Train to Budapest

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The slow train struggles northwards. Amara sits composed and dignified, gripped by a sort of sleepy excitement. This is the first long journey of her life. The train stops at every station. Its seats are graced with handmade doilies and it stinks of boiled goat and permanganate soap. The smells of the cold war that has divided the countries of the West from those of the East, segregating them behind walls, barbed wire and soldiers armed with rifles.

‘This separation bears witness to the assertion of a suspicious and aggressive form of communism. And on the other side is an equally suspicious and vehement anti-communism. Basically, neither side knows anything about the other. Surely we want our readers to know how people really live beyond the Iron Curtain? About what still may remain of the suffering caused by the Second World War? About what survives of the memory of the Holocaust?’

The voice of the editor of the newspaper she works for as he reminds her to notice details, to talk to people, to study the daily lives of those living in the East of Europe, and then to write. The editor is young and good-looking and completely bald. He favours her with an exceptionally charming smile as he adds that she cannot be paid very much for her contributions.

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