Wielkopolska National Park, Poland – October 2007
Train to Mosina, and then the blue trail all the way to Stęszew. Thirteen kilometers. I scrawled this on a note to my roommate and told my Polish friends. You shouldn’t hike alone out there, they warned me. I reminded them that my husband hadn’t yet arrived and that none of them wanted to accompany me. I need some air, a walk in the forest. It’s Saturday. There will be others on the trail. I’ll be fine.
Gold is the color of autumn in Poland. Diffuse sunlight filters down through the trees. Every possible hue of brown lies under my feet. What has already fallen is just as beautiful as what hangs on. Small lakes appear behind the trees. Families stroll the path before and behind me, until the trail splits. They take the shorter, more popular yellow trail. Their voices fade and disappear.
The woods close in around me. The path widens to a two track. The sound of a radio, wheels turning on earth. I step aside and raise my hand in greeting. Beer stench wafts out of the passing window. I keep my eyes on the ground. My stomach constricts. I duck behind a tree. The car moves forward about a hundred meters, then the tail lights surge bright red. Slow reaction time is a good sign, but there are two of them. The car idles. I move further off the trail and crouch behind some brush. And then, miraculously, family voices. The car moves along. I emerge from the forest. The family has paused at the turnoff to the village of Łódź. They don’t acknowledge me as I pass. Continuing along the road would bring me out of the forest, but it’s also the way the car went. The blue markings on the trees veer left. And I follow.
Thick gray clouds hang low over the village. Neither sound nor motion emanates from the homes or gardens. Do eyes peer at me from behind those curtains? The famous 17th century wooden church appears at the junction of the road to elsewhere. The doors are firmly shut. I cast no looks over my shoulder as I make my way back to the trail.
I emerge from the forest into sunshine. The last of the trail passes by a narrow lake. Ponies graze in the pasture beside it. I look behind me once, to the dark forest. No, I won’t wander into the deep woods alone again.
The train station in Stęszew is the usual grim cinder block construction found in most Polish small towns. Dubious puddles in the corners. Angry tags scrawled on dingy walls. Behind grimy glass, the obligatory troll hunches over a tattered tabloid magazine, conveniently oblivious to the beer-swilling, tracksuit-sporting hooligans who have congregated at the entrance. And to my presence before her.
“Przepraszam.” I slide some bills under the window. “Do Poznania, proszę.”
The sigh of a thousand lost battles. The tabloid is laid aside. Ticket and change is shoved under the window.
I turn away and walk out to the platform. Tendrils of cold begin to seep into my bones. I stare at the clock. The train is already late, but this is normal for Poland. What if there was no way out of this place?
In my mind, wisps of a scene coalesce:
She can hear it in the distance. A soft, percussive churning. The hooligans and the old women have left, taking their jeers and taunts with them. The clock continues to tick, but does not change. 3:52 PM. She stares down the tracks, which stretch into oblivion. An unfamiliar hue appears on the horizon. It reminds her of alienation. She takes a step back. Maybe there is no better place.
A shrill whistle pierces the air. Steam clouds over the forest; a flash of steel. The 3:52 rounds the bend.
She steps onto the tracks and spreads her arms in welcome.
The shrill whistle of a vintage train snaps me out of the morbid haze. The acrid smell of coal fills my throat. The engine’s chug is a jubilant sound. I cross the tracks, step inside, and take a seat. What an unexpected delight to carry me home.
beautiful storytelling. I love autumn colours, in this time of the year is great to get lost all alone on a beautiful trail, taking pictures of the fallen leaves. Beautiful pictures you’ve taken, as always. Cris
Thank you, Cris. I love autumn, too. I grew up in a place that has amazing autumn colors – fiery reds and oranges. Even though I’ve yet to find such breathtaking colors in Europe, it’s still my favorite season.
A very happy ending – a ride on a steam train. My two favourite smells – hot Castrol R (racing oil) and steam trains. Chanel No, 5 has got nothing on these two 🙂
It was a very appropriate ending to a bizarre day. That smell is rather comforting, I must admit.
Mediocre camera but a good photographer. I am always entranced by your photos. And, this is a good short story told well: just enough tension for the mini-adventure. I’m becoming a big fan!
Thank you kindly. 🙂
” do eyes peer at me from behind those curtains ? ” … And your description of train station is beautifully written … Thankyou J.D. for this mystery of walking thru the Polish forest with you … xx
Thanks for strolling along. Gotta love Poland and all of its little quirks.
Great read, and photos to match. Without knowing the area, I assume people disappear in those woods, that area?
No one actually told me that people disappear there, but I wouldn’t be surprised. It would be more due to drunken capers, i.e. passing out in the cold after drinking too much rather than anything sinister. But then again, there are some strange characters in those small towns.
Shivers up my backbone going through the forest with you, not difficult to imagine the origins of a those Grimm fairy tales. Great shots!
Haha. Yah, no kidding. I kept expecting a gnome to pop out of a tree, or something. But all I got was the train station troll.
Great pictures and love the descriptions of fall and walking alone. I do it all the time – walk alone and have hidden in bushes – you capture well the fear.
One can’t say they’ve walked alone in the woods until they’ve hidden behind some bushes. Haha. I still sometimes do it, but I go when lots of others are on the trail. It’s sad that we have to worry about it. The woods (and alcohol probably helps) must trigger some kind of neanderthal instinct in certain men.
I’ve seen such steam driven locomotives, pass here on rare occasion. Just a short whistle stop on their long tour rolling stock carriages, winding history back a little for just a short time.
Many forests seem to come with dark pasts, histories, some real, some gossip, it’s hard to know when and where, or the story’s age to its fact, myth, or legend. Perhaps the vehicle in transit, they thought you a forest ghost/spirit, there one second, gone the next.
Most of the forests I’ve passed through there has been no one, but for sometimes another and the occasional snake, dingo, fox, wallaby, feral pig, wombat, echidna, and a platypus when a thriving water course is about, along with many others.
Where’s your latest trek lead?
Such strange creatures you encounter in your forests down there. The last trek I went on was in the mountains of Slovakia a few weekends ago. Much more dramatic scenery and physically challenging trails. Not a drunken lout in sight, but there were deer and even bear tracks on the trail.
Walking in the woods… We used to have an old country house in Normandy. Spent the summer there. There were many woods around. We children all spent our days on the wheat fields, cycling on the country roads, and exploring every inch of the woods, playing explorers of the Amazon or the Congo! We sometimes took sandwiches and didn’t come back until dusk. Just children, and none of the grown-ups ever worried of any harm that could happen to us. 🙂
Long time!
Thanks for sharing this, Julie.
Brian
Sounds like a wonderful place to spend the summer. My brothers and sisters and I spent parts of the summer at our grandparents’ cottage in northern Michigan. Like you, we’d explore the woods on our own for hours, no fear of anything happening to us. It was a different, marvelous era.
Hello Julie, I have to admit that I read your beautiful and poetic short story twice and the second time I was more intimidated by the surrounding of the train station than by the people you came into contact when crossing the woods. Anyway, I think children who still have the possibilities to play in the forests and not only in crowded streets are lucky.
Thanks a lot.:)
Hi Martina – It’s sometime difficult to judge who is dangerous and who isn’t. I go with the feeling in my body, which is very often accurate. Nausea, tense muscles, etc. I do hope that there are still places where children can play and adults can roam without fear.