A VISITOR’S GUIDE
To get to the
bone house
of Hallstatt,
take the stairs.
Unless you
start, of course,
in Switzerland.
After the
conductor has
announced
in French that the train is
deleted
(the French have
no word for cancelled)
you must accept
that the
ticket you
purchased is paper,
not assurance;
you will not
sleep tonight.
Board instead
the train bound
for Basel, run
to make the
transfer to
Karlsruhe (which
you will imagine
is somewhere in
Germany,
though you do
not know
for certain).
Your next connection
does not arrive
for two more
hours. You will
be afraid
because you are
alone, you are
a young woman,
it is
night. You do
not speak
whatever it is
they speak
wherever
Karlsruhe is.
After buying a
water to appease
the shopkeeper
so that you may
sit while she
mops the floors,
ignore the man
who looks and licks
his lips. At
two-eleven, depart
for Salzburg.
When you are told
you cannot sit
in this section, you will
walk with your
things from
the train’s
first car to its last.
Look out the
square window,
at the tracks
splitting away
into the black
between
countries. Do
this until you
believe this is
what hell looks like:
staring down
this stretch of
iron forever,
the train never
stopping. But you
remember
your feet hurt,
and also you don’t
believe in
hell. You arrive
sleep-ragged
and sweating
in the
Salzkammergut. There is fog
but you can see
the S.S. Stephanie
churning the
lake’s glass, the steeple
punctuating the
village’s slumped
skyline. (You
are nearly there,
do not be
distracted despite the cloud
swallowing the
mountain). Place
money in the
hand of the walrus
man. There is
grime beneath his uncut
nails but he is
the Stephanie’s captain and
accountant, so
you smile and say
danke
and try to find him authentic.
He will nod at
you. There is rain running
the boat glass.
But reader, you are
impatient. Where
are the stairs, you ask.
Can’t you see
them? No? Forget
what I have
told you. You have no mind
for the bone
house. You are no traveler
at all.
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