A Book of Railway Journeys

by Ludovic Kennedy

  Captain Grodeck took the seat opposite. As he had become quite wrought-up with his passionate denunciations, he knew he couldn’t sleep. So he decided to have some intelligent conversation—or just conversation.

  Politely he asked a number of questions in his execrable Spanish. When he received no reply, he tried other languages—Portuguese, French, English, even his native German. But this linguistic effort proved all unavailing. His travelling companion sat there, stubbornly silent, clumsily immobile.

  Captain Grodeck was a persistent man. He produced his pigskin cigar-case, selected the finest, speckled Havana and held it out invitingly. He praised its quality, its aroma; he hoped that the señor would accept it as a token of friendship.

  There was no answer.

  The captain made two other attempts to make the silent traveller speak. But it was all in vain. Neither polite remarks, nor friendly questions nor offers of cigar and cigarette brought any response.

  And now Captain Grodeck discovered that though he had a mass of luggage and was equipped with every convenience for a long journey, he had failed to provide himself with the simplest necessity. He had no matches: his lighter was empty. A cigar between his thick lips, he felt himself all over, reaching into every pocket—but he did not find a single match.

  He turned to his companion. “Could I trouble you for a light?” he asked. But there was no reply.

  This final discourtesy made Captain Grodeck see red. He jumped up, bent over the silent stranger and started to shake him with all his might. The lifeless head was knocked several times against the back of the seat, the captain shouting and cursing at him.

  Under the powerful grip of the German’s hands, the huddled man slid sideways. His sombrero slipped back until it was barely clinging to the back of his head. His hands emerged from the deep pockets; then his whole body suddenly jerked forward, and like a bag of sand it dropped heavily on to the floor of the compartment. The hat rolled away and Grodeck needed no second glance to tell him that the traveller was dead.

  Startled and horrified, he stared at the body. He knew his own hot, ungovernable temper and had cursed it a thousand times whenever it got him into a scrape. But he had not expected this. After all, he had just given the man a good shaking and knocked his silly head a few times against the wall....

  But his hesitation only lasted a few moments. With a sudden decision, he bent down and lifted the corpse from the floor. He dragged it to the window and propped it up while he opened the sliding glass. Then, with a mighty heave, he let it drop into the pitch-dark night.

  The train rattled on, unconcerned, its wheels devouring the miles.

  Early in the morning the express arrived in Buenos Aires.

  Uncle Felipe had been waiting for the last hour. Excited and anxious, he elbowed his way through the large crowd until he found the carriage which had been indicated in the telegram.

  His plan was all ready. He would board the train, enter the compartment, “discover” the dead man and shout for help... But, of course, it would be too late: his poor, dear nephew had died somewhere on the way.

  But he searched in vain: there was no trace of his relative in the compartment nor in the whole carriage. Thinking that he had made a mistake, he explored the other carriages. They were all empty now—except for one man with a scarred face and a military bearing who was still lugging some of his heavy suitcases down to the platform. He was just collecting the last piece—from the very compartment in which Uncle Felipe’s nephew was supposed to have travelled.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Uncle Felipe addressed him. “Did you have a fellow-passenger in this compartment?”

  “Oh yes,” replied Captain Grodeck with a completely expressionless face.

  “And?” Uncle Felipe waited breathlessly.

  “Oh, he got off about three stations back,” the captain answered and, picking up his last suitcase, descended from the carriage. He made his way along the platform, unconcerned and self-assured while Uncle Felipe crossed himself three times and collapsed in a dead faint.

  PAUL TABORI,

  The Very Silent Traveller

  The workman and the wet-nurse

  The train had just left Genoa, in the direction of Marseilles, and was following the rocky and sinuous coast, gliding like an iron serpent between the sea and the mountains, creeping over the yellow sand edged with silver waves and entering suddenly into the black-mouthed tunnels like a beast into its lair.

  In the last carriage, a stout woman and a young man sat opposite each other. They did not speak, but occasionally they would glance at each other. She was about twenty-five years old. Seated by the window, she silently gazed at the passing landscape. She was from Piedmont, a peasant, with large black eyes, a full bust and fat cheeks. She had deposited several parcels under the wooden seat and she held a basket on her knees.

  The man might have been twenty years old. He was thin and sunburned, with the dark complexion that denotes work in the open. Tied up in a handkerchief was his whole fortune; a pair of heavy boots, a pair of trousers, a shirt and a coat. Hidden under the seat were a shovel and a pickaxe tied together with a rope.

  He was going to France to seek work.

  The sun, rising in the sky, spread a fiery light over the coast; it was toward the end of May and delightful odours floated in the air and penetrated through the open windows of the railway carriage. The blooming orange and lemon-trees exhaled a heavy, sweet perfume that mingled with the breath of the roses which grew in profusion everywhere along the line, in the gardens of the wealthy, in front of cottage doors, and even wild.

  Roses are at home along this coast! They fill the whole region with their dainty and powerful fragrance and make the atmosphere taste like a delicacy, something better than wine, and as intoxicating.

  The train was going at slow speed as if loath to leave behind this wonderful garden. It stopped every few minutes at small stations, at clusters of white houses, then went on again leisurely, emitting long whistles. Nobody got in. One would have thought that all the world had gone to sleep, unable to stir, on that sultry spring morning. The plump peasant woman from time to time closed her eyes, but opened them suddenly as her basket began to slide from her lap. She would catch it, replace it, look out of the window a little while and then doze off again. Tiny beads of perspiration covered her brow and she breathed with difficulty, as if suffering from a painful oppression.

  The young man had let his head fall on his breast and was sleeping the sound sleep of the labouring man.

  All of a sudden, just as the train left a small station, the peasant woman woke up and opening her basket, drew forth a piece of bread, some hard-boiled eggs, and a flask of wine and some fine, red plums. She began to eat.

  The man had also wakened and he watched the woman, watched every morsel that travelled from her knees to her lips. He sat with his arms folded, his eyes set and his lips tightly compressed.

  The woman ate like a glutton, with relish. Every little while she would take a swallow of wine to wash down the eggs and then she would stop for breath.

  Everything vanished, the bread, the eggs, the plums and the wine. As soon as she finished her meal, the man closed his eyes. Then, feeling ill at ease, she loosened her blouse and the man suddenly looked at her again.

  She did not seem to mind and continued to unbutton her dress.

  The pressure of her flesh causing the opening to gape, she revealed a portion of white linen chemise and a portion of her skin.

  As soon as she felt more comfortable, she turned to her fellow-traveller and remarked in Italian: “It’s too hot to breathe.”

  He answered, in the same tongue and with the same accent: “Fine weather for travelling.”

  She asked: “Are you from Piedmont?”

  “From Asti.”

  “And I’m from Casale.”

  They were neighbours. They began to talk.

  They exchanged the commonplace remarks that working people repeat over and over and
which are sufficient for their slow-working and narrow minds. They spoke of their homes. They had mutual acquaintances.

  They quoted names and became more and more friendly as they discovered more and more people they knew. Short, rapid words, with sonorous endings and the Italian cadence, gushed from their lips.

  After that, they talked about themselves. She was married and had three children whom she had left with her sister, for she had found a situation as nurse, a good situation with a French lady at Marseilles.

  He was going to look for work.

  He had been told that he would be able to find it in France, for they were building a great deal, he had heard.

  They then fell silent.

  The heat was becoming terrible; it beat down like fire on the roof of the railway carriage. A cloud of dust flew behind the train and entered through the window, and the fragrance of the roses and orange-blossoms had become stronger, heavier and more penetrating.

  The two travellers went to sleep again.

  They awakened almost at the same time. The sun was nearing the edge of the horizon and shed its glorious light on the blue sea. The atmosphere was lighter and cooler.

  The nurse was gasping. Her dress was open and her cheeks looked flabby and moist, and in an oppressed voice, she breathed:

  “I have not nursed since yesterday; I feel as if I were going to faint.”

  The man did not reply; he hardly knew what to say.

  She continued: “When a woman has as much milk as I she must nurse three times a day or she’ll feel uncomfortable. It feels like a weight on my heart, a weight that prevents my breathing and just exhausts me. It’s terrible to have so much milk.”

  He replied: “Yes, it’s bad. It must hurt you.”

  She really seemed ill and almost ready to faint. She murmured: “I only have to press and the milk flows out like a fountain. It is really interesting to see. You wouldn’t believe it. In Casale, all the neighbours came to see it.”

  He replied: “Ah! really.”

  “Yes, really. I would show you, only it wouldn’t help me. You can’t make enough come out that way.”

  And she paused.

  The train stopped at a station. Leaning on a fence was a woman holding a crying infant in her arms. She was thin and in rags.

  The nurse watched her. Then she said in a compassionate tone: “There’s a woman I could help. And the baby could help me, too. I’m not rich; I’m leaving my home, my people and my baby to take a place, but still, I’d give five francs to have that child and be able to nurse it for ten minutes. It would quiet him, and me too, I can tell you. I think I would feel as if I were being born again.”

  She paused again. Then she passed her hot hand several times across her wet brow and moaned: “Oh! I can’t stand it any longer. I believe I shall die.” And with an unconscious motion, she opened her dress altogether.

  Her right breast appeared all swollen and stiff, with its brown teat, and the poor woman gasped: “Ah! gracious Heaven! What shall I do?”

  The train had left the station and was running on, while the flowers breathed out their penetrating fragrance on the warm evening air.

  Sometimes they saw a fishing-boat, which seemed asleep on the blue sea with its motionless white sail, which was reflected in the water as though another boat were there, head down.

  The young man, embarrassed, stammered: “But—madam— I—might perhaps be—be able to help you.”

  In an exhausted whisper, she replied: “Yes, if you will be so kind, you’ll do me a great favour. I can’t stand it any longer, really I can’t.”

  He got on his knees before her; and she leaned over to him with a motherly gesture as if he were a child. In the movement she made to draw near to the man, a drop of milk appeared on her breast. He absorbed it quickly, and, taking this heavy breast in his mouth like a fruit, he began to drink regularly and greedily.

  He had passed his arms around the woman’s waist and pressed her close to him in order not to lose a drop of the nourishment. And he drank with slow gulps, like a baby.

  All of a sudden she said: “That’s enough, now the other side!” Docilely, he took the other.

  She had placed both hands on his back and now was breathing happily, freely, enjoying the perfume of the flowers carried on the breeze that entered the open windows.

  “What a lovely smell,” she said.

  He made no reply and drank on at the living fountain of her breast, closing his eyes as though to savour it better.

  But she gently pushed him from her.

  “That’s enough. I feel much better now. It has put life into me again.”

  He rose and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  While she replaced her breasts inside her dress, she said:

  “You did me a great favour. I thank you very much!”

  And he replied in a grateful tone:

  “It is I who thank you, for I hadn’t eaten a thing for two days!”

  GUY DE MAUPASSANT,

  An Idyll (trans. Boyd)

  JOURNEY

  Oh the wild engine! Every time I sit

  In any train I must remember it.

  The way it smashes through the air; its great

  Petulant majesty and terrible rate:

  Driving the ground before it, with those round

  Feet pounding, beating, covering the ground;

  The piston using up the white steam so

  You cannot watch it when it come or go;

  The cutting, the embankment; how it takes

  The tunnels, and the clatter that it makes;

  So careful of the train and of the track,

  Guiding us out, or helping us go back;

  Breasting its destination: at the close

  Yawning, and slowly dropping to a doze.

  We who have looked each other in the eyes

  This journey long, and trundled with the train,

  Now to our separate purposes must rise,

  Becoming decent strangers once again.

  The little chamber we have made our home

  In which we so conveniently abode,

  The complicated journey we have come,

  Must be an unremembered episode.

  Our common purpose made us all like friends.

  How suddenly it ends!

  A nod, a murmur, or a little smile,

  Or often nothing, and away we file.

  I hate to leave you, comrades. I will stay

  To watch you drift apart and pass away.

  It seems impossible to go and meet

  All those strange eyes of people in the street.

  But, like some proud unconscious god, the train

  Gathers us up and scatters us again.

  HAROLD MONRO

  Train to Johannesburg

  From Ixopo the toy train climbs up into other hills, the green rolling hills of Lufafa, Eastwolds, Donnybrook. From Donnybrook the broad-gauge runs to the great valley of the Umkomaas. Here the tribes live, and the soil is sick, almost beyond healing. Up out of the valley it climbs, past Hemu-hemu to Elandskop. Down the long valley of the Umsindusi, past Edendale and the black slums to Pietermaritzburg, the lovely city. Change here to the greatest train of all, the train for Johannesburg. Here is a white man’s wonder, a train that has no engine, only an iron cage on its head, taking power from metal ropes stretched out above.

  Climb up to Hilton and Lion’s River, to Balgowan, Rosetta, Mooi River, through hills lovely beyond any singing of it. Thunder through the night, over battlefields of long ago. Climb over the Drakensberg, on to the level plains.

  Wake in the swaying coach to the half-light before the dawn. The engine is steaming again, and there are no more ropes overhead. This is a new country, a strange country, rolling and rolling away as far as the eye can see. There are new names here, hard names for a Zulu who has been schooled in English. For they are in the language that was called Afrikaans, a language that he had never yet heard spoken.

&n
bsp; —The mines, they cry, the mines. For many of them are going to work in the mines.

  Are these the mines, those white flat hills in the distance? He can ask safely, for there is no one here who heard him yesterday.

  —That is the rock out of the mines, umfundisi.*1 The gold has been taken out of it.

  —How does the rock come out?

  —We go down and dig it out, umfundisi. And when it is hard to dig, we go away, and the white men blow it out with the fire-sticks. Then we come back and clear it away; we load it on to the trucks; and it goes up in a cage, up a long chimney so long that I cannot say it for you.

  —How does it go up?

  —It is wound up by a great wheel. Wait, and I shall show you one.

  He is silent, and his heart beats a little faster, with excitement and fear.

  —There is the wheel, umfundisi. There is the wheel.

  A great iron structure rearing into the air, and a great wheel above it, going so fast that the spokes play tricks with the sight. Great buildings, and steam blowing out of pipes, and men hurrying about. A great white hill, and an endless procession of trucks climbing upon it, high up in the air. On the ground, motor cars, lorries, buses, one great confusion.

  —Is that Johannesburg? he asks.

  But they laugh confidently. Old hands some of them are.

  —That is nothing, they say. In Johannesburg there are buildings, so high—but they cannot describe them.

  —My brother, says one, you know the hill that stands so, straight up, behind my father’s kraal. So high as that.

  The other man nods, but Kumalo does not know that hill.

  And now the buildings are endless, the buildings, and the white hills, and the great wheels, and streets without number, and cars and lorries and buses.

  —This surely is Johannesburg? he says.

  But they laugh again. They are growing a little tired. This is nothing, they say.

  Railway-lines, railway-lines, it is a wonder. To the left, to the right, so many that he cannot count. A train rushes past them, with a sudden roaring of sound that makes him jump in his seat. And on the other side of them, another races beside them, but drops slowly behind. Stations, stations, more than he has ever imagined. People are waiting there in hundreds, but the train rushes past, leaving them disappointed.