The Slow Train to Konya

Model answer: The train to Konya leaves Ankara with no particular ceremony. There is a short, apologetic whistle, a shudder along the carriages, and then the city thins out into allotments, pylons and long stretches of pale, ploughed earth. By the time I have settled into my seat, the window has become a slowly unrolling scroll of Anatolian winter: grey fields, a single tractor, a line of poplars bent like question marks against the wind. Opposite me sits a woman in her seventies, who has unpacked a cloth bundle with the unhurried confidence of someone who has done this journey many times. Within minutes a boiled egg, a slice of white cheese and a handful of walnuts have appeared on a napkin, and, without any discussion, half of them have migrated to my side of the table. Conversation, in the sense of an exchange of information, is impossible, since she speaks no English and my Turkish is of the polite but hopeless variety. Yet we understand each other perfectly. She points at the sky, shakes her head, and points at my thin jacket; I nod in agreement and feel suitably scolded. Somewhere past the halfway point, time begins to behave differently. Hours stretch and shrink; stations drift by like islands, each with its solitary bench and a man waving a flag with an air of great importance. I stop checking my watch. A train this slow does not so much carry you somewhere as persuade you that arriving is the least interesting part. When the lights of Konya finally appear, I am almost reluctant to gather my things. The woman hands me the last walnut as though bestowing a medal. I accept it with both hands, aware that I have received something far better than directions.