A Short Walk Through a Wide World

Content Warning: This section contains depictions of animal cruelty.

Aubry shelters from a storm in southern Chile. An old man invites her to sit with him, and she tells him about her travels. People usually romanticize her illness, but this old man talks about how unpleasant he found his one attempt to travel. He concludes that there is no reason to travel when he can stay in his own home and look at photographs of other people’s travels instead. Aubry is delighted that he understands.

Aubry is 34 years old when she boards a train in Russia. She claims a seat in a train car already occupied by a single tall Black man who speaks French with an accent. It is a men’s sleeping compartment, but he invites her to stay, promising to be a gentleman. His name is Lionel Kyengi, and he is an accountant heading to Vladivostok. They are both aware of the impropriety of a white woman and a Black man sharing a train car but do not care.

Aubry tells Lionel about her sickness. Lionel says that criminals are punished with confinement, never allowed to move or see the world again. Therefore, her ability to travel and see the world must be a reward, not a punishment.