Urban rails

Cataplá-catapléWhere I live, a train passes by. It's silver and red, winding its way along a line between buildings and the gray horizon. From time to time, the train's gear-like sound, whose name I don't know, fills my ears. A pleasant little noise that reminds me of other trains from... playlist Cranial: urban and suburban lines of São Paulo, youthful trips to music festivals in Marília, the rocket train that connects Lisbon to Coimbra, even my little electric train with freight and passenger cars.

My earliest memory is of the Quitaúna train, where my aunt Ana lived, the wife of Lieutenant Salim, the quartermaster of the 4th Light Infantry Battalion. Unlike my life in Vila Romana, the lives of the Quitaúna residents revolved around rail transport. The cars, which also passed in front of my uncles' houses, took them to the center of Osasco, to the countryside, and transported their relatives to their barracks life.

During the height of the military dictatorship, my doting relatives would take me to play inside tanks that had been destined to be destroyed, like the political prisoners, within the military compound. One morning, in a low-ceilinged cell, I saw the imprisoned man. The train passed in the background carrying the same man. cataplá-cataplé, The old onomatopoeia of every train chronicle, when the ragged fellow asked me for a cigarette. How could I, when I only "smoked" Pan chocolate cigarettes? Perhaps that's why we never went back to the barracks, nor to the dying tanks. But I did go back to riding in the carriages that went from Lapa de Baixo to Avenida dos Autonomistas. In one of them I understood what it was to be a woman back then (and now), even as a little brat.

Taking advantage of the crowd, the tall man positioned himself between my aunt's buttocks. I didn't know how angry that frail woman could be. Dona Ana detached a Rotary Club pin from the collar of her little jacket and, in a swift movement, stuck it into the lecherous man's backside. Even quicker was the leap the hulking man made, escaping, screaming, at Presidente Altino station.

From my apartment balcony, watching the train go by, such images come to mind through the window of reminiscence. Riding the subway is not the same as traveling on a surface train. The view is not of an underground gallery, but of an exhibition of urban nativity scenes. And here I am, a railway voyeur, following its coming and going, going along with it. Cataplá-catapléHow wonderful it is to hear a percussion instrument played well!