Page 5 of The Banned Books of Berlin
Portland, Oregon, April 2024
Maddie took out a book, stowed her jacket and backpack in the overhead rack and sat down. She’d left it too late to reserve an overnight cabin but the business-class seats were roomy and reclined all the way back, so she figured she’d be able to sleep for at least some of the time. She wasn’t sleeping much these days, anyway. She’d reserved a spot in the quiet car so she wouldn’t be tempted to use her phone and wouldn’t be inflicted with other people’s conversations either. All she wanted was to stare blankly out of the window, listen to music and read. Of course, she could have flown the same distance in a couple of hours, but she’d been promising herself this journey for years and now seemed the right time to take it; she’d have some precious time by herself to think and take stock. With a bit of luck, the seat next to her would stay empty, or be occupied by a private person with the same attitude; she couldn’t bear the idea of spending thirty-three hours next to someone who wanted to chat or, even worse, knew who she was. She looked quite different now from her profile picture: her blonde highlights had grown out and her hair was longer, tied back in a ponytail. That afternoon, she was also wearing sunglasses and a baseball hat for extra camouflage. Glancing warily around the carriage, she was relieved to find no one watching her.
Ten minutes before the train was due to depart, a woman with silver hair in a pixie cut and a tanned, smooth face sat down beside Maddie. She looked edgy and cool in a black skirt, black chinoiserie jacket splashed with red and orange flowers, chunky black boots and a turquoise necklace to match her earrings. Maddie felt suddenly boring in her sweatshirt and jeans. They exchanged brief noncommittal smiles before she returned to her book and her companion settled down with an iPad and a tote bag, which turned out to contain – Maddie snuck a sideways look – a pair of knitting needles, from which hung a woollen scarf flecked with a rainbow of colours. Perfect. Maddie’s shoulders relaxed a fraction and she went back to her book, although she realised she’d been reading the same page over and over again. Only when the Coast Starlight pulled out of Union Station did her tension truly start to ebb away. The train rolled past a group of tents under the freeway where homeless people lived and crossed the Steel Bridge, picking up speed. Maddie leaned back, suddenly exhausted. Her hand closed over her phone but she wouldn’t look at it; she just needed to know it was there.
‘You’re running on empty,’ Vanessa, the features editor, had said. ‘When’s the last time you had a vacation? Go away somewhere for a couple of weeks and take a complete break. By the time you come back, the fuss will have died down and these people will have found something else to obsess over.’
Maddie wasn’t so sure. She worried that disappearing for a while would look like an admission of defeat, a sign the trolls had won. Maybe her reputation was trashed for good and no one would ever take her seriously again. On the other hand, Vanessa was right. Maddie had come to the end of her rope, and the thought of spending a couple of weeks chilling out in her childhood home with the people she loved most in the world was irresistible. She wanted to hug her grandpa, taste her mom’s cooking, hear her brother’s infectious laugh. Ben would set her back on the right path; he had an unerring sense of right and wrong, and couldn’t care less about the opinions of strangers. He was joyful, too, and she needed a dose of uncomplicated joy right now.
‘Of course we’d love to see you,’ her mom had said. ‘And actually, you could be so helpful right now. Gramps is going through an odd phase. He’s become obsessed with something called Swedish death cleaning. Have you heard of it? Apparently you’re meant to throw out most of your belongings so the house is tidy after you’ve passed. He says he’s doing us all a favour, but it’s been driving me nuts.’
Now an image of Maddie’s eccentric grandfather flashed into her head: the bow ties he wore, a little looser around the neck these days; his leather shoes, slip-ons now, but always well-polished; the kindness in his rheumy eyes. She felt the usual stab of guilt for neglecting him in favour of her career – for all the good that had done. Her hand strayed to her phone again but she resisted the urge to switch it on. Beyond the window, miles of forest flashed past while her neighbour’s knitting needles clicked a comforting rhythm. Maddie closed her eyes and sank into sleep.
When she woke up a few hours later, they were passing through farmland: fields of rippling grain or pasture where animals grazed, a tractor in the distance crawling over the earth like a giant bug, the sails of wind turbines turning slowly on the horizon. Houses clustered together in occasional isolated settlements, and a woman sitting on her porch waved as the train roared by; Maddie waved back. The sun was sinking behind the hills, and shadows were pooling in woods and valleys as the countryside prepared for night. She gazed at the scene, refreshing as a cool glass of water on a hot day. She had always loved travelling by train. Snatching glimpses of different worlds and other people’s lives was endlessly fascinating, and the act of moving forward helped her think.
Hungry and keen to stretch her legs, she walked along to check out the dining car. The seat beside her had been empty when she woke, apart from the knitting bag, so she guessed her silver-haired neighbour might have had the same idea. And there she was, alone at a table for four. Dining on the Coast Starlight was part of the adventure: passengers were directed by the steward to any table where there was space. For a moment, Maddie wished she’d brought sandwiches; she hadn’t the energy or desire to make conversation.
Inevitably, the steward showed her to the seat opposite her neighbour. ‘Hello again,’ Maddie said, resigning herself to the inevitable. ‘You can’t get away from me anywhere.’
The woman smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘We must be on the same schedule.’
Yet it was just one meal, and Maddie was used to asking people about themselves. It didn’t take long before she’d found out that her neighbour’s name was Kate and she was a retired nurse, travelling back to Sacramento after visiting her son in Portland. He’d been living in the city for a year and had just opened a vegan restaurant there.
‘Is that why you’re eating steak?’ Maddie asked.
Kate laughed. ‘I must admit, it tastes pretty damn good.’
Maddie ordered salmon and a glass of wine, feeling herself relax a little more. They talked about whether it ever stopped raining in Portland, although at least that kept the grass green, how vibrant the arts scene was and how friendly folks were, by and large – the usual kind of chitchat, though it was enough to tell Maddie she liked this woman, they had a similar sense of humour, and that Kate had no idea who she was. So when Kate asked, ‘And what about you?’ Maddie was able to say quite calmly that she was a staff reporter, going home to visit her family.
‘That must have been a tough profession to break into,’ Kate commented. ‘How did you get started?’
‘I wrote an article when I was fifteen,’ Maddie replied. ‘About choosing a prom dress with my mom, would you believe. I sent it to the local paper and they published it.’ She shrugged. ‘That was that, really. I knew what I wanted to do with my life from then on.’
The thrill of seeing her words in print, and being paid for them, was unlike anything she’d experienced before. She had a neat turn of phrase and had always done well in English and Literature, so it was natural she should choose a degree in communications and pursue a master’s in journalism. Natural, too, that one of the many regional papers to which she’d applied should offer her a job – at the bottom of the pile, but she would work her way up. Everything seemed to fall into place, as she’d assumed it would. She had been so sure of herself back then. Where had all that certainty gone?
‘It’s getting harder all the time, though,’ she added. ‘It’s more about an online presence than print editions nowadays, and hundreds of regional papers are closing down. There’s just so much content available for free.’
Kate groaned. ‘Tell me about it. We’re constantly bombarded with other people’s opinions. Life before the internet seems like another age and it was a simpler one, that’s for sure.’
Maddie winced, feeling automatically for her phone.
Kate glanced at her. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Sure. I’m just in the middle of a … situation, that’s all.’ Ben’s favourite euphemism for whenever things went wrong.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
And suddenly, Maddie did. She was never going to see this woman again, this stranger who seemed good-hearted and sensible, and mature enough to have weathered a few storms of her own. Maddie hadn’t been honest with any of her friends about what she’d been going through; she’d shrugged and said she was fine when they asked if she was having a tough time. She hadn’t confided in her mother, either, because Mom was a worrier with enough on her plate.
She took a deep breath. ‘Look, you’ll probably think this whole thing is a tempest in a teapot,’ she began – and then stopped, uncertain how to carry on.
‘Try me,’ Kate said. ‘Start at the beginning, and take your time.’
It had all begun with a trip to the zoo. What could have been more innocent? Maddie had thought, bewildered, at the start of it all. She’d heard about the zoo’s involvement in the California condor recovery programme, whereby the endangered birds were bred in captivity and released into the wild: a great initiative which deserved to be more widely known. She’d visited the zoo and learned about the main threat to the condors’ survival: poisoning from eating the carcasses of animals shot with lead bullets or killed with DDT, or from scavenging trash and ingesting microplastics. The zoo was also home to several condors that couldn’t be released into the wild, and Maddie had watched in awe from a covered viewing area as the magnificent creatures wheeled through the sky. They were huge, the largest birds in North America, with a wingspan ten feet across. From a population of twenty-two birds in the 1980s, there were now 400 condors, half of them flying free. This was a good news story, surely?
Vanessa the editor had frowned when Maddie pitched the idea for her article. ‘I don’t know,’ she’d said. ‘Zoos are controversial. Some people think keeping animals in captivity is wrong.’
Maddie remembered a desolate tiger she’d once seen, pacing up and down behind bars in a small concrete pen. This zoo was completely different, though. The grounds were beautifully landscaped and maintained, and the animals seemed content and in great condition, with freedom to roam. Of course, she had no idea whether they’d have preferred to be in the wild, and maybe they would, but did that mean she couldn’t write about the condors?
‘OK,’ Vanessa had said in the end. ‘But just concentrate on the birds. Don’t mention anything else or people may get upset.’
Yet people had got upset anyway. From a few expressions of disapproval online after Maddie’s article appeared, suddenly a maelstrom of indignation engulfed her. Those opposed to zoos were loudly appalled by what she’d written, ignoring the conservation angle, and Maddie had been taken aback by their tone. There were so many awful things to agonise about: climate change, the opioid crisis, homelessness, school shootings – not to mention what was happening in Israel and Ukraine. Should zoos be added to the list? And was she a terrible person for not having realised that already? The general reaction had been so hysterical that it had seemed ridiculous at first. Maddie was used to a certain level of abuse online and usually managed to rise above it, but the comments she was getting on her social media accounts and in direct messages were becoming increasingly vicious.
Shortly after that, Maddie had found herself featured on a gossipy website dedicated to ‘exposing the dirty truth about Portland people and places’. She was accused of having slept her way up the career ladder, of not checking her facts and inventing sources, of being paid by companies and individuals to say positive things about them. Anything she’d ever written was used as an excuse to attack her.
Someone calling themselves ‘Nightshade’ was usually the first to tear her apart in the comments, encouraging the others to wade in. ‘I know where this girl lives,’ he or she had posted recently, before the comment was deleted. ‘Different guy every night, the ugly slut.’
This would have been laughable, were it not so unpleasant. Maddie’s last relationship had fizzled out by mutual agreement months before and she still hadn’t found the enthusiasm to start dating again. No wonder she needed to get away for a while. This Nightshade person was probably bluffing but the thought they might actually know her address made her afraid – along with all the messages saying she deserved to be run over by a truck, or raped, or tortured like the poor beagles in a science lab.
‘I love animals,’ she told Kate. ‘We always had pets when I was growing up. How can people be so full of hatred towards someone they’ve never met?’
Kate sighed. ‘I don’t understand. We’re living in the land of the free, and look how beautiful it is.’ She gestured out at the view: rolling fields and a couple of horses grazing in a paddock, their pale coats gleaming through the dusk. ‘When I was growing up, kids were still getting killed in Vietnam. We have so much to be thankful for these days. Why do folks have to turn on each other?’
Maddie shrugged. ‘Beats me. In the old days, people were thrown to the lions for sport – now we just tear them apart on social media.’
‘Can’t you ignore the abuse?’ Kate asked. ‘I mean, you don’t have to read it, do you? Stay off your phone for a while and don’t let these idiots upset you.’
‘That’s easy to say,’ Maddie muttered. ‘I need to have a profile for work, though. And even if I don’t see the comments, I know they’re there.’
It was hard to explain how much her confidence had been dented, how diffident she felt about expressing any kind of opinion now. She was finding it almost impossible to write anything for fear of the inevitable backlash, and viewing stats showed her articles weren’t as popular as they used to be.
‘Well, I’m from another generation so it’s all a mystery to me.’ Kate stood up. ‘Think I’ll head back. Are you coming?’
‘Thanks,’ Maddie said, ‘but I’m going to check out the observation car.’
Kate was kind and meant well, but she didn’t understand the issues and her advice to just ignore the trolls grated. Maddie knew she needed to be on her own for a while.
She spent the next couple of hours gazing out of the floor-to-ceiling windows as darkness fell, trying to soothe herself with the wonders of nature as the train thundered through the mountainous wilderness of southern Oregon. It didn’t work.