The Woman on the Orient Express

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

The teacher had spoken of love and suffering and Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. She had told them that they would all, at some time in their lives, feel as he had, utterly alone and forsaken by everyone—even by God. When that time came, Miss Johnston said, they must hold on to the belief that this was not the end, that God was there and would help them if they put their trust in him. For some reason, those words had stayed with her more than any

“She told us that it was impossible to love without suffering—but if we never loved, we would never know the true meaning of life. Then she said, ‘When everything goes against you and you get to a point

when it seems you can’t hang on a minute longer, never, never give up—for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.’”

The concentration—the mental effort required in visualizing something as yet unformed—was the best therapy, the surest way of banishing memories that still had the power to overwhelm her.

vacancies for an English typist with no Arabic was the British Consulate, where she

“It’s not easy to believe in anything when your whole world turns upside down. The main thing is to keep believing in yourself.”