It was Grossmueti Rust who suggested that
they travel separately. She left two days before him – it seemed safer but
Grossvati Rust felt sick with apprehension.
The train was long, the carriages old and
rusted and shabby.
It was uncomfortable for Grossvati Rust to
share the compartment with two unknown women. He was a friendly person but
these were not the days for openness and candour. A stilted introduction – they
were Shelly-Marie Palmer and Kana Yamaguchi – set the tone. He would have clung
to either of them and sobbed till he could cry no longer, told her his fears,
shared with her all the pain that crushed his heart. Instead the three of them
politely discussed the exigencies of this rail journey and shared partial and
heavily redacted and essentially dishonest accounts of their lives and purposes
for travel.
The grime blew in the open window from the
hot, dusty landscape through which they travelled.
At night Grossvati Rust took an upper bunk
and pretended to read as the women made their furtive preparations for bed.
By the third day they were all tired and
dirty but somehow resigned to this strange here and now being the whole of
existence.
When the soldiers had come to the museum with
their list of how things would be from now on and what was acceptable and, more
importantly, what was not acceptable, Director Rust had been scrupulously
polite, had offered them tea and discussed their requirements as if he intended
to fulfil them.
Instead, two days later he was boarding this
shabby train with a small suitcase – from now the extent of his possessions,
each object freighted with terminal significance as representatives of his old
life.
He prayed that Grossmueti Rust would be
waiting for him at the station when he arrived – if this hypnotic journey ever
ended.
Barnaby McBryde
