The short story “The Night Train” by Lavie Tidhar was published for the first time in 2010.
Mulan Rouge – but that’s only an old stage name that got stuck to her – is a former mercenary and now bodyguard of the Old Man, also known as Boss Gui, the head and bigfalla bos of the Kunming Toads. The Old Man has to leave for a train journey and Mulan must check that no other passenger is a danger to him. Being the Old Man’s bodyguard is a dangerous job but for Mulan there’s not only the risk in her life and she thinks of Darwin’s Choice, an Other she had a relationship with.
“The Night Train” begins by specifying who the protagonist is not. Her real name is never mentioned while other names that may be familiar are mentioned. Molly suggests Molly Millions, a recurring character in William Gibson’s works, a mercenary / bodyguard as well and a cyborg. Friday suggests Robert A. Heinlein’s protagonist of “Friday“, the result of genetic engineering.
Mulan Rouge’s body has been modified but it’s not clear to what extent. Her gender identity is of a woman but she wasn’t born physically a female because she’s a kathoey, a Thai term that indicates what they call the third sex, transgender people. By adding some details here and there, Lavie Tidhar offers various information about her, her not exactly normal work experiences and her private life, even intimate.
The result is a story that mixes eros and thanatos, sensual love and death. Mulan Rouge is a complex person of whom Lavie Tidhar shows moments of violence in which she strikes to kill with no hesitation and other moments of passion, told in a rather explicit way. Her “career” shows her skills and yet even while she’s protecting the boss of a criminal organization she thinks about the moments she spent with one of the aliens known only as Others. The author provides some more information about them in his novel “Central Station“: “The Night Train” is totally autonomous from the novel but the two works are set in the same fictional universe.
The journey by train is in some ways also an inner journey for Mulan Rouge in which she retraces some fundamental stages of her life, truly adventurous and complex. Her reflections concern her evolution or the limits of her evolution and make her an interesting character since Lavie Tidhar manages to give her various nuances despite the limited length of the short story. That’s the reason why I think “The Night Train” is worth reading.
