1929 June | On the Train from Dar es Salaam to Kigoma
Then
Off we go. With a shudder, the train coughs away slowly out of the station. In a furious cloud of steam, a piercing whistle, it valiantly gathers speed. Soonish, the heat of an African mid-day Sun starts bleeding off the metal. The breeze still burns hot, but it holds a promise. The view moves from shack to savannah, lush hills and rolling grassland.
Suzanne reclines in her leather seat.
One last choice to make: leave the window open, and enjoy the transition, or close it down, and enjoy the silence. More accurately, the true choice is to get coated in a thin, albeit fetching, layer of soot, and peppered with carbuncles of unburnt coal, or melt like a lump of butter on low heat. White cotton dress? The choice is made for her then: the windows will stay shut, she will endure.
She sits in her private compartment. The windows rattle furiously.
François is walking around the train, to breathe in Africa, as he put it. A few minutes after they left the station, the wagon steward has come to introduce himself. Impeccable as could, as should, be expected. The little bell by the door had discreetly tinkled his waiting in the corridor. Opening the door with a short Prussian bow, the man had asked if Mrs Dulière needed anything else? His name was Edgard, could he be of any service to the Memsahib? Mrs Dulière could feel free to summon with the little enamel button labelled “Service” in Gothic letters.
Well, Mrs Dulière would appreciate a cup of chamomile, merci bien.
The train now reached its top speed, whatever that was. It shakes and huffs, shakes and puffs. No looking left nor right, straight on. And she was rushing to it. The boat they took from Suez down had been society, propriety and sociability. Suzanne had been very good at it. Her whiplash energy a hit at dinners and lounges. Boarding the train at Dar es Salaam had been steel and concrete, dust and frenzy. She was now in rolling hills, mountains on the horizon, packs of giraffes and herds of zebras, the primeval landscape François had conjured up for her back while courting.
It would be 2 days and a few hours to reach Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika. These names! Everyone had read about them; she was there.
This train ride was a decompression chamber before true Africa. There was the Grand Hotel, this train, and tomorrow? Whatever would be on the other side of that door on arriving. François would be doing what husbands do; he was the one in charge of the knowing and the telling, for all the good that did. He was in charge of the outside world. Hers was everything else. She made it happen, creating their life within it. Taking onboard his diligent advice; of course. That is why they had a private compartment. She had no intention to get stuck for days, and a bit, in a box, with the loud and brash Bavarian they had met at the restaurant, apparently the King of Sausages of Ngoma himself. A fascinating character for a whole second.
She was very good at social. If and when she choose to.
There were probably books to read, François had told her. He travelled with his own little library of essentials. Fantastic, that. He could do that reading and tell her. He liked it and she liked that. She had taken her own books, Colette of course, and Clémenceau. And a professional sewing manual. But crucially, a box of needles for every season, from tent canvas to lace. Even the Aunts were not sneering anymore at her needlework. If they could see her now! Sipping chamomile from fine china served by one of these tall, smart Bantu waiters.
In her own compartment while the train hooted, rattled and swayed into the Sun.
She nodded off racing to the future.
Now – seat 1A
You know, the shockwave of the aircraft engines starting. A cascade of explosions as each of them starts in turn: 1, 2, 3, 4. A booming crescendo of propellers howling at the sky. The entire plane a predator, components quivering with rage at its unworthy masters, sweating oil, spitting fuel, dripping water and belching smoke.
The plane slowly rattles itself loose of its invisible shackles. It prowls off, gathers speed; it bunches up, builds power, to leap off the ground with a grunt. One last stomach churning drop, a hiccup and it flies off to the immaculate clouds. A roar of engines, the howl of wind, the racket of steel bolts, the tinkling of window glasses.
No, you probably never knew these sensations. Never truly. Dream them, think them, tell them, make flying vintage aircrafts your hobby, it will just be that, a hobby.
Once it was a visceral experience: flying commercial in the 30s.
We do not really travel anymore; we swallow time and gurgle distance. The journey is but a brief jolt of change, a momentary interlude between 2 points in a mental map. We teleport in all but scientific accuracy.
One day, even this will sound antique, circumvoluted and unsafe. From muscle, steam, oil, fusion to … From bones, wood, copper, steel, polymers, to… Moments on a universal scale. Moving between spots may one day be itself an outdated occupation, a strange urge, as we blink ither and thither as our fancy, mood or needs take us.
How we will wonder and laugh at people proudly using strange clunky contraptions solutions.
Like steam trains.
You read part 1 of Transvaal Blue Skies: the true story of how, early last century, Suzanne moved to Africa and built her laager. This is a series of loose dots weaved in a chronological thread, wrapped into a story to be plucked and observed, heard and remembered, recognised and judged. Suzanne Dulière was my grandmother.
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