(ENG) Strangers on a train

By Steve Glassman.

The cardboard box labelled “Nam Talby” went through so many moves over the years that it was worn out and broken. Yet the contents have been untouched for decades. These forgotten memoirs span a lifetime, with the most formative years occurring from WW1, the Bolshevik revolution and the immigrant experience in New York. Our excerpt explores an interesting interaction between two strangers on the train between New York and Montreal, Christmas eve, 1949.It’s a coming to terms with the past. Nam Talby, pseudonym for the author’s grandfather, meets the son of one of his Tsarist oppressors on that train. And the author reconnects the two families in 2021, over 100 years after the Russian revolution and seventy years after this chance meeting.

---