Trafika Europe 3 - Latvian Sojourn

Gladys Aylward

(born in London, 1902 – 1970)

That’s how that popular movie showed it – but maybe that’s really how it happened. It rained on those who stayed close to books and mantelpieces, tea, cookies and wine while one humble London nanny, Gladys, Christian convert and adventuress of unconstrained tongue, sallied forth with meager savings to liberate distant prisoners, or more precisely free, anoint, and kiss the hundreds of bound female feet and souls. In a cold train car – wedged between coarse lumberjacks and soldiers – slowly respiring, she watched the train cut like a blade through the hard heart of those open spaces, till the morn that Trans-Siberian Railway plunged into China’s endless samovar. Visibly alone, unmarried, Somewhere in the dust of Yangcheng Province

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