Levels

I always thought there were only two levels of travel. One was high up in the air, white and smooth, with bright lights, cloudless sky, unmoving sun, soaring speed, conditioned air, hostess smiles, no weight and time doesn't count. At regular intervals there are holes with glittering metal escalators leading to the second level below. Here the ground is grey, hard, and resistant. Dust is kicked up, clouds darken the sun, sweat erupts, or cold and rain lash out ruthlessly. Transportation is done in sealed cages on rubber tyres, rolling over endless strips of asphalt, or in steel tunnels shooting forth on rails. Obstacles loom large: deep ravines, foaming rivers, indomitable mountains. They are overcome by bridges on thin pillars, tamed by dark tunnels. Silver cylinders shoot through the green like elvers, bore into mountains, and emerge unscathed on the other side. Beneath this level there is nothing, only sand, rocks and subterraneous cul-de-sacs.

Or so I thought. Years ago, however, I discovered a third level. Here the roads are narrow and winding, railway tracks are rusty. The air is heavy, time stands still. One travels loaded with wicker baskets in slow rocking trains. It was on a slate-coloured morning in southern France that by accident I fell through a hole and landed on this third level. I was getting off the train in a little town just north of the Pyrenees where the main railroad stops. Here I was to board a bus that would take me over the mountains into Spain. But the road was blocked because of flooding, I was told, and I had to wait at least a day. Just as I was preparing myself for a long night's sleep on a hard bench, a kind old lady drew my attention to a local railway company that still maintained a slow connection on narrow-gauge tracks through the mountains with Spain. I descended downtown through streets bordered with high nineteenth-century houses, to arrive at a little station, a cast-iron construction spanning a huge empty platform. I bought a ticket - sixty miles, first class, for a song. At the platform, a hissing, trembling train on high rusty wheels stood ready. Each four-seat compartment had its own heavy steel door, fitted with a thick brass lock. Before departure, they were all closed with a loud thud by a one-armed war veteran. The seats were upholstered with velvet, plush curtains covered the windows, the luggage racks had wrought-iron decorations, and there was polished oak on the walls. The conductor in his pale and worn uniform canceled my ticket by putting a cross on it with a greasy pencil. Slowly we rolled along steep mountainsides. We stopped at little stations that boasted huge clocks with faded Roman figures, and ogival windows with glass grown opaque from age. Occasionally, a man or a woman would come running through the fields, and then the train stopped, puffing, to take them in as passengers. It took over six hours to reach our destination.

Many years later I went back to that little town in the south of France. The old nineteenth-century neighbourhood was gone and on the spot where I had once bought my ticket stood a glass-and-concrete high-rise.

They had stopped the hole.