Train To Insanity

The journey was almost over.

They had been travelling for over sixteen hours and what with the time change and crammed travelling conditions, the American could not wait to go back.

His agency had been contracted to return a certain young woman to her family in Spain and he had been chosen to carry out the assignment.

He sighed deeply and once again turned his attention to the girl by his side.

Her files told him that she was sixteen years old.

She did look sixteen but only in the look of innocence around her, for even though her dress hung loosely around her like she was wearing a dress a size too big, he could still tell that she had a well-shaped body underneath.

He continued to look at her from the corner of his eyes, wondering. He had done all he could to draw her out and make her comfortable, but all his attempts had failed. Even the entertainment magazines he had bought her at the duty free shop eight hours ago were still on her lap unwrapped. She hadn’t even glanced at them.

It was obvious she was upset. He had caught her on several occasions wiping tears from her eyes.  All his attempts at conversations only drew monosyllabic answers from her, or at the most, very short sentences.

‘Would you like to stretch your legs for a bit?’  He had asked.

‘No, thank you’ was all she said.

‘Are you hungry yet, would you like to eat something now?’

‘No, I’m fine thank you’ she had replied with a forced smile.

At that moment the warning lights began to flash signifying that their train, the Barcelona Express was approaching.

The girl took the vacant seat next to the door of the train. She could feel the man’s eyes on her, he had told her his name but she could not remember what it was. He was probably wondering why she chose to sit so far away when they were travelling together.  She could tell he was perplexed by her. It was unfortunate that they had to meet under such circumstances. If he had met her this time last year he would have got a completely different girl. But a lot had happened since that time.

Before then she had been a very happy and carefree girl living the American life, with loving parents and great friends both at school and in the neighbourhood life had been perfect. Not until one Thursday night ten months ago when her parents had been killed in a car crash on their way from a conference. The Police had told her that one of their car tyres had come off as they negotiated a hilly bend.

Since then things had been terrible. A succession of family friends had come to stay with her in her home as she had been an only child, but after a while they had become too busy to come. They were also too crammed for space to take her into their homes when she asked them to as she had been told that she was too young to live on her own. So the Law had stepped in. The Court had decided that since she was an adopted child, she should be returned to her birth parents if they were willing to have her. She had been depressed by her parents’ death but everything became worse after that decision was taken. Nobody bothered to ask if she wanted to return to Spain, to her biological parents. She had grown up in California. She had known no other parents or life except the one. The people she was now being taken to meant nothing to her and she did not want anything to do with them. Her feelings were that if they really wanted her in the first instance they would not have given her up for adoption. Neither would they have waited until her parents were dead to take her back.

Perhaps it was because they thought that she had no other choice. She had thought of running away and had even researched places she could run to, but the thought that she would be looking over her shoulders every time she passed a police officer did not appeal to her. And so, in desperation, she had perfected the plan.

It was at exactly 1pm that she sprang up on her feet and depressed the emergency door knob opening unto the second rail track, the one from Madrid. With shocked expressions on people’s faces, she hurled herself under the wheels of the approaching train from Madrid.

Adriana was a middle aged Spanish woman of slight built with a beautiful but sad smile.

She had been a great beauty in her youth but now one had to look carefully to find the beauty that was once there for sad happenings in her life had turned her into an anxious looking older woman with a permanent tic in her right eye.

Today, however was a very special day in the life of Adriana for finally her prayers had been answered and her baby girl was returning back home to her.

She had been so excited in the weeks leading to her baby’s return that now the day had come, she could scarcely contain herself. She had done a total makeover on their lovely home in San Fernando de Henares. She had even redecorated the beautiful attic room she always referred to as ‘our daughter’s room’.

No one had ever lived in that room. It was filled with toys and presents that she had bought for her daughter over the years. Things she would have given her if she lived with them.

And now the very thing that she had always wanted was finally about to happen.

Begonia Marcus had been a very lovely baby. She was the first child born to a happily married but desperately poor couple. At birth she had been very light-skinned. No one in the family had ever been that pale. Even the colour of her hair was different. She was so exquisite and fragile that her skin bruised when she was picked. In the first few months she was so sickly that they spent most of their time on admissions in the newborn and later, the children’s ward.

For long no one could say precisely what was wrong with her. Not until Adriana had gone to see a specialist who requested that the baby should undergo some specific tests.

The tests had been very expensive; the cost was equal to her husband’s salary of three months. However they had revealed that she had a genetic condition which was responsible for her being constantly sick. The doctor had told them that if she was not placed on special diets and medication she was likely to die before her fourth birthday as the deficiency in her genes would lead to her organs being destroyed.

They had been devastated at the news most especially as they could not afford the kinds of meals she was required to eat. Neither were the medications anywhere near affordable. After weeks of brain storming and Begonia’s health worsening, they could find no way out of their predicament than to give their baby away to a family who could afford to care for her.

It had been a very difficult few months while they met several couples who were looking to adopt their baby but they did not feel right about any of them until they met the American couple.

The couple was at that time resident in the Country as expatriates.

The man was an international staff of an oil company there.

Adriana had noted how the American woman had cuddled Begonia the first time they had met. The look of love in her eyes had not diminished even after she had been told of the baby’s condition. Adriana had known it in her heart that moment that her daughter would be well taken care of by that woman. But it had not been easy letting her baby go.

She had been heart broken after Begonia had gone to live with her new family but she dared not ask for her back because she knew that she would die living with them.

Things only improved slightly when Adriana took in six months after Begonia left to live with her new family. Blessedly the pregnancy had resulted in a healthy baby boy.

In the beginning she followed the American couple around just to catch a glimpse of her baby, but that was until they relocated back to America when Begonia was two years old.

Adriana had fallen into a deep depressive illness when the family left.

She thought that she would never see her child again. It was about that time that her husband’s long time employer died, the man who her husband had chauffeured faithfully for nineteen years. He had left her husband some money as a reward for his loyalty over the years. The money had been invested in an Olive producing farm which over time had done well that he was able to divert funds into other businesses. Suddenly the thought had come to her one night as she lay unable to sleep that they could ask for their daughter back since they could now take care of her needs.

She had spoken to her husband the next morning about it but he had refused. He was of the opinion that it was not right to disrupt the girl’s life like that.

He had suggested they wait till she was eighteen to contact her.

In the meantime Adriana had successfully tracked her daughter’s address in America through private investigators and started to take yearly secret trips to Whittier where she lived.

She spent those times following her daughter around but was always careful not to arouse suspicion. Through that means, she got to know Begonia’s friends, her favourite activities, and other wonderful details about her life. There were lots of difficult moments on those trips as she often had the urge to run over to her daughter. She would have given anything at those moments just to hug and hold her baby.

They had phoned to speak to her after her adoptive parents died but she had refused to talk to them. The rejection had hurt but her husband had consoled her telling her that it was expected, telling her to not expect that things would go so smoothly at first.

She was so glad that finally Begonia was coming home. With time they would build a fine relationship together, she was sure.

It was 4.00pm in the evening. Adriana stood at the window overlooking the highroad.

It was now two hours past the time her daughter was expected.  Her husband had begun to pace, while their son had gone back to his room, tired of waiting in the living room.

Surely there had been some delay of some kind, she thought, her tic going off faster than was usual.

They heard the siren of the police car even before they saw it. Adriana scrambled on top the coffee table that stood next to the window to get a better look. Her husband ran out of the house to the road.

There was a police car approaching their drive way and in the front seat sat a man with a worried, frantic look about him. He had a different skin tone from the others in the car and she thought he looked American.

Adriana wondered, her brows meeting in a worried frown why on the day she was expecting her daughter the police would decide to bring her a frightened American instead.