suitcase, zipped the compartment, then at my smiling face.
“Thank you,” she uttered, or at least I thought she did.
I nodded my head, smiling. “I can take care of it,” I said, as I saw how she struggled with reorganizing the backpack.
The man who previously quizzed me returned with the suitcase and placed it in the compartment almost respectfully. The last man handed the one before the ID card that had been away from me for the previous twenty minutes, and then the man handed it to the woman, who, in turn, handed it to my interrogator, who handed it to me with his ever-pleasant smile. I smiled at him as I put the card back in my wallet.
“Have a pleasant journey and a good day!” the man finally said as the four turned around.
I did not respond.
I should not respond.
IV. The Broken Design
During the subsequent hour after my interrogation, I contemplated a lot. I messaged my girlfriend, who was staying in Germany for another week. I told her about the experience and the treatment I received from her countrymen the first time I traveled out of Germany without her. She apologized, but for the first time, she failed to calm me down because she, too, was enraged. Those police officers did not interrogate anyone else on the same carriage. I observed them when they walked back to the next carriage, and when they returned mere minutes later. They could not have spent another third of an hour interrogating another person. I thought of the way that I look. I almost treated the situation as a coincidence. I almost treated it as a compliment because I looked so badass in my suit. But then I remembered that for the first time in months, I had shaved off my beard, and that often made me look less intimidating. I tried to think of any factors that may have contributed to that almost random check.
I tried to read or listen to music, but the only thing that I accomplished was to drink the remainder of my coffee. And then the announcement. I imagine that the train conductor had just eaten a wafer before pressing his lips to the microphone to spatter his saliva in it as he asked the passengers to ready their passports because of the Danish border control.
It was a little less than two hours after my pleasant experience with the German police that the train stopped and the all-mighty Danish border control entered the train. A redheaded, skinny man no older than 30 with freckles walked in my direction, while at the far end of the carriage, a blonde woman started checking passports and ID cards. I had my Swedish ID card ready.
The redheaded man stood next to me. I turned to him and pointed at my ID card with a smile. He did not smile. Instead, he snatched the ID into his fingers. He looked at it carefully, then he looked at my face. I kept my smile for a moment. But then he inspected the card again. My smile fell. He looked at me. Then he looked at the card. And then…he looked at me.
He stuttered. He trembled. He shook. And then, with newly-found confidence, he asked, “So, what happened?”
‘The Germans were mean to me!’ I thought of saying, ‘but I am currently quite concerned with the state of affairs in the Middle East and in North America’, I thought again, and then I remembered, ‘No spoilers!’ was the answer that I should have said all along, as he perhaps was only referring to the novel I was attempting to read.
“What– What happened where? To whom?” I asked, unable to process the question fairly.
“What happened here?” he said, flicking the ID card in his fingers.
“Here…what? What are you asking?” I responded again.
“Did it break?” he asked again.
“Did what break?” I asked, almost angrily, at this point.
“The identity card,” he said, and he pointed at the translucent corner on the top right.
“What?” I asked, a hundred thoughts jumbled in my head. “The ID card?” I asked again. “You mean the corner?”
Trembling yet again, the man nodded. “Yes, is it broken?”
I snorted, “What? No! It’s the design!” I said, almost outraged.
“Is it?” He looked at the ID, then back at me.
“Yes!” I responded impatiently.
“Funny,” he uttered.
V. Biometrics and Stuff
With trembling hands, the redheaded man held up a device not unlike a cellular phone. He held the ID against it, and for a moment or longer, he continued to adjust its position to scan it. And while he did not speak, I had a conversation with him in my mind.
“How come you are asking questions about the highly questionable design of the Swedish ID card?” I asked.
He laughed and said, “Taters.”
“Have you never seen a Swedish ID card before?” I asked.
“Po-ta-toes!” he responded directly.
“But you work for the border control! You check Swedish IDs on a daily basis!” I yelled.
“Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew!” he elaborated.
“And why the hell are your hands shaking?” I asked furiously!
“GOLLUM! GOLLUM!” he gagged.
Of course, the conversation did not actually happen, as it likely requires copyrights and a lot of CGI. Instead, he handed me back the ID after having checked it. However, by the time he had completed the process, his colleague had checked at least 19 other passengers on the carriage.
I took my ID from him.
He wished me a pleasant journey.
And he left.
I stayed in my seat for a few minutes, trying to comprehend what had just happened. A few hours later, I arrived in Copenhagen, and from there, I arrived in Sweden, where no one audibly questioned the integrity of my identity card.
VI. Maybe There, or Maybe Back Again
It has been several weeks since my adventure of travelling on my lonesome journey from Hamburg back home. I often hold out my ID card when no one is looking to feel safe at my home. I wonder how much harsher it could have been if I had only had my Egyptian passport instead of my European ID card. Would the Orcs have abducted me? Would they have set the hellhounds on my train? I wonder if I would have been interrogated so thoroughly if my girlfriend had been sitting next to me. Do Dwarves need to travel in the company of Elves to pass through the gates of Rivendell?
How many less-privileged people go through those random checks?
I try to think of the randomness of the checks in a positive light: Maybe my intimidating physique had been the cause of the attention, but I like to think it might have had something to do with my charming personality. Perhaps those guards were too shy to start a conversation in any other way.
Do they still think of the plastic bag and the hidden compartments as I do?
I hold on to the memory of that train almost dearly.
Almost so close to the heart.
Almost.
One Ticket to rule them all,
One Ticket to find them,
One Ticket to bring them all,
and in the Deutsche Bahn bind them;
In the train station of Hamburg, where the Shadows lie.
Written by Amr Abbas.
Cover and illustrations by Amr Abbas.
