The Season of Migration Read Online Free Page A

onto the track with a shovel and began to tamp down the dirt that the train had displaced. I was the only person to disembark, and when the train was gone, the boy and I were the only people in the station. I pulled my coat tight around me; it was colder than it had been in Brussels.
    I asked the boy on the tracks how I should get to Petit Wasmes, and the boy pointed in the direction of the only slag pyramid that could be seen from there, great and towering and black. His breath came out of him in short white clouds. “Follow the coal,” he said. I left him there with his shovel, wondering how many times a day the boy performed this labor, smoothing out the tracks for the next train to come through and deposit its one passenger. Noble, thankless work, to be sure.
    I think I told you some about Wasmes, where the train let me off, when you were here, but I don’t think you were listening. I will tell you again: Wasmes is made up of a few streets of redbrick buildings streaked with dirt, cobblestones, a church, a meeting house, a prison with crumbling bricks. It is the home of the mine administration, the foremen and managers, so close to the miners but a world away. The miners live in villages at the bottom of a long hill down from Wasmes, and they rarely make the climb up to the town. As I walked through Wasmes that first time, I noticed the strange vacancy of everything—only a few people crossed the streets and no one noticed me, the curtains were pulled in most windows, and flowers crumbled in hanging window boxes. The haze of coal smoke made it seem as if night were falling; the black was so thick, I felt I could take hold of it with my hand and pull free a piece. What light there was came through the thick black in slices and arrows, and I thought of Heaven, of all things that cannot be understood, hidden from mortals behind a cover of impenetrable smoke.
    My knapsack over my shoulder, I made my way to the house of one Jean-Baptiste Denis. The regional evangelical committee, on which sat Pastor Pieterszen, whom I had gotten to know in Brussels, had secured me lodging in the Denis home—perhaps Father told you this? Jean-Baptiste Denis is a baker, and one of the most fortunate men in the congregation of Petit Wasmes. His house is the only brick building in town, and sits at the crest of the hill leading down into the mining village.
    At the house, Madame Denis was waiting outside for me, in a scarf and knitted wool hat, dusting soot out of the door frame. When she saw me, she clapped her hands and exclaimed, “Monsieur Vincent! You are here!” I was stunned at her warmth, never having received such a greeting from our mother and father, or perhaps anyone else ever before. Madame Denis is a large woman with glowing red cheeks, and her brown dress under her apron was marked by a purple flowered print. I wanted to fall right into her arms, but I restrained myself, giving her a tip of my hat instead. “You must be Madame Denis.”
    She curtsied and replied, “So I must!” sweeping her arm across her body and smiling. “Welcome! We have been looking forward to your arrival. How were your travels? Did you come too terribly far?”
    I assured her the trip was just fine but that I was relieved to have arrived. “Well, we’re relieved you’re here, too!” she declared, and with a gesture of her arm invited me into the house. “Come on in,” she said. “Welcome to your new home!”
    Inside the house the air was warm and thick with the smell of baking bread, a most welcome and delicious smell. Madame Denis removed her scarf and hat and hung them on a peg by the door; then she led me through the large kitchen-bakery, lined with wooden shelves packed with jars of all sizes, all touched with a fine film of flour and containing all number of ingredients. I glimpsed a stack of wooden mixing bowls piled high in the sink, a hook with a handful of