I took a bullet train from Copenhagen to Stockholm (what a city! More about that in another post) at 8 am. Lauren and I got to the train station early with both bikes broken down and put into zippered black bags (we had brought these bags with us the entire way. Some Swedish train and bus operators do not allow bikes on board so we had to disguise them as huge artists' easels). She helped me load the bikes and we said a hurried goodbye; she was to depart later that day for Amsterdam, the lucky girl. After a few stops a couple sat down with me. I thought he was in his late 40s or early 50s. He had long brown hair with faint streaks of grey, and a foot-long goatee cinched with rubber bands. He wore a dark casual wool suit jacket, shorts, and sandals, and had a woven black satchel in his lap. His partner had striking greenish-blue eyes, silver hair cut fashionably asymmetrically, and because she had not a wrinkle on her face, I thought she had to be at least 10 years younger than him (turns out she too was our age).
I don't think we knew what to make of each other. Compared to him, I look like a CIA agent. I had several back issues of the New York Times with me and had prepared to read and sleep the entire way. We might have passed the trip without a word. But I made a move anyway.
They were on their way back home to a small town of 10,000 north of Helsinki, Finland, after a three-week multi-country tour. It was obvious from the start that that they were a very happy couple. Tero was a truck driver, or forklift operator, I couldn't really be sure from his description; Eija worked in textiles. He had played center as a hockey player (hence the title of this post. Back in the 70's, the bumper sticker "Jesus Saves! But Espo Scores on the Rebound!" was popular with fans of the Boston Bruins and their center Phil Esposito). He said he was the "central nervous system" on the ice: he was not the fastest skater, but made up for it with craftiness. From the twinkle in his eye, I believed it.
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| within an hour, friends.... |
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| with Eija and Tero |
Tero explained, somewhat ruefully, that they were coming from Copenhagen, the land of beer, through Sweden, the land of vodka, back to Finland, the land of.....milk. (apparently Finland's control over the sale of alcohol is tight). After we established that I had no problem with booze, Eija produced an unopened pint of vodka from her own satchel. An orange juice mixer might have been appropriate at that hour but since we had no orange juice, just vodka had to do. When I held the pint bottle and talked too long before taking a swig, Tero admonished "please, it's not a microphone". Before long, an hour of conversation, and the contents of the bottle, were history. Then it was off to the bar car where we shared a beer or two.
They both loved music ("Vivaldi is for the morning, rock-and- roll in the evening") and in particular Neil Young (fate? I had started this trip with a Neil Young connection). Tero had an encyclopedic knowledge of rock-and-roll, and we got into a Laurel and Hardy routine with the rock bands The Who and Yes: "You like The Who? Yes! Oh, you like Yes! No,Who. Don't make me guess who. Oh, you like The Guess Who? No, Yes! Yes or no, do you like The Who? Yes!.....". He had a more-than-passing resemblance to De Niro and could quote him : "You talkin' to me?.... Yes? Who?" . He explained that, as a hippie, he had never been in a fight in his life....except when playing hockey where it was a necessary part of the game. Once they were in a bar in Finland with another hippie couple and got heckled by the (entirely) younger, male, and macho patrons. Tero diffused the situation by saying that they should all look at themselves in a mirror, because he and his friend were the only ones in the bar who had women with them. The bar then thinned out, he said, because so many of them went home to look at themselves in the mirror.
Tero led the way with most of their stories, but Eija was the perfect straight man. She demonstrated her hand signals to control him ("two fingers: peace. One finger wagged at him: time to settle down"). They were extremely funny together and had a wonderful-to-observe interaction. They had both been married once before and had kids from those relationships, had been together for 5 years, and apparently had already made plans to marry.....25 years from now. It was plain that they loved each other very much.
When the announcement that we were arriving in Stockholm came over the loudspeaker, it had been the shortest 5 hours I'd ever spent on a train.
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