Two Women in the Opposite Seat | that final stop
Her work-weariness, her darting eyes —
Her eyes were intensely set to the screen before her. Irises that might have glistened like onyx under a warmer, softer light were made plastic and fearful by electronic blues and tedious shades of industrial white radiating from the carriage lights above us, and the phone before her. Her high cheekbones were rounded and jut against a looser jawline, creased by years of emotion; her forehead and the corners of her eyes bore faint creases, lines barely visible, wrinkles filled with powder and soft blush. She could not have been older than fifty. Dark waves of hair receding in waves, styled with a touch of nostalgia — for the cabarets of the nuit blanche in Paris, or the smoke-filled tables and bars of gilded Manhattan? Her hands clasped her device like a communion wafer in a sort of limp veneration, scarlet nails and pale green veins. Scarlet lips too, lipstick flaking away like old wallpaper, to reveal a softer tone, something covered and hidden from first impressions. Her tawny mink coat, wrapt loosely, hid her figure and extended to the ground. Whether faux or genuine, I could not tell. But it was nevertheless an absurdity against the cheerful, hypermodern green tram seat. As we passed the neon lights of South Yarra East the flashing window-lights were refracted off the sheen of her jewellery, twin-looped golden earpieces, thin and elegant rings, a studded gold watch hidden by her coatsleeve. But something felt out of place, a something that hid in the unconcealable character of the commons. Her work-weariness, her darting eyes — what I beheld was maybe a costume, then. Faux-fur and plated gold, rhinestone and chalk. An actress offstage, shuffling past the night-workers on a crowded carriage in the cold wet Melbourne winter. She lives as an anachronism. I wish I could talk to her, hear her speech and weave her narrative. O, how I wanted to know, and how I realised that each individual was simultaneous thinking and feeling and alive beyond me, our lives barely touching like twin raindrops racing down the windowpane, racing toward the inevitable pool of water at the very bottom, our domus ultima. And as I thought thus her eyes rose for a moment and we held a gaze, filled with the tense curiosity of strangers. But I could barely remember nor describe what I saw. So I looked away and she looked down and it was as if nothing had ever occurred at all.
I shuffled closer to the window, my frame of reference renewed. Before me was a thinner and younger figure. Her eyes were downcast, irises of murky blue made almost grey by the suburbia light. Strands of hair rebellious against their loose knot, one long side-fringe traced the edge of her face down to her clear-cut cheek. Skin faintly glistening, lightly marked by spots and freckles. Dark eye -liner drawn above her lashes like curtains, her thin cheeks and sharp, defined features spoke of indifference and young criticism. All black, leather to the knee, a dark glyph of the hammer and sickle etched between thumb and forefinger in the curve of her palm. An urban revolutionary garbed in rebellious protest. Shaded eyes sharpened by discontent and restless from a slow-boiling rage at the system, at society, at herself. Dark and stormy, she sat upright and taut — An invisible string yanking her figure upward to some strange land where all the dead Bolsheviks go. Mouth tight, words coiled like the spring-loaded CHEKA pistols. A disillusioned anarchist, spurned by the spotlight of privilege that never fell upon her visage. A gothic dreamer trapped by an unappreciative, inattentive millennial monotony. A rugged scavenger in the depths of the concrete jungle. I wonder what she might have wanted to say to Lenin, and what he might have wanted to say in return.
a reflection from the tram-ride home late at night, with light rain.
