Chapter Text
The woman was the most captivating person Benedict had ever seen. Then again, he seemed to think everyone around him was captivating to some degree, so maybe it did not matter as much.
He clicked his pen, drawing the side of her face, the way her hair fell in untamed curls against her ears, by her silver earrings. The way she was absorbed in a book of maps. Benedict thought her to be the most intriguing person in the entirety of the train. Most of them hardly looked away from their phones.
She was also the strangest woman he'd ever met, which was saying something since he was no different from her. Neither of them carried any bags. She had a small rucksack with her, and he kept a backpack with little to nothing in it. A change of clothes for a few days, a handful of rocks from the Grande Plage du Sillon that he had collected, books with empty pages and nothing else. The interesting-looking rocks had gotten quite heavier to carry, so he had hoped to toss them away somewhere safe. Perhaps in a graveyard of sorts.
The train rolled to a stop.
The woman set her book down and stood. Finally after half an hour of waiting, he managed to get a good look at her. Quickly, he began sketching the rest of her face. Her slender neck, the blouse that hung loosely on her shoulders, her tartan skirt that she kept in place with an old belt. She disappeared down the aisle and did not come back up until the train took off from the station. She carried a watch in her hand now — strangely, she did not wear it around her wrist and sat back down with her face turned away to look out of the windows in a contemplative manner. Benedict sketched her with the scenery in the background, with the looming city of Paris threatening to creep in. It was a quiet, absorbing exercise. He'd drawn portraits for people before, but there was something about drawing a muse from afar, without her knowledge. She would express neither contempt nor joy upon receiving her picture, because he would never give it to her in the first place. Drawn so callously on a tissue from the dining carts. What was it that his brother used to say?
His fingers danced across the pages; an obsession. He drew her over and over again, in different positions — with a finger to her lip, a hand resting protectively over her book of maps, the furrowing curve of her brow. He drew her in a hat in one of them, gave her silver earrings the sole attention in another, painted her eyes to resemble stars, the kind he'd seen in the sleepy hollows of Saint-Briac-sur-Mer. He drew her sleeping with her book. Her blouse was softer than silk, and he'd gotten quite good at capturing pools of fabric after his lessons with Granville. His only lesson with Granville before he had slept with him. Something funny about that, he thought. He'd taught him all he'd needed to know about painting clothes in the midst of making love. Then they'd left with their goodbyes hanging to their lips. Neither of them had wanted to part, nor did they wish to stay either.
The train stopped at another station. The woman let out a scoff, rose and left. Once the train began moving again, she returned. He found her odd little ritual exciting. Where was she disappearing to? He might just follow her. Alas, there were no new stations till Paris, which was still a good thirty minutes away. She returned to her seat, catching the sunlight in between the pages of her map book and tracing a line from one corner of the page to another. Benedict drew the way her fingers traced the book. One more little piece of her to remember her by. He sketched her wristwatch, the easy rucksack that lied against her shoulder as if it was acting in the role of her lover, the empty power socket right by her head and quickly exhausted the ink in his pen.
Luckily for him, the train stopped midway — perhaps for a brake inspection, he wasn't sure. The woman rose yet again and he followed her, all the way to the entrance of the coach. She stood by the window, watching the countryside, now unmoving thanks to the still train. There was nothing really interesting about the endless greenery, but in her awe, he felt a swell of joy himself. She brought a hand to touch the glass, rubbing her thumb against the green as if she could feel every individual strand of grass from so far away. Then, as the train began moving again, she turned to return to her seat.
Benedict followed her and sunk into a seat across from her.
"Do you have any idea where we are?" He pointed at her book of maps.
She looked up. "About forty five minutes away from Paris."
"Really? I thought we were only thirty minutes away. Time must pass by very slowly." he professed. "They used to say time passes slowly when you are in good company."
"Isn't it usually the other way around? Time is mercilessly short when you're trying to take in all these magnificent sights?" She gestured vaguely at the window and then at him.
Benedict raised his brow. His cheeks burned red, as he tried to regain his lost composure. "I'd like to think time waits for no man, but it has its weaknesses."
"Brake failure, I'd imagine."
And the two had a laugh over it.
She went back to gazing wistfully at a herd of sheep that flew past them. Silence pooled into the gap between them where words had failed. He took her in. He really took her in. Hair curled up in a tight updo. She was beaming with joy at the otherwise boring sheep, which made him wonder if she'd really travelled. There was not only joy though, but also relief. She kept touching the glass, as if she could not part with the fresh, green air for even a second.
"Would you like to go up to the front?" he offered. "I mean nothing untoward, just that — we can get some air, if you'd like?"
"Do you know a place?"
"I know all sorts of places here. Spent a lot of time on trains." He extended a hand to her. "Will you come?"
She accepted his hand and he swept her off her feet; practically leaping excitedly across the short aisle, his hold on her firm as ever. She pulled him towards her to let a man through and they continued on. Benedict's heart leapt at the gesture, and more so from their close proximity. He felt the heat of her body bite into his own. A muse made alive. He'd only drawn voiceless meadows in the past with a view from a posh little London apartment. Meadows with cypress trees and kites attached to invisible spools. A muse who spoke to him, who returned his starry eyes, well, that was stuff of dreams, really.
Eventually, they made it through the narrow walkway and down the dining carts to the narrow little corner where a large window was cut into the coach, without the glass pane that barricaded them from nature. His new friend let out a giggle, pressing her face to the bars of the window and drinking in the cool passing air. The deserted houses loomed up in front of them, bustling with glee from old rain.
"It is such a spectacular day." She breathed in deeply. "I only wish the train stopped for longer than five minutes, so I may go out on the station and look ahead for miles on end, but sometimes it gets boring watching the same thing over and over again."
He joined her in looking out the window. "Yes, but if you look really closely, life creeps in. The sunset is beautiful, isn't it?"
"Not really. There's something so final about it." She shook her head, as if she were trying to shake off a ghost perched atop her shoulder. "It is nearing the end of the day. I find it more — hard to digest than the actual night. I guess I enjoy the day and the night individually, not the strange in-between."
"Sunsets can be very mesmerising."
"I have yet to see a beautiful sunset."
"Maybe I can show you one."
The woman gave him a long look, waiting for him to elaborate.
"I'd tried painting a sunset every day but I can never get the perfect shade of orange. I can get all the details people usually struggle with, but I cannot for the life of me get a sunset right. Seems like the natural beauty of the world refuses to bow to any mortal creature. Maybe I require a shift in perspective."
"Has this trip helped you in that?" she asked gently.
"Not really. It is quite impractical to paint in a moving train."
"So you're an artist?"
"No. No. I — I dabble. I'm no artist."
"You do not have to be so modest. Anyone who speaks so fondly about nature like that must be an artist."
"Do you think so?"
The woman looked away, distant, leaving his question unanswered. She was cryptic that way, as Benedict had to learn quickly, leaving him to decipher the meaning behind her clever silences. A man came by to ask them the directions to the restroom, and she was all talk, giving him directions and elaborating in full. When he'd left, she fell into her silence again.
"I'm Benedict." he said.
"Be-ne-dict." she repeated carefully, sounding out his name in a languid manner. "Why are you here, Benedict? Are you on some holiday?"
"A pilgrimage, actually. I'd begun in Florence, toured nearly all of Italy—" He pointed at a spot on the wall of the train, tracing his finger upwards, "— then to coasts of France, all the way to Paris. A pilgrimage of art, for my own benefit, I suppose."
"What do you do if you are no artist?"
"This and that."
"Not many people I know with this-and-that jobs."
"Well, what do you do?"
"I'm trying to run away from some — people."
"And you're running away, where exactly? To Paris?"
"Here and there," she mimicked his tone. "Well, I should like to go to my seat now. Thank you for sharing with me this view."
He followed her back to their places in the train. Twenty minutes to Paris now. The silence was staggering. She kept playing with the silverware on her table, exhibiting no interest to actually eat anything. How was it that an inanimate fork was somehow more interesting than a conversation with him? What was she trying to run away from? "People" could mean anything. Suddenly, compared to her life, his sounded very boring. A pilgrimage to Europe's finest art museums, galleries, institutions and homes did not seem very interesting. He wondered if he could borrow some of Colin's Grecian summer stories and pass it off as his own. Then again, telling a pretty girl he caught himself in a web of bad investments and had to flee the country in shame, would be a poor second impression. He was christened an artist now, by her and he wasn't willing to change that. Yes, he'd tell her about his career as an artist, though he had none an exhibit to prove himself. He did not wish to lie to her, just to seem collected and cool. He could recite to her poetry. He'd had Percy Shelley's works memorised as a child, not knowing if he'd ever use it. Now would be the moment. He didn't know what it was about her, but he'd just wanted to keep her for a moment longer. Show her some beautiful sunsets, recite to her some poetry in her ear as she twirled around her little teaspoon. Mayfair was ever cynical and averse to his romance anyway. Might as well put the Parisian air to some good use. Maybe he could learn some French too and paint her by the Seine, imagine a life with her.
No, it was too much. He'd never see her again. She did not seem very urgent in collecting her belongings, as the Paris station swam into view, so clearly she must not plan on getting off here. Benedict stared at his drawings of her, already mourning her absence. The woman with the silver earrings, never to be seen again. His special, silver ingenue. Perhaps he was getting a little too ahead of himself, but how could he not? How could he possibly resist the scent of blooming flowers in spring? The beginning of something anew? He'd met people aboard trains, had chatted away with them but there was something special about his silver girl. He smiled at the thought of staring at her dreamily under the moonlight, dancing with her by the coursing river, caught up in the moment and letting it go by soon after. The odds of catching a ribbon in the wind are quite slim, he'd heard someone say. Let it go, so everyone else might have a chance at it too.
It applied to places, people, things — all sorts of well, anything. Granville had let him go for the same reasons. He was too unkempt to be kept in a place, like a patch of wild forget-me-nots growing through a crack in a concrete floor. If his silver girl was anything like him, she would not like to be held back either, wanting to go on her own long road. There was a real hurry about all of them these days and he didn't wish to stand in anyone's way.
As the train crept into Paris, the artificial light bleeding into the orange sun, Benedict knew he had a quick decision to make. He stood up, practically crashing into her as he settled into the space next to her.
"Where are you getting off?"
"Nancy, but the next train is in around three minutes. I would have to run to catch it—"
"Well, I'm settling into Paris for the night. I have a train out of France tomorrow. Do you mind joining me?"
"I mean—"
"Well, not necessarily for the night. I'm thinking of wandering around, really. Waiting it out, sort of. I don't really want to sit in hotel rooms and eat bread for dinner. Do you? I doubt it. You can get on the first train to Nancy tomorrow. I'll help you up even, fund you the ticket for your trouble. If you'd — like to keep me company?" he begged. "What do you say? I could show you the sunrise. You must well, be trying to run away from — um — and that is really not my business but — what better way than to give your people a good chase and run around in Paris for a night, with me?"
"You are very forward." She licked her lips. "Especially for someone who doesn't know my name."
"I do not need to. Names are no concern of mine. You do not have to tell me anything, and all I ask of you is your company."
"Oh is that so? You must be starved for company, then."
"Not at all. You intrigue me and I simply wish to return the gesture. Give me a chance, will you?"
"I only have a few hours…" she trailed off. "I wonder how much of the city can be seen."
"Then we must pack a lifetime into this very night."
The train finally rolled into the station in Paris. The last stop, probably. He was never good at reading maps; just that he knew the bare minimum to get around.
"If you do not trust me, well, you can always go and I will not hold it against you. Well, not really once it gets dark. If that happens, I can always escort you back to the station? Or pay for a hotel stay, if you'd like that better?" He kept making offers upon offers, each more extensive than the last. "You don't have to tell me anything either. Perhaps you could just be. But be with me. . . if you would be so kind?"
She pondered upon his request. Then, she cracked a small smile and stood, taking her rucksack with her. He offered her his hand, which she gleefully took and he strengthened his hold on her as tightly as possible - letting his fingers weave into hers. They fit so perfectly, Benedict thought. He gave it a little playful swing, as if he were testing his grip, coaxing a little laugh out of her lips.
It was real mad, what he'd done. He didn't know her name. He didn't know where she was headed or where she was from. Curiosity, a poison only less addictive than a cigarette drag, and it took so much strength in him to suppress it before they could turn into venomous questions at the tip of his tongue. Questions his beautiful friend wouldn't want to answer. Well. He'd done it. He had foolishly and against his better judgement, fallen in love. He didn't know why. He'd been drawing her for hours on end, and yet it felt unreal when he held her hand fully. Now she was here, beaming at him with that melting smile of hers, like a pop of ice by the window on a summer's day — a smile, one exhausted, serene and happy to be with him. She gave his arm a swing as well, and he chuckled, trying to think of something impressive to say but coming up with nothing. Instead, he tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, his green eyes boring into hers until the train came to a full stop.
"It is a nice weekend to be travelling." Sophie told him, as they watched throngs of urgent people filling in and out of TGVs. She let him clasp her hand and carry her backpack for her. Her other hand, he noticed, played absentmindedly with the silver teaspoon from the train.
"So-o-phie." he sounded her name, "You have such a wonderful name, Sophie. Are you from around here?"
"Not really, but it can get quite crowded when you're just trying to travel around. People must not really care for other people. Look at them, pushing into each other. I despise those sort of people."
Benedict realised he would never receive direct answers to his questions, from his mystery. Sophie Baek was determined to be unfathomable, incomprehensible and now, having known her fascination with crowds, she must also wish to be indiscernible from them. He let go of her hand and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer to his chest in an attempt to veer her away, shield her from the advancing crowd. Sophie did not seem to bat an eye at the gesture, though he swore he could feel her muscles stiffen against his gentle touch.
"Hm," he hummed in agreement. "If you follow those people, you can spot a trail. The world is full of hidden trails, I'd like to think. Bees queueing up for honey. Birds queuing up for bees. People making a trail to the currency exchanger. You can navigate by them just alone, you see? There was this time when I neither had a map nor mobile phone service, and I had to navigate by people's foot trails to the nearest train station."
"You couldn't have asked anyone nearby?"
"Oh, my French is — well, I know the basics, but it is such a hassle. There is this whole back-and-forth involved and people do not like that. I will be testing their patience."
"Not at all. Maybe you're being very presumptive."
"As if you are not equally, if not more anxious than I am about not being an imposition? I see how you were with the man who asked for directions to the lavatory."
"He is a stranger!"
"And what makes him different from say, someone like me?"
A beat. Sophie looked up at him, leaning against his embrace.
"You don't seem to be in a hurry." she answered, again with her trademark methodical flair. "Well, that remains to be seen. Do you like tacos, Benedict? My friend always says tacos are a real test of one's patience. You'd have to have some very deft, clever fingers to hold it just right and the patience to sit through eating one."
"What about fish and chips?" he suggested. "There's a big fish involved. And chips. You'd have a whole platter of food just sitting there, not exactly something you can stuff and go now, can you?"
"See that's the thing. You'd give fish and chips the patience it deserves, but you'd be callous with tacos, thinking you can handle yourself and then, you get it all over your shirt. It is quite flimsy too, the hard outer shell. Not quite porous and cracks easily to the slightest of touches." Sophie explained, making a little breaking-apart gesture by rubbing her fingers together.
"Never realised there was so much to it." He blinked. "Says a lot about people too, I think."
"I suppose so. Do you draw people? You must have spent quite some time observing them."
"Not really. I'm no good at that. I like landscapes. Easier to draw. Easier to contain. People — they spill out of pages sometimes. It is quite the unimaginable horror."
"But it must be awfully — stagnant, no? I can always see a hundred sunrises and sunsets, mornings and evenings and whatnot, but I can never see it through someone else's eyes. I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about either." Sophie shook her head, again, more vigorously, as if she were shaking her outer skin off out of embarrassment. "I keep wanting to step outside of all of it, and I yearn to be an observer, but something keeps pulling me back into being an active participant in my life."
"If it helps, I too feel like an impostor sometimes."
"But you are an artist. How can you ever feel like an impostor when you can paint your own life?"
"Even more so as an — um —" He could not say it. "Well, enough about all of that. How about some tacos?"
"What do you want to do after?"
"Walking. Lots of it. Maybe take the bus around the city. Take in the sights. I cannot drive, actually. I mean, I can. I can drive carriages. Like a horse-drawn one? I can manage those Lime Bikes back at home pretty well, but not so much a full car. My brother's always pressing me about it, yeah? Pretty sure my baby sisters would get their licenses before I ever will, but maybe that is a good thing."
She took a moment to assess him. Then,
"You're so fucking posh, you know that?"
Benedict let out a giggle. "I'm sorry?"
"What are we doing after?" she asked him again.
"Do you want to come on my little pilgrimage with me?"
"At night?"
"Lots of um, cool places are open late into the night."
"Cool places?" she snorted with laughter. "I'm sorry — I — I cannot. You make it too easy."
They arrived at the exit of the train station. Shops lined up across the lounge, some selling chocolate that were quite evidently tourist traps (and Benedict was happy to be said trapped tourist, before Sophie lured him away from them) and others, well-established fast food joints. He could not help but laugh at themselves. Journeying all the way from one end of the country to the other just to get the same takeaways he did back at home. Colin had done his little Tour de France a while ago and had texted him some suggestions for cheese, which he had wantonly ignored. Now he regretted it. He could've impressed his Sophie with the knowledge, but something told him it was for the better. She'd have doubled down on her nickname for him anyway. Posh boy fed on Eton's finest grass. The jokes wrote themselves.
"Care for some tacos and some little champagne?" he pointed at a nearby restaurant. "Then you can tell me where you want to go."
"Yes," she said, suddenly. "I'll go on your little pilgrimage."
"What brought about such a change of heart?"
Sophie smiled at him. The same wistful smile she had on when she was looking out the window aboard the train, the wind in her hair. Relief in her eyes. Beautiful relief.
Therein lied his answer.