The phone call caught her off guard. They hadn't exactly kept in close contact but had stayed in touch through the years. Hadn't heard from him, in fact, for over two years when she got the call. Still stunned, it brought her instantly back to that night in the spring of 1977.
The train was almost as dingy and depressing as her month long stay on the dreary and desolate little island off the coast of Newfoundland, a school program for seniors. Two hours down, seven more still to go. Bored and tired, yet unable to sleep, she stared out the window at the blanket of thick clouds in the night sky overhead. There was nothing else to look at.
Until this character teetered by, rocking with the motion of the train, headed toward the cramped bathroom in the back of the nearly empty car. From under his floppy hat she caught his smile and his eye. She smiled too, but only after he had passed.
She looked out the window again and noticed a small break in the clouds. A round hole filled with stars, like a window to the cosmos. It looked like all the stars in the whole sky were filling this small hole in the clouds. Feeling and hearing the train rhythmically rolling over the tracks, and seeing these stars pouring out of the clouds, she was mesmerized; lost in this miniature universe.
"Beautiful isn't it?" She turned to find the voice coming from the seat behind her even though she knew it was him. Before she processed the deep voice and unusual accent (just as she had imagined it might be as she had stared at the stars seconds before) and before she even saw him, she knew. She wasn't startled ( had she been expecting him?) and she wasn't shy, yet she couldn't find her voice, so she simply nodded and smiled in reply. She looked back out at the growing patch of stars. How long had he been there? She peeked back between the seat and the window-he was looking out at the stars, but still felt her gaze, and smiled.
For quite a while it went like this. Silence except for the tracks passing below the train. Unspoken was the feeling of connection between the two; a strange attraction between two seeming opposites at least by outward appearances. From the hills in Vermont, she was seventeen, and while neither callow nor naive, there was a brightness to her that the world had yet to tarnish. He was from Manhattan, and beyond his scruff, scars and tattoos (the om symbol on his left hand and the Hamsa hand on his right) his eyes reflected the turmoil he had seen throughout his forty years. They also reflected a warmth and strength that beckoned to those who could see past the pain.
She realized she had been staring into those eyes when, finally he stood and moved to the seat next to her, taking her hand as he sat. " I am Talif" he said. "Lilia" she returned, shaking his hand. With neither letting go ,they looked out together on the ever expanding blanket of stars now spreading above them. Silence and introductions behind them, they talked and carried on like old mates. Discussing books, movies, his past, her future and a spirituality that they seemed to share, the hours flew by. Until the whistle blew for her stop and they hastily exchanged addresses and phone numbers in the dawn of the day with just a few stars still visible to the west.
Lilia had loved getting his letters, long and elaborate. And through the years they had had those phone calls, occasionally going into the early morning hours as they each looked out different windows into the same night sky. They shared and encouraged each other, leaving indelible marks on each other's hearts and minds. But through all the letters, all the conversations, starting with that night on the train, there was an undercurrent, a sense of missing what could have been.
That was the saddest part of losing Talif. Letting the tears flow and fall freely, she put the phone down and looked out at the stars above.
Wow!
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