THE STATION (February 20, 2011)

On our walk around the Austro-Hungarian Zagreb, which I quite enjoy, we pass by the central train station. “Let’s see how it looks inside,” my beloved suggests with a twinkle in her eye. I nod in agreement and we walk in. The station looks grand from the outside, but it does not take us long to see it all. After all, Zagreb was a tiny provincial town when it was built in the late Nineteenth Century. “It doesn’t look that bad,” I comment after a while. My beloved nods in agreement. Indeed, there are few things I remember from one of my old pieces about the station, which is still alive in my mind (“La Tour Eiffel,” August 7, 1978). There are no crowds. The place looks reasonably clean. It does not stink, either. There are few drunks lounging about. But then I realize the key change by comparison with more than thirty years ago: there are few trains, too. Alas!