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Karin Tidbeck

AMATKA

THE TRAIN

Brilars’ Vanja Essre Two, information assistant with the Essre Hygiene Specialists, was the only passenger on the auto train bound for Amatka. As soon as she had climbed the steps, the door shut behind her and the train jerked into motion. Vanja took a new grip on her satchel and typewriter case and pushed the suitcase through the sliding door with her feet. On the other side, the darkness was complete. She fumbled along the wall and found a circuit breaker next to the door. The light that flickered on was weak and yellow.

The narrow space of the passenger car was bare except for the brown vinyl bunk couches that lined the walls and the luggage racks, stacked with blankets and thin pillows, which were wide enough to sleep on, too. It was built for migration, for transporting pioneers to new frontiers, and its capacity was pointless here.

Vanja left her bags by the door and sat on each of the couches. They were all equally rigid and uncomfortable. The upholstery looked slippery but felt unpleasantly rough to the touch. She chose the couch at the far right-hand corner, where she’d be close to the common room and have a good view of the rest of the car. It was all vaguely reminiscent of the dormitory in Children’s House Two so long ago: the same vinyl mattresses under the sheets, the same lingering scent of bodies. But back then the room had been full of children and the sound of their voices.

She took a look at the tiny common room. The only window in the car was on the right wall, low and wide with rounded edges and a roll-down curtain. On closer inspection, the window turned out not to be an ordinary window, but a white screen that lit up at the press of a button. It was probably meant as a substitute for daylight. Under the screen, a table was bolted to the floor along with four chairs. One of the two high cabinets on the other side of the room held a tiny lavatory with a washbasin, the other a small pantry with preserves and fresh root vegetables.

Everything was marked in large and comforting letters: WASHBASIN, PANTRY, TABLE. This area smelled vaguely of manure, either from the lavatory or from the containers that rode at the front of the train.

Vanja fetched her suitcase and undid the buckles. One of them looked like it was about to come loose. It had been a gift from someone, who had inherited it from someone else, and so on. In any case, it wasn’t going to last long: the word SUITCASE was almost illegible. She could fill in the letters, of course, but the question was what would happen first—that the bag simply fell apart from wear or that it dissolved when she put it away. She really ought to scrap it.

“Suitcase,” Vanja whispered, to keep it its shape just a little longer. “Suitcase, suitcase. ”

She flipped the backrest to free up the lower bunk and made the bed with the set of sheets she’d brought. They too would soon need new marking.

The preserves in the pantry were apparently meant to be eaten cold. Vanja found a spoon and pulled the lid off one of the cans. According to the ingredient list, it contained “stew with a base of mycoprotein,” which meant a smooth, bland paste that stuck to the roof of her mouth. Vanja forced down half of the can’s contents and put it back in the pantry. The vegetables were fresh and tasted better. She cut a chunk of rutabaga into smaller pieces and slowly ate them one by one.