Pas la Destination

It departs at midnight. Do not be late.

The Gare de l'Est stands almost empty after dark: still, a fat porter paces, bootheels clacking on the polished marble of the concourse. He checks his pocket watch, sighs occasionally, returns to his desk to sit and contemplate the gassy orange pool of light, the only light in the station.

It is entirely down to the wit and discretion of the passenger to enter the station without being observed. For Agnes Blanchard, her petite frame is an advantage when squeezing through the window at the Rue de Alsace end of the station, the one she has checked and re-checked three times in the run up to departure. For Claude Le Duc, it is the distraction by a friend; lost, he claims, to lure the porter from the entrance. For Emme and Jaques Allard, a bent hairpin in the lock of Boutique Laronde lets them pass between the still mannequins and into the station. For Benoit Auberger…well, we'll get to Benoit later.

Across the marble entrance foyer they must tread, light as air, soft as butter, passing shuttered booths that offer weary travellers a packet of hot chestnuts or a twenty-five centime boot polish during the day. They must dart in the shadows of the Hall Saint Martin, duck into the arches of the Quai Transversal, and weave silently down the tiny ruelle beside platform thirty. They must not stop to marvel at the domed glass above their heads, presenting them with a panorama of Ursa Major outdazzling The Plough. Must not pause to admire the handsome clock, glass peacock tail fanning out behind it. They must move, move, move and arrive on time for their train.

Agnes Blanchard, wrapped in a maroon wool coat with velvet trimming the collar and cuffs, is on time. She checks her wristwatch: a delicate thing, a gift from her father. Five minutes until midnight and still the dark platform is empty. She grips her valise tightly, clutching it to her chest as though someone might steal it. Agnes has never travelled without her mother before: wonders if she's packed the right things. He's dead now, her father, and Agnes can only remember his bloated face, marbled like a slab of entrecote as they pulled him from the Seine.

For Claude Le Duc, cutting it fine is second nature. He spills onto the platform, slightly breathless, collar pulled up high around his neck, and sits on a bench. He sees Agnes Blanchard, but turns his face away. He wonders if his roommate has noted his absence yet: wonders if he has reported it to Madame Desrosiers, rumpled from sleep, curl rags tugging at her temples.

Emme Allard wants to cheer when she and her brother finally reach the platform and see others waiting there. This was not a trap! she wants to say, but she presses her mouth into a thin line instead. Jaques moves from foot to foot: his right foot makes contact with the concrete floor through the hole in his shoe. I need new shoes, he thinks, then briefly wonders if prisoners are given shoes to take their daily exercise in the prison yard.

At eleven fifty-seven, a deep rumble reverberates through the platform. The awaiting passengers startle, eyes widening. A blizzard of dust shimmers onto their heads, or is it falling plaster? They think: perhaps the station is falling down? They look up to the ceiling, but no-one tries to leave.

They're still looking at the ceiling, when at eleven fifty-eight, blazing lights glare from the carriages of a steam engine that certainly was not there a moment ago. They frown, convinced they had seen the steel glimmer of the tracks below. The doors to the front carriage spring open.

The passengers resist glancing at one another, but shuffle towards the train. Emme is the first to board. Without the hindrance of luggage, she uses both hands to grip the door and the rail, pulling herself aboard with ease. Jaques throws on an old knapsack before launching himself into the carriage. Agnes climbs up next and Claude hoists a bulging leather satchel on board and leaps in.

Inside, the four passengers stand: only their eyes move. They take in the lacquered cedar panelling, the chandeliers dripping light into the carriage, the picture windows studded with stained glass shapes in rich gemstone hues, the wide, fatly stuffed seats in emerald velvet and the thick gold carpet underfoot.

They are still standing when eleven fifty nine arrives, and along with it, the crumpled form of a man thrown with some force from the platform. Agnes gasps slightly, but Claude and Emme move swiftly to his side. They hoist him up, loop his arms around their necks and guide him to a chair.

He sags: an épouvantail, a scarecrow without a pole, a pile of clothes topped with unruly brown curls. His eyes are sealed shut, perhaps by the swollen purple flesh around them, or by the crusted adhesive of gunge gathered along the lash line, or even by the thick slumber of unconsciousness.

A shrill whistle sounds. It is midnight on the nose.

The passengers stagger as the train growls and lurches to a start. A chuff chuff of steam rolls across the windows, fogging the view, obscuring the dark platform.

And so it is done. They are leaving Paris, and leaving it for good.

Agnes Blanchard feels her eyes growing heavy. She stares out of the window, expecting to pass the Rue de Aubervilliers apartment where she used to hear the Paris-Strasbourg trains rumbling by, but she sees nothing. Her nineteenth arrondissement home is not visible in the dark. Nor, in fact, is any of the city she has always known. It is as though someone has extinguished the capital and put it away in a box.

"Tickets, please."

Agnes reaches into her pocket, drawing out the curious ticket. It is perfectly square: gold embossed letters rise like gooseflesh under her fingertips. Le train en fuite, it says. Today's date. Platform 30-ish. Gare de l'Est. Then on the back: it departs at midnight. Do not be late.

She rubs her thumb across the words and shivers. It departs at midnight, whispered a voice behind her as she strolled in the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont with her mother and Father Armand. Do not be late, it coaxed as she spied the ticket amongst the tickseed.

Agnes had buried the ticket in the pocket of her coat, not sure why she needed to feel the thick paper, or run her fingers slowly up and down the perforations of the stub. And when she caught up to her mother and the priest, hearing his comments once more about the shortness of her school skirts, the soft flesh of her exposed knees, she found her fingers gripping the ticket hard.

A heavy moustache lies in repose on the upper lip of the conductor. His cap is pulled low over his brow, his uniform neatly pressed. He gazes at her ticket intently, before ripping off the stub and moving on.

For Claude Le Duc, this ticket may well have saved his life.

He knows, whispered Helenè, silk robe clasped tightly at the chest. Michel knows, and he means to kill you.

It had taken all of his reserve to pack away his charcoals and easel without quivering. To smile at the other students, to nod at their invite to the Lapin Agile after class for a swift pastis.

Winding an anxious path down the cobbles towards Madame Desrosiers' boarding house, a thin tabby threaded itself between his feet. Go away, he mumbled. It departs at midnight, he thought he heard the cat say, shook his head, cursed the absinthe. Shooo! he hissed. Don't be late, it replied. He tried to kick it, but the cobbles were slippery and he lost his footing. The tabby persisted and, oh! There was something tucked into his collar!

"Your ticket, sir?"

The Allard twins are sitting together, near the slumped-but-still-breathing body of the thrown man. They glance at him from time to time, then back to one another.

They do not need to speak to know what the other is thinking. Jaques sees that evening, just a few nights ago, replaying in Emme's eyes.

Pigalle is a petty thief's playground; visitors to the capital wanting something warm and dirty to fill the gaping voids in their lives flock to the grimy bars and brothels of the district. Here, Emme and Jaques have their routine to a tee.

Jaques poses as an unreasonable customer berating a desperate street girl in the street. The street girl is Emme, painted, draped in the cheap garb of a prostituteè. Of course, every man wants to look like a hero, and who better to show their prowess against than a filthy, scrawny youth?

Jaques scuffles, taking what he can from the mark: Emme fawns her gratitude, taking what's left. They're never reported, for who would admit to sampling the shameful underbelly of Hausman's playground?

Dusk fell cold that night, and their mark was dusting himself off, already partway back to his prim hotel in the first arrondissement for a hot bath and a cool chablis.

What is this?" Emme held open the wallet, empty of cash, containing only two gold-embossed train tickets and a handwritten note. We know your game. Time to move on.

Of course, they laughed. Then it came back to them as they were chased from Les Deux Moulins. And they remembered it again while sharing a day-old baguette on the damp mattress in their room above Le Tabac Boulet. Then, they decided that maybe the Paris that had chewed them up and spat them out wasn't as wonderful as the freshly orphaned country twins had hoped it would be.

"Tickets?"

The gentle rocking makes him picture a baby's crib. He's not sure why, but he thinks he hears a woman's voice, saying his name. Dreaming, he guesses. Madeleine?

The pain creeps up on him slowly: first, the throbbing behind his eyes; the glooping spread like ink in water as the throb reaches his brain; a ringing in his ears, almost like the screech of brakes on a train; then aching, twisted muscles and finally the sting of open wounds and grazes on his skin.

He moans, and his throat is like tree bark. He coughs then tries to prise open his eyes.

"Alors, he wakes," he hears someone say, and he finds he can raise a fist to his eye, rub some of the crust away, open them just a peep.

He blinks, seeing first the blurred raindrops of crystal overhead. Swallowing, he forces his eyes to focus on the four heads peering at him.

Madeleine! he thinks. Madeleine, is that you?

"Can he sit up?" asks one, as though he may be deaf.

"Can you speak?" asks another.

He rolls his dusty tongue around the scorched desert of his mouth. "Oui," he whispers, raspy, scratched.

Water is tipped into his mouth. Though it burns to swallow, he drinks greedily, sloshing the cool liquid down his shirt, which, he notices, is encrusted in rusty drying blood.

"Where am I?"

"You're on a train."

"A train to where?"

There's a glance: a frown from one, a furrowed brow, a tilted head, and the slight shame of lowered eyes before one of the girls says: "we don't know."

Benoit shakes his head, the action encouraging a vice to seize his brain. "But how did I get here?" It pains him to speak.

"You were thrown, " gestures the girl he will later come to know as Agnes Blanchard. She points to a russet stain blooming on the carpet. "From the platform at Gare de l'est."

Benoit squeezes his lids together, wondering how he came to be at Gare de l'est when his last waking memory was the sweet blackcurrant kiss of a Kir Royale at Cafe de Flore, Madeleine's deep cupid's bow so tantalisingly close.

"Were you thrown here by strangers too?"

"Non." It is Claude Le Duc, lowering himself into the chair opposite Benoit. "I cannot speak for the others, but I was given a ticket in my time of need. I needed to leave Paris and it did not matter where to."

"Same."

"Us too."

"Ticket please!"

The conductor has materialised from god-knows-where, startling the others back to their seats. He looms over Benoit, who studies his face, completely devoid of expression. How, muses Benoit, can a man wear no trace of life on his face? Not the scorch marks of unrequited lust, the grief of a thousand petite-morts, the disappointment of a life lived in monochrome.

"Ticket please."

Benoit pats his pockets, as though he may have simply misplaced his; shrugs. "Please, I do not have a ticket."

"No ticket, no journey." Still, not a flicker.

Beyond the glass, the moonlight picks out the treetops in a valley below. They are high, travelling, Benoit presumes, over a bridge or viaduct.

"I'm afraid, sir, that I am going to have to ask you to leave the train."

For an expressionless man, the conductor has the reflexes of a cat. Benoit has barely processed the statement when he is hoisted to his feet and propelled along the carriage. The door springs open quite of its own accord, a biting wind slapping Benoit's face. Then, there is no ground beneath his feet.

"No!" he screams, legs swinging wildly over the edge of the viaduct, the hungry mouth of the valley yawning below. The meaty fingers of the conductor dig hard into his collar bone. He grabs blindly for something, anything, hand finding the door frame, lacing a foot through the half open window.

With wind rushing through his ears, choking steam blinding his eyes, he does not hear the other passengers scream at the guard: does not see them race as one to grab his assailant.

Then he is sucked back into the train and thrown for a second time, folding like a broken accordion on the carpet. He looks up just as the wild, terrified eyes of the conductor meet his: then they are gone, his body inhaled by the silent valley below.

It is Jaques Allard who pulls the door shut.

"Mon dieu, Jaques! What have we done?"

Jaques Allard bites his lip, head trembling slightly like a dandelion in a breeze. "It was self defence," he says, voice shaky. "Well, peer defence."

Agnes sinks to the floor. "He really meant to throw you from the train." All five nod.

"We must say he fell, if anyone asks." Emme paces the carriage. "That he opened the door by accident. Leaned on it. And then he slipped."

"Is there anyone else on this train?"

There is a collective realisation that they have seen no other passengers, nor other staff. Nor, they think to their own disappointment, have any one of them thought to investigate. So wrapped are they all in their own petty dramas that none have fanned the flame of curiosity: Agnes, pinned to her seat by the memory of Father Armand's cold fingers spidering up her thigh; Claude remembering the talcy scent of Helenè's clothes as he trembled in her closet ; Emme focusing on her hand as it rested on the thin skin concertinaing between her ribs trying to remember when she last ate; Jaques cursing their parents for selfishly dying just before their farm was repossessed. And Benoit, well, Benoit hasn't had time to breathe since waking here. But he wonders now, on a rapidly thumping heart, what they did to Madeleine.

"I have to get back to Paris," he announces. "Let us find someone. See if they know where this train next stops."

They are afraid, these young passengers, though none amongst their number would be ready to admit that. But with the exception of Benoit, are all aware of the foe they flee. For it is a desperado who will run headlong into the unknown on a train to god-knows-where.

Jaques Allard leads the group through to the next carriage. He stops almost instantly, espying his name etched into a bronze plaque by a door.

"This is me," he informs his companions. It opens with a click to a small but handsomely furnished sleeper berth. A bunk hovers across the length of the window, invitingly laden with soft blankets and cushions. Beneath, a wingback chair and table afford the sitter panoramic views of the moonlight valley. A neat hatstand, washbasin and slender cupboard complete the room. It occurs to Jaques, that not only has he never slept in a room so plush, but that he has never in all of his days slept in a room alone before. There's a flutter of excitement beneath his breastbone, which he pushes aside, afraid of appearing silly and uncouth to his native Parisian companions.

This entire carriage is dedicated to sleeper berths and, they note, there is a plaque by every door: Emme Allard, Claude Le Duc, Agnes Blanchard.

"This is all very confusing," says Agnes. "I found my ticket. How would they know my name?"

"Could it be that someone placed the ticket where they knew you would find it?" Claude is thinking of course of the cat and his own ticket.

"There is no berth for me," says Benoit quietly.

They smell the third car before they have so much as placed a curious hand on the brass handle between carriages. Roasting meat, freshly uncorked wine, sweet, sweet syrupy sugar greet their eager nostrils.

The dining car holds just one round table topped with crisp linen and silver place settings for four.

A tureen steams in the middle of the table, a basket of freshly baked rolls and curls of clover-yellow butter by its side. Their stomachs grumble in harmony: their eyes meet, they shrug. It can't hurt, they think, to eat a little bite.

They grab a roll each, tearing the bread. Steam escapes as they crack the crusts, and Claude can't help but think of his mother batting his fat little hands away from her oven-fresh petit pain.

"There must be a kitchen," says Agnes. There is, they discover, behind a door that blends seamlessly with the wood panelling. It is small and clean and empty.

"The food is hot," remarks Claude pointlessly. "How can it be that there is nobody here?"

It is also apparent that the dining car is the last carriage on the train. In the postcard-sized kitchen window, the retreating ladder of track gleams under the cold spotlight of the moon. They watch it for a moment, chewing their warm bread, grateful at least for the distance spreading between them and what they are leaving behind.

"I wonder what's in the bowl."

They spoon the liquid straight from the tureen into their mouths. Streams of hot, browny soup meander down their chins, burning their tongues, stoking their bellies. A thick island of cheese bubbles on the surface of the soupe a l'oignon, strands clinging to their spoons like a jealous lover. It is, thinks Emme Allard, the best thing I have eaten in years. She slurps like the toothless old dog they used to have, back when the fire used to blaze in their Normandy kitchen, and her belly was always full. She's plunging her second roll into the soup when Agnes drops her spoon with a clatter.

"Look!"

A wooden rollered serving hatch stands open. They frown. How could they not have heard it open? In its gaping mouth is a silver-domed covered platter, smaller boules of piping hot vegetables covering the bench space.

Claude strides to the kitchen, throwing open the door. "Who is here?" He peers over the food in the hatch. "There is no one here!" He's almost laughing, but there's a cold edge of something only Helenè would recognise as fear in the sound. He lifts the dome from the main dish. A succulent roasted pheasant sits on the platter, crispy golden skin shining.

Emme's stomach lists: although the hunger gnaws like that of a chien errant, though the scent of the meat wraps enticingly around her, she is frightened. She turns instead to gaze out of the window, where a thin slash of copper is peeping over the horizon.

"We must speak to the driver." Agnes has her arms folded across her body, and though the carriage is warm, she wonders why a chill shivers through her.

But for the motion of the train, the chh chh of the wheels on the tracks, they are bathed in silence. If they had been brave enough to voice it, brave enough to think it even for a moment, they would have admitted that this is what they knew would happen when they came to investigate the driver's cab.

The engine room is empty.

Amongst the pipes, the levers and grease-streaked rags strewn across the floor, the red fire roars, door to the furnace gaping open. A spade and bellow kneel at its mouth like penitent sinners.

"There's nobody driving the train." Emme's voice is a whisper in the hot, coal-choked cab.

"That cannot be so," says Agnes sensibly. "A train cannot drive itself."

"It is true though." Benoit peers from the window, the grey glass reflecting his own battered face. "We are hurtling along these tracks with no driver." He closes his eyes. "I have to get back to Madeleine."

Emme grabs at a lever. "It can't be that difficult. I mean, one of these levers must be a brake." She yanks the lever hard, falling back as it comes away in her hand. "Oh!"

"Maybe we don't touch anything until we've figured it out properly?" Claude takes the broken lever.

The screech of a whistle has them grabbing for one another, the lights flicker and the train is dragged into the vacuum of a tunnel. Though their hands find scant comfort in one another, the deafening roar in their ears, the black throat of granite wrapping around them and the growling rumble of the vehicle frighten even the bravest amongst their number to question why they got on the train in the first place. The train is spat out into the cold pale light of morning.

"Perhaps," says Agnes, straightening her collar, "we can put out the fire. Draw the train to a halt."

Jaques and Emme are dispatched to fetch water. Emme volunteers them, in the hope that she may rip a leg from the cooked bird on the counter; watch honeyed juices slip down her hand as she eats.

Agnes takes the spade. "Open the cab door," she instructs, thrusting the spade into the burning coals. She pulls the glowing embers from the fire, crosses the cab and tips them into the wind.

She is onto her fourth spadefull by the time Jaques and Emme return with pots of water. Her dress is flecked with smuts, she has ash on her cheek and her cinder-streaked hands are shaking.

Jaques pours his pot first, the fire hissing angrily. "The flames have risen!"

Sure enough, they dance and swell, threatening to cascade from the furnace mouth. Emme steps forward with her pot, takes a deep breath, flings the water. A pop, a fizz, the embers coruscate mockingly and the fire roars. She leaps from its grasping fingers.

"The train is speeding up. Look." Claude points at the landscape blurring beyond the window. For a brief moment, he wishes he could capture it in paint, but he shakes the thought away.

Agnes temples her fingers. "The train does not appear to want to stop." She glances at the track being devoured by the locomotive. "We do not know where we are going. We do not know why we are going. But we do know that we wanted to go."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that maybe the train knows what is best for us. That perhaps we need to…to trust." She waves her hand. "Oh I know, I know. It sounds like poppycock. I for one am not given to magical thinking. My logical brain told me not to trust a ticket for a dubious journey, but I went to the station anyway." She gazes at the climbing sun. "I have trusted already. Perhaps I can trust some more."

Emme nods, thinking about the feast in the dining car: the exact same meal that she salivated over not five nights ago as she pressed her face to the glass at Hôtel de Vendôme: as though the train read her desires. Jaques too considers Agnes' point, for hadn't he just been dreaming of a room of his own as his sister whimpered in her sleep beneath the mouldy eaves? And Claude. Even before Helenè's warning, hadn't he yearned for a wide vista, an expansive landscape to paint beyond the grey-on-grey palates of Montmartre?

"I must get back to Paris." Benoit stuffs his hands into his pockets, lest they betray him. "I must return."

Emme rubs her eyes, stretches. The feast has cast a soporific spell over her. No longer does she care about the absence of a driver or the unusual way they have found themselves hurtling across France destined for who-cares-where: she has a full belly, and a mouth coated with a thick blanket of crème brûlée; she doesn't have to don her draughty costume to haunt the urine soaked doorways of Pigalle; she will sleep to the rocking lullabye of the train, not the polyphonic ring of Pelforth bottles smashing on the pavement.

She sighs, hoping they can stay on this errant train forever.

Jaques succumbs to the soft mattress of his sleeper. For a moment, he dreams that he is sinking into a cloud or a million balls of soft cotton, and cannot imagine ever wanting to get up. He wants to be concerned about their kidnapping by a willful train, but laments that he will have to think about that after a nap.

At least, he thinks as sleep sits heavily across his lids, my sister will be safe and I can relax. He has barely finished the thought when sleep claims him, lulling into the best rest of his young life.

For Agnes, the half finished book that she has been trying to read for three weeks invites her back in with open arms. She kicks off her shoes, curls up in the chair in her sleeper and grants the words permission to suck her back in.

The pages of Le Roman d’un prêtre murmur as she turns them and the hot tea and pastel shaded macarons sweeten the deliciously angry words. She thinks: how pleasant to read without the stench of ham hock breath on my ear.

Claude is delighted to discover an easel and paper in the narrow armoire of his berth. It is as though someone heard his earlier thoughts as the countryside whipped by. There are paints too - a kaleidoscope - and brushes and a palette.

Early afternoon sun pours through the window, bathing the room in a soft blond glow and he pushes up his sleeves. Through the louvres, a waft of freesia finds its way inside. Claude inhales, sighs and settles in front of the easel.

Benoit has been staring at the tracks for several hours now. From the driver's cab door, the tracks, the grassy verges seem a long way down. We are travelling at an alarming speed, he thinks. Were it not for the bruises and grazes he is already wearing, he would have jumped from the train by now, but he suspects a few cracks that could break further, and then how would he get back to Madeleine?

If he blinks for long enough, moments from that night come back: the smell of the cold cream Madeleine uses to wipe the stage make up from her face; the brush of their hands at the stage door; wiping a crumb from her cheek as they toast a stellar opening night. Then fragments of something more: a champagne flute smashing, rough hands on his arms, a dark alleyway. Madeleine's mouth stretched into an anguished O.

I must do this.

A rattle trembles through the tracks parallel to theirs. Another train? He hasn't seen another since he awoke.

A whistle! Sure enough, the steam of a train running the opposite way billows towards him on the wind.

Could I?

As if answering his question, their train slows, just a little. The second train whips by, so close he could touch it, but no carriage does are open.

The train slows again, and so too does the passing train. And there it is! A luggage car, doorless, open. Benoit hesitates, then a breath. He jumps.

Both trains hurtle back to speed.

Benoit sighs, rubs his face, looks at the piles of suitcases and hatboxes shelved neatly on racks. A small railed walkway leads to the end of the train. He follows it outside, muttering a silent goodbye to his strange train mates who seemed content to let a rogue train decide their destination.

A man leans on the railing gazing at the tracks, a smoking Gauloises in his hand.

"Mr Auberger."

Benoit freezes, heart plunging as the man turns, showing the cruel, sneering face of Madeleine's father.