Mauricio Wiesenthal: "The Orient-Express is the memory of our European culture"

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Mauricio Wiesenthal (Barcelona, ​​1943), a globetrotting author of essays and novels, tells that in any of those romantic Orient-Express carriages one could have found "Diaguilev's forgotten coat, the sketches of the perfume bottles that Paul Iribe designed for Chanel, Toscanini's baton, or the collections of butterflies that Baden Powell traveled with when he was posing as an entomologist and working for the British Secret Service. "

All the legend and beauty of the train that crossed Europe from east to west fit in the pages of The Orient-Express: the train of Europe (Cliff, 2020), the last book of the writer.

To what place and when would he return in the history of the Orient-Express? To the restaurant at the Gare de Lyon -one of the most beautiful places in Paris- on May 19, 1977, when he was waiting for the last Orient-Express that made the trip to Istanbul.

I remember that night well, because the train - now a relic of what it had been - left a few minutes late at dawn.

A legend of Europe died on that date.

He walked with clouds of steam, he was strong and muscular, he had a headlamp that dazzled when he entered the station, he made a noise of rings and rings as he walked, his loins were written with the shields of Pullman and Wagons-Lits, and with the names of the cities he traveled ... Where did your fascination with trains come from? I was born in a time when it was easier to travel by train or boat than by car or plane.

I am the son of a European family, established in different countries (Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy) and, to meet, we were lucky that our continent is relatively small.

My childhood and my youth passed like this. What does the Orient-Express symbolize for Europe? Something similar to what the Danube could be, which is a path of our culture, as is the Camino de Santiago or as the roads were. Roman in the time of Augustus.

The Orient-Express was even longer, as it linked London with Istanbul, and crossed the heart of Europe with its different branches.

In my book I have written precisely that memory of our culture, from the 19th century until the borders were closed with the two world wars.

He was a child when Wiesenthal first boarded the Orient-Express, at a time when the train - made of wood, metal or electric - was the favorite toy of almost all children.

Much more fascinating was, of course, a real train.

"In Sierre, a town in the Valais, I waited with my parents sometimes for the Orient-Express that would take us to Milan or Venice", the author recalls.

"Surprised in my childhood imagination, I looked at the lights on the tables of the restaurant car, as if I were caressing Aladdin's lamp ... Life is like that. Bring everything, but you have to caress it and make wishes ...".

Coco Chanel, Maria Callas ... the characters she met on the train is impressive. I was very young when I met Coco Chanel, because she was introduced to me by Paul Morand.

And this really would have been my ideal travel companion, since his spirit as an artist, his culture, his vocation as a traveler, his wit and the experiences of his life (among so many interesting people he had met Marcel Proust) allowed him to be in all the places worth being.

But it is true that, on the Orient-Express, you felt outside of time, as if you were traveling with the women and men who had written your history.

The hours flew by between the landscapes, the meal shifts, the conversations and the unforgettable moments we spent reading stories about the places that the train traveled.

The rhythm of the train and the tempo of good literature accompany each other like the voice and the orchestra. It is common to see objects from the Orient-Express in the catalogs of the most prestigious auction rooms.

Did you ever get any of these items? Yes, when I was a student, I bought the dinner menu for the dining car on the route from Ostend to Vienna in 1914, because I realized that it was dated the day it Stefan Zweig made that journey - just the night the German invasion of Belgium began at the start of World War I. He painstakingly sketches many of the most lavish carriages on the train.

Which one is it? Among the Pullmans we could choose the

, because it originally circulated on the trains that went to the Côte d'Azur, and Jean Cocteau, Picasso, Coco Chanel and Serge Diághilev were inspired by it to stage the ballet

.

But there are many other Wagons-Lits cars that are works of art, such as

,

with its oriental paints and lacquers, or the

, decorated with glass panels created by this great designer.

They are the legacy of a lost, Proustian and beautiful time that maintained a taste for crafts, marquetry, upholstery and the most detailed work. Is traveling first class better than arriving?

Traveling in any class is better than arriving.

As with literature, what matters is entertainment.

Those who boast of speed reading and running travel neither travel nor read.

"Pleasure," Byron said, "is at odds with comfort."

Nice friends of comfort are often bad cooks, bad workers, and worse lovers.

He has also known the Orient-Express in third class ... It is very pleasant to enjoy an elegant, soft and beautiful environment - for those who know how to appreciate it -, among works of art.

But a journey also consists of knowing how to look out the window.

Although the butt hurt more when we traveled sitting on wooden benches, the same things were seen outside in first as in third.

And, already inside, each one knows in what kind of spirit and consciousness he is traveling.

Is the Venice Simplon Orient-Express a worthy descendant or a tourist attraction? The Belmond Train is the only way left for young people to evoke our scene from Yesterday's World, and it is recreated with great respect, huge artistic investment , invaluable spirit of conservation of these museum pieces (the historical trains) and a lot of success in the atmosphere and the service.Where in Europe do you return again and again? To myself, since I am older and my memory keeps everything what a life of study and work gave me.

I was born well endowed to live in exile (the exodus and the diaspora made us used to travel - and not precisely in the first place - those of us who are descendants of Jews).

I always have a suitcase on hand.

I already wrote it in one of my first books: "When I was seven my parents gave me a bicycle, and they didn't see me anymore" How do you prepare a trip? I am always prepared, because everything that I live, work, read or I write it becomes a journey.

I am never idle, and that is already being on my way.

But don't think I have my demons too.

It wouldn't cost me anything right now to go by train to Vladivostok.

What makes me lazy is the distance between my house and the station. What travel advice would you give to a curious young man? That he does not lose his curiosity.

Everything will be journey and wonder in your life.

And don't waste your time sitting down, because the end of our youth's journey is old age. Can we get something positive out of the pandemic? Epidemics and travel have been linked since ancient times.

It is a risk that accompanies travelers.

Respecting social distance, taking care of hygiene, as well as avoiding crowds, seem to me already wonderful lessons for the travelers' school.

But I am also not afraid of the inevitable dangers of travel when compared with the risk of boredom and the plagues that accompany the life of the sedentary, since lice, rashes, ticks and fleas multiply in the tribe.

A vaccine against localism would have to be invented.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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