The Club - Episode 3

Phantasmagoria in several episodes. We are all travellers, regardless of what destination is printed on the ticket. How do we choose where to go and how to find the right travelling companion? Sometimes all that's left is to watch the train pull away. Perhaps it wasn't my train after all?

Hurrying into the hotel, Monta noticed to her great surprise that the door to the club room was open. What - have I arrived late?! And still you trust people and the rules they set! Such inconsistency had always knocked Monta off her rails. Playing by the rules, and then suddenly the rules are changed. Who was it that talked about openness and trust here? All people lie - even those who carry a psychologist's diploma in their pocket and whose mission is to help others find a way out of a dead end.

At the table in the room were two new faces, while Katja had not come this time. On top of everything! - Monta seethed inwardly. How long would this go on like a through-corridor? There's no escaping the city outside that window - none whatsoever.

For half an hour Monta was silent - she didn't join in the discussions, avoided answering questions, didn't react to Egils's sharp remarks, and ignored Lee's encouraging glances. Monta couldn't stand this mood that would come over her from time to time and make her shut herself off from the world. If anyone had touched a nerve at that moment, Monta would simply have exploded or demonstratively stood up and walked out, never to return.

Story continuations. Has that Lee actually finished university?! Tasks like first-grade pupils - of the "what do you like to eat best?" variety. Me? Your liver, nicely fried in a mushroom sauce. Monta continued to smoulder.

We are all travellers. A train arrives, we board it, we find the number of our compartment on our tickets. Never mind that one person is heading to Berlin, another to Moscow, a third to some city in Asia with an unheard-of name, yet another to Spain, someone else just to the outskirts of Riga, to the Alps to ski, to the Tunisian market, to Nowhere. I could join someone - today I'm not in the mood to buy a ticket to any specific destination, - Monta announced, signalling her return to this strange game, and quietly thought to herself: - In truth I could go to any one of these places, if only to avoid staying a moment longer in this little hotel room.

Though not. Amanda is heading to a horticultural seminar in Germany. There will be dull lectures, then a coffee break with bitter coffee and buttered rolls, prepared and served in precisely the number stated on the registration form for the given seminar. Not one fewer, not one more. Dinner at some restaurant-eatery in the old town centre. On the table there will be Grüner Spargel mit Kaninchen and a glass of Hauswein for each person. Music will play, but everyone will just talk and talk - about work and about nothing - waiting for dessert and not dancing.

Monta would happily sunbathe on Costa Brava, but not with that "radiotočka" next to her. Katja would absolutely need to know everything about Monta's family, husband, and job. There would be no shortage of accounts of how successful the law firm she works at is, how many admirers she has, about one particular lover who gives her something every time they meet, and so on and so forth. Stop! She's not even here today - you can't know for sure, perhaps these are only Monta's stereotypical assumptions.

Skiing in the Alps with that newcomer ski instructor? No, really. Monta can barely manage to step onto and off an escalator at the metro station - let alone with skis.

Asia - Mongolia or China, a young unmarried architect, an unknown city somewhere out in the back of beyond, with a name that Monta still can't remember even after it's been said twice. How does she manage to work in journalism? This option stirred Monta's imagination.

She began hastily packing a suitcase. Interesting - is it cold or warm there? Better safe than sorry, I'll take my favourite grey-blue sweater, the little leather jacket, and the cosmetic minimum - which actually takes up at least a third of the suitcase. The camera, the charger, trainers. What else? The high heels - the most comfortable ones, the dearest, the sexiest. In case the opportunity arises for a romantic evening. But wait - it's a steppe. Where are my boots, jeans, and a few T-shirts? First I should Google the peculiarities of the region.

Monta seemed full of bustle, pleasantly flustered, and full of doubts about what should go in the travel suitcase. If she forgets her face cream, a certain despair will set in that evening along with self-flagellation for carelessness while packing. And what if the sockets there don't fit the charger?!

The mood was broken by Lee, who announced that today's club session had ended. Someone cracked a joke that Monta had been left on the platform. But she heard it as if through a fog, and left the hotel in a complete daze.

To be continued...