（英訳付エッセイ5）「お荷物」、ドーバーを渡る

「お荷物」、ドーバーを渡る

その時、私達三人はパリの駅舎でモーレツにあせっていた。
列車の出発時間が刻々と迫り、究極の三択を迫られていた。

選択①　予定の列車に乗るのを全員あきらめる。
選択②　彼女の荷物をほったらかして、三人で列車に乗る。
選択③　彼女の荷物を持って、三人で列車に乗る。

一行は、四人……のはずだった。

フランスはツール近郊の片田舎で一ヶ月半に及ぶ美術研修を終え、ディーナとリサ（共にアメリカ人）と私はパリに滞在していた。そして、その頃ちょうどヨーロッパ一人旅をしていた私の友人アキと合流し、四人でロンドンへと向う計画だった。余裕を持って駅に到着し、カフェでクロワッサンにパクついていたのだが、その時、突然リサが叫んだ。

「クローゼットにドレスを忘れてきた！」

たかがドレス一枚。そうは思ったが、女子にとって「パリで買ったドレス」ってのは貴重だ。そこは反論しない。ただ――荷物に入れ忘れるなよ！

取りに行って戻ってくる時間的余裕があると計算し、彼女は自分の荷物を置いたままタクシーに飛び乗ると、ホテルへと取って返したのである。

それが「ドーバーお荷物事件」の発端だった。

悪い予感のとおり、リサちゃんは列車の出発時間になっても戻らず、残された私、友人、ディーナの三人は、前述の三択への決断を迫られたのである。

①を選ぶと、せっかく取った四人分の指定券が台無しになり、次の夜行列車に振り替えられたとしても、四人が同じコンパートメントに乗れる確立はほぼゼロ。ヨーロッパで見知らぬ人と寝台列車に乗るなんて……絶対やだ。

②は、人としての道に外れる。

で、協議の結果、③を取るべき道と決断した。

リサが自分のお財布とパスポート、チケットを持っていることは確認済みだったし、幸い彼女だけフランス語が堪能だった。自分の荷物と共に我々が消えていたら、何が起こったのか状況を察知して自力で追っかけてくるだろう。

そうして「通訳」を失った三人の珍道中が始まった。

取り残されたリサの荷物は３個――スーツケース、ボストンバック、そしてショルダー型のスポーツバッグ。しかし、我々の研修も長かったし、アキは放浪の一人旅１ヶ月、それぞれ自分の荷物が少ないわけでもない。そこへ一人一つずつ荷物が追加されるわけだ

身長１８０センチと大柄のディーナがスーツケースを引き受け、小柄な私よりさらに小柄なアキがボストンバッグ、そして私が大きさの割りにやけに重たいスポーツバッグを担当することになり、それは相当にキツイ旅になった。

夜行列車で港まで行き、フェリーでドーバー海峡を渡る。さらにロンドンまで列車を乗り継いだ。乗り換える度、ものすごい量の荷物を移動させるわけである。しかも、私が担当したバッグ、一体全体何なのかわかんないが、まるで「岩でも入ってんのか！？」ってほど重たい。人の鞄を勝手に開けて中身を見るわけにもいかず、私は、その異常な重荷にひたすら耐えた。

あまりの重みに、ロンドンに着く頃、私の両肩には内出血による青あざができていた。

ドーバー海峡を渡るというアコガレの旅は、おかげでトホホな思い出と化した。

ロンドンの駅で、三人がぐったりして延々待ちぼうけていると、やがて手ぶらのリサが笑顔で現れた。（手ぶらだぞ）

携帯電話の無い時代、勝手わからぬ土地で無事再会できたことにはほっとしたものの、まあ腹の虫が治まらん。

「あんたぁ、何やってんのさ！」
「もう勘弁してよ」
「どんだけ重かったと思うよ！」

口々に文句を言うと、「それでも私だって不安だったのよ〜」だと

私は訊いてみた。

「ところでこのバッグ、一体何なの？　まるで岩でも入ってるみたいに重いんだけど……」

すると、彼女はパンパンに閉じたバッグのファスナーをするする開けて見せた。

中にはおよそ信じられないものが入っていて、ソレを見た瞬間、私は気を失いかけた。

本当に「岩」だった。

彼女は彫刻専攻で、研修地だった村のあちこちに転がっていた石灰質の岩に魅せられていたのだ。彫りやすく崩れ難い。細工が非常にしやすかったのだそうだ。で、アメリカに戻ってから作品を作ろうと、ぎりぎりそのスポーツバッグに収まる手ごろな大きさの「岩」を一つ拾ってきたのだそうだ。

……で、私があざ作ってまでソレを担いで、ドーバー越えしたってわけだ。

その後、彼女の「岩」がアメリカへの入国審査を通ったかどうかまでは知らない。

通らずに入管で没収されていたら――怒るぞ。

Luggage Over The Straits of Dover

On a platform of Gare du Nord in Paris, all three of us were extremely anxious.

Our train to Dover was about to leave in a few minutes and we really needed to make up our mind what to do before it took off. It was the time limit.

Our choices were;
1) All of us give up our train tickets and stay
2) Leave her luggage there and get on the train
3) Take her luggage with us and get on the train

We were supposed to be a group of four. That was the problem.

Dina, Lisa and I had been staying in Paris about a week after we finished our 6 week-long summer art camp in a small village near Tours. We met with a Japanese friend of mine Aki in Paris who was traveling Europe all by herself for over a month, and all four of us, two American and two Japanese decided to surface trip to London together by train and a ferry boat.

As we did not want to miss our first train, we arrived at Gare du Nord quite early enough just in case and were having our last café au lait de Paris. It was then Lisa screamed;

"Oh no, I left my pink dress in the closet at the hotel!"

A pink dress. Big deal. I knew it was silly but I could also well understand that "a dress purchased in Paris" meant a lot to a young girl.

Lisa quickly calculated and figured that she had enough time to go back to the hotel and come back before our train left. That was how our rather agonizing trip begun.

Just as our bad hunch, Lisa did not show on time. The three of us was on the verge of the hard decision making.

We wanted to avoid Choice No. 1, because it ruins all four sets of our tickets . Our itinerary included a over night train and we had taken some effort to find those 4 seats to occupy one compartment just between the four of us. If we give them up and ride on a next train, we might end up in different compartments with strangers. We didn't think it was a lovely idea to spend a night with complete strangers in Europe.

And Choice No. 2 was just out of question as behaviors of decent persons.

Thus, we decided to take Choice No. 3.

We knew Lisa had in her purse her passport, wallet and the tickets. And fortunately, she was the only one who was fluent in French among us. We figured that she would understand what had happened when she discovered us disappeared with her luggage and she should be capable to handle the situation on her own, finding her way to get on the next train to follow us. Thus, we got on the train just in time with extra luggage of hers, missing our precious interpreter.

Lisa left three pieces of luggage- one suitcase, one carry-on travel bag, one sports bag with a shoulder strap. Dina who was about 6 feet tall took the large suitcase with rollers, and my friend Aki, a petit girl even smaller than myself took the travel bag, and I got the sports bag with a shoulder strap. Now, as I mentioned, Dina and I had just finished our 6-week camp, which meant we had large enough luggage ourselves. Same thing for Aki, who was exploring Europe over a month. Although it was one extra piece each of us added to what we had originally, it was much tougher than we had imagined.

Our itinerary required several changes of trains and a ferry boat. Each time we changed to the next transportation, we had to carry all the heavy stuff. Especially, the sports bag I carried was ridiculously heavy. It wouldn't be right to open somebody else's property and check inside, so I knew I just had to suffer. But it was REALLY heavy as if it held a huge rock inside.

I sighed to Dina and Aki,

 "Gosh, this is so heavy.  What the heck does she have in here?  A Rock?" 

Before we reached London, I had pretty ugly black and blue bruises on both my shoulders from carrying it. So, my humble dream to travel over the straits of Dover by a ferry boat had turned out to be such a painfully memorable trip because of the heavy bag.

The three of us finally arrived in London all exhausted.  While we were kind of drained and spaced out from overly fatigue on a bench in the station, Lisa without luggage finally arrived a few hours later.  She walked over to us with a smile and her tiny bag hanging across her shoulder.  Although we were actually all so relieved to see each other reunited safely, the three of us could not hold back our complaints to her.

"I can't believe what you did!" Dina exclaimed.

"Do you know how hard it was to travel with your luggage?" Aki sighed.

"It's about time you carry your stuff!" I demanded.

Lisa said shrugging her shoulders, "Oh, I'm sorry, but I was so scared to travel alone, too!"

”Yeah, right! we all echoed.

I asked Lisa what she had in the sports bag.  She slid the zipper open to show us the content, and at the moment I saw what it was inside, I almost fainted.

It really was a rock.

Lisa was studying sculpture during the art camp. According to her, she was working on some good sized rocks found all over the place in the village we stayed and they were very easy to carve and yet hard to enough to hold the shapes. She fell in love with those rocks as her sculpture material and decided to fetch one that barely fit the sports bag so that she could continue working on it after she went back to America. 

And so I ended up carrying it over the straits of Dover.

I don't know if her precious rock went through the custom at the airport.
But, if it didn't, I think I have a right to get mad.