Ticket to Hide

We are huddled behind a couple of giant grey suitcases and a stack of boxes with Zigaretten stamped on the side. It’s May, but it is cold, the rumbling of wheels on the tracks have numbed our legs, bent under us on the plywood floor. We were asleep, heads resting on someone’s Army green canvass duffel bag, when we heard their harsh voices and we scrambled to our hiding place between luggage racks.

  “Ich habe hunger”, one of them grumbled as the door to the baggage car slid open with a rush of icy air. They could be threatening our lives for all we knew of German, and we crouched lower and took shallow, barely perceptible breaths. I could see the row of high black boots and the butt of their Kalashnikovs hanging by their waists. I actually do not know the kind of guns they had, but they reminded me of something the bad guys carried in Octopussy and, while the threat of Western disarmament and a nuclear war was no longer at stake, the possibility of finding ourselves in prison in East Germany may well have been.

  It started innocently enough. My best friend, Cathy had followed the love of her life to Berlin where he’d landed a job at the Swedish Tennis Schule. An international student, Krister had earned a tennis scholarship to NC State University in our hometown, and Cathy Lopez, with her Puerto Rican Sofia Loren exotic beauty fell in love with the toe-headed Swede not long after they both graduated.

  When they moved to Berlin, they had no idea they were stepping into a pivotal point in world history as they explored the shops and clubs along Unter den Linden and Kurfürstendamm and stared up at the imposing Brandenburg Gate. Yet there they were in November of 1989 when the Berlin wall came down. They joined the throngs of revelers hoisting people over the reinforced concrete slabs that stood for over 28 years as a symbol of the Iron Curtain, keeping families separated for decades. East Germans crowd surfed in the raised arms of the jubilant crowd as they streamed from the Kansas grey of their side of the wall and into the technicolor OZ that was the graffiti-covered bright side of the no-man’s land barricade.

  Cathy sent me a postcard describing the exulant evening of German reunification, and how she danced with people from around the world, toasting with bottles of Hefeweizen in Pariser Platz as champagne sprayed the air and a new hope was born.

  Cathy said I just HAD to join them and be part of the excitement. It was a once in a lifetime experience and she needed her best friend to bear witness. And I was making little money in my temp job, which of course meant I had no money to spend. But I also had little to lose. It wasn’t like I was even on the first rung of the corporate ladder and even back then, I must have known that there is no story in the staying. It is all about the adventure. Plus Cathy promised that other than the flight, the trip wouldn’t cost much.

  So, I bought a PanAm ticket to Berlin for my first ever trip to Europe. There, we chipped away at the wall with a hammer and chisel rented for 5 marks as the East Germans embraced their new appreciation for capitalism. After we’d disco danced in the Bunker Club to Spandau Ballet and 99 Luftballons, I’d met their friends from countless countries at the Hofbrahaus, and we’d eaten our share of schnitzel, Cathy wanted me to see a little more of Europe before I had to head home, so we set out for Vienna.

In the cavernous, cigarette butt-filled train station, Cathy expertly interpreted military time and unfamiliar-to-me German words, even though she knew very little German. Still, she seemed worldly to me, ex-pat that she now was. Broke as we both were at 23, we decided not to waste what money we had on train tickets, and we snuck aboard the Statbahn for the 8-hour ride to the Capital of the Danube.

  “I do this all the time,” said Cathy, “I’ve rarely bought a train ticket since I’ve been here. They hardly check and when they do, you just move to another seat.”

  We found a place to sit in the middle of a smoke-filled car, knowing that, should the Porter come to check tickets from the back or the front, we’d have plenty of time to move. But on this day, on this train, the ticket checks were frequent. Every time we started to doze off, the doors would swoosh open and the Porter would appear.

  We casually got up and made our way to the dining car, sliding past the people on the narrow platforms between the cars with cigarettes in their hands, or we squeezed into the tiny, smelly bathroom. We easily got up four or five times and we were afraid to fall asleep as old German ladies dressed in black glared at us giggling in our colorful sweatshirts and American tennis shoes. There was no amusement in their eyes.

  By 2am and we were exhausted and decided that we needed a safer place to rest. That is when Cathy suggested we try the baggage car.

  So, there we were, spooning in a ball to keep warm with our heads against the duffel bag when the train screeched to a halt. The shocking jolt woke us up and we heard shouting in the distance. Angry German voices were getting closer and made me fear we’d been transported to the Nonnberg Abbey as we crouched down into our hiding place like the Van Trapps behind tombstone suitcases. Our breath was shallow and we mouthed our silent prayers. One young Bundesgrenzschutz lingered as his comrades headed toward the door, nudging a bag with his billy club, just ten feet away from our heads. You could practically hear his eyes scan every inch of the space. And then he turned in an instant and walked off, his jackboots heels clicking on the plywood floor. Soon the train chugged forward and we exhaled, stretched our cramped limbs, and eventually found seats after the stop in Brno.

  And as the sun rose over the red roofs of Vienna, the Beech and maple trees just budding with fresh green leaves on a crisp spring day full of hope and possibility. And off we headed to see Klimt’s Kiss at the Belvedere and then maybe see if there might be a way to sneak into the Opera House.

As told at Story Salon on March 11, 2026 when the theme was Should I Stay or Should I Go?