The Last Tram

“I have ridden on the last tram for twenty-one years, and I know every face that rides it.”

These were not Neal’s own words. They belonged to the man sitting next to him on the tram the other day.

Calcutta street cars, trams as they are known, had two cars connected together. The first one was premium—it had ceiling fans. The fare was 10 paisa more than the second car. Neal was in the city for the weekend and making the most of it, hopping bars and catching up with friends. The tram ride that night was for ticking the box, and he was travelling in the second car, as a fan was hardly necessary on this October night.

“We have a team of nightriders,” the man whispered. “The hospital nurse going home after her day shift. The press men with ink still on their fingers. The drunk man who sleeps and wakes along the journey, crying about the girls who left him.”

Neal smiled. “You seem to know them all.”

“Twenty-one years is a long time. You learn to recognise people. Some have been riding longer than I have.”

He nodded towards the back of the car.

The only other passenger in the car that night was an old woman in a white sari, a cloth bag on her lap, sitting upright on the bench by the rear door. She did not look out of the window. She looked at a spot on the floor between her feet, like someone recounting.

“She always rides this last car, sits on the rear bench, always looks at this spot on the floor.”

“How long has she been doing that?”

The man took a moment before answering. “Longer than I can remember.”

“Does she ever get off?”

“Not before I do.”

Neal looked towards her again. The tram rattled through the familiar streets, past shuttered shops and sleeping buildings. At each stop, a few passengers got off and others climbed aboard the other car. The old woman remained still.

“Does she speak to anyone?” Neal asked.

“Not anymore.”

The man got to his feet, as if he suddenly remembered something important. “Tonight is Bhoot Chaturdashi, when Bengal lights fourteen lamps for its dead.”

There was something in the man’s voice that made Neal turn towards him.

But before he could ask another question, the tram slowed and the man stepped down into the lane, beneath a lamp-post. The tram moved on.

Neal’s stop was still some distance away. He had the urge to go and sit next to the woman and speak to her.

She stood and gathered her bag. At the entrance, she held the bar, turned and looked at him properly for the first time. Hers was a face very familiar, someone he knew, though he could not have said from where.

She stepped down into the lane.

The conductor came to check tickets.

“You’re late,” Neal said. “The lady has just got off.”

“Which lady?” the conductor asked.

Neal looked back once. The lamp was already behind them, and the street was empty.