end of the line

As Maya Angelou says, the ache for home lives in all of us. Perhaps that was what was on my mind when I said I’d come home for Thanksgiving.

It was my first job and my first time away from home. I obtained a position at the University of Toronto lecturing on the 19th century novel.

I felt the need to be independent, so I leased a cramped apartment near the campus and tried to get by on a meager salary.

I denied myself the luxury of a car, figuring I could use public transit.

My parents didn’t live far—they lived in High Park—less than an hour’s subway ride away.

But I wanted to assert my adulthood—make a statement—although I was already missing my mother’s cooking and our old, familiar, creaking house.

I was looking forward to the prospect of sleeping in my old room, enjoying home-cooked meals and walking in the park.

But Friday dawned cold and wet and as the day wore on, the weather became worse

I brought an Addidas bag with me, stuffed with clothes, and a copy of Pasternak’s poems, Sister My Life.

I kept an eye on the sky, but the low, dark clouds racing overhead, told me the storm would not let up.

Common sense might dictate delaying the trip until the Saturday, but I’ve always been a sucker for rainy days and the somber moods of weather.

I decided to get out my umbrella and head to College Street—I’d take the tram for nostalgia’s sake.

Toronto’s trams are affectionately called Red Rockets primarily because of their colors—mostly red with contrasting beige.

I still look back fondly to my freshman year when I worked in one of the TTC car barns cleaning trollies and trams.

I learned how to raise and lower the trolley pole if it came off the wires.

It was a scary using the rope to reposition the pole on the live wires and avoid arcing it and being doused with a shower of sparks

But, I always loved trams—ever since I was a little boy and my mom read me a picture book called, The Runaway Tram.

In the story, a little boy has an adventure on a runaway tram, meeting a girl with red shoes who later became his wife.

That began my love affair with trams and my romantic yearnings that so far have remained unfulfilled.

I walked down past Simcoe Hall to College Street and boarded a half-empty car.

It was dimly lit with yellow lights. Warm and dry, it looked like a ship, sheltered from the wind and the rain outside.

The tram started up, swaying slightly from side to side—the driver occasionally ringing the bell to warn motorists who veered onto his tracks.

At the next stop, a beautiful, brown-haired girl got on, wearing a black raincoat and red rain boots. She sat across the aisle from me.

Is this my girl? I jokingly asked myself.

Curiously, at that moment, she turned around to glance at me.

I hunched down in the seat and stuck my nose in my poetry.

As we rumbled past the quaint century-old shops, the storm grew more intense. Huge drops of rain splattered the widows like black cherries and broken tree branches began littering the streets.

They call Toronto the city of trees, and unlike New York, the downtown core still has a leafy canopy made up mostly of Maples.

My girl stayed on, all the way.

As the Carlton car approached to within blocks of my destination, a great crash of thunder caused the lights on the car to go out.

“Oh!” cried the girl. She was obviously terrified of the storm and huddled near the window.

Before I could think about it, I slid across to sit beside her.

“It’s all right,” I told her, “We’re safer in here than outside—any current from lightning strikes is grounded—it goes through the wheels to the track and into to earth—there’s no danger

“That’s good to know,” she said, shivering.

I took off my coat and wrapped it around her.

The tram was dark and silent.

Outside, rain was sheeting down the widows; inside, we huddled together while thunder roared ominously above us.

I noticed a book bag. “Are you a student?”

She nodded, “Just finishing my Masters in English Lit at U of T.”

Lightning flared outside the windows. She cringed.

“Don’t worry—I spent a summer working with these trams—you’re quite safe.”

“Thank you,” she smiled.

“What college do you attend?”

“Victoria College,” she whispered.

“That’s a beautiful campus,” I said.

“Do you go to U of T too?” she asked.

I nodded. “University College.”

“My girlfriends often go there to audit lectures—they tell me there’s a cool young Prof who teaches Victorian novels.”

My heart stopped. “What’s his name?”

“Richard Larson. Do you know him?”

I smiled. “I am him.”

Her eyes grew huge and she colored. “This is embarrassing,” she laughed nervously.

“Actually, I’m enjoying it,” I teased. “What’s your name?”

“Lara Maslak.”

“You’re Russian?”

I am,” she smiled.

“I love Russian literature—actually, here—” I reached across the aisle and retrieved my book from my former seat, “This is what I’m reading.”

She picked it up and looked at it. “Oh, Sestra Moia Zhizn—I love these poems!”

“You read them in the original?”

“Oh yes! They’re so beautiful—you can almost see golden wheat fields and long grass.

“Can I hear you read it in the original?”

She began reading, and the regular rhythm and fixed rhyme scheme became apparent.

The sound of the poem matched the cadence of the rain.

“That’s beautiful, “ I said.

“But you don’t understand a word,” she protested.

“Maybe I meant to say, you’re beautiful.”

I stared into her eyes and swore I saw the grain fields and rolling grasslands she spoke of.

The power came on. The fans started up and the lights flickered, but gradually grew stronger.

The tram jerked ahead, clattering through the intersection and continuing on its way.

In moments it reached the end of the line and looped into the park, surrounded by trees.

She looked at me and smiled:

Here tracks of the city trolleys stop, and further the pines alone must satisfy. Trams cannot pass.

I looked at her in surprise. “That’s Pasternak, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “It’s from Sparrow Hills—quite appropriate, I think.”

We got out and stood watching while the streetcar lumbered off down the tracks back toward the city core.

The rain had stopped.

“Well, it was nice meeting you,” she began to leave.

“Wait,” I said impulsively, “Can we meet this weekend for coffee? —I’d love to continue our talk about Pasternak.”

She looked up at me, eyes shining. “I’d love that, Richard.”

We spent the weekend walking the paths above the pond—feeding ducks—drinking coffee in the restaurant.

We visited the zoo and gathered leaves.

She lives with her parents, one street over from us. My father knows the family from St. Casmir’s Church.

It’s strange how life is.

I have a lease on a downtown apartment, but now I really long to be home.

I want to want to walk with her in the snow, toboggan down steep hills and skate with her on the pond.

I want to watch storms with her, sipping tea, sitting on the wooden verandah of my parent’s creaking house.

The lightning flashes; the thunder roars and there, my dear, in the weather’s din, I paint your lovely face.
—Lermontov

© 2016, John J Geddes. All rights reserved.