WITHIN THE WALLS

Within the walls of the train the seats shook, so the little heads of the people rose and fell together. The two old women opposite him were talking about their dead husbands. He had turned his head away from them and did not understand all they said.. He stared at the bare knee of the woman to his right and thought half-heartedly about his friends back home. When he reached the station he smiled vaguely at the three women and understood, vaguely, that they had forgotten him.