Synopsis
TRAIN TO HEAVEN.
A railway station crowded with people – somewhere in a third world country. The steam locomotive in colonial style is huffing and puffing while waiting for the passengers. Paul, an American painter, about 40 years old, stressed out, unshaven, worn out, is fighting his way through the masses. He does not fit in – neither is he a tourist nor does he belong to the world of the locals which is that of hectic and poverty.
Paul is carrying a large painting wrapped in paper. Amongst his other few belongings are some bottles of Whiskey.
In the train, Paul meets Iris. An attractive woman to whom Paul shows his painting. It is a cubistic portrait of a man – a commissioned work, as Paul emphazises. He tells her that he is on his way to the Dutch buyer to hand the painting over personally and collect the fee in cash. Paul says that he severed the bond between him and the US – he loves his freedom and in just a few hours he would have enough money to live life to the fullest. Iris falls in love with the self-confident and intellectual Paul. They drink, talk all the world and his wife, and spend a night full of pleasures. They drink and talk about the world, God and fortitude.
The next morning, Paul roams the streets of a third world city with a luggage carrier. Coffee Shops offer coffee but no Whiskey, so Paul takes a sip from his own stock. The tired out Paul calls a rather rickety taxi that drives them to a stately house.
The servants there only vaguely recall having sent a train ticket and some road money to an artist. Moreover, their employer is not home and not expected back for months. When he will return? Nobody knows. The servants dare not call him. Paul is appalled as he is being sent away. He refuses to leave, he has no money left and nowhere to turn. Enraged, he rips the wrapping from the painting their master commissioned. Startled he stares at it. It is a nightmare – the painting only shows his signet. With trembling hands he takes the last sip of Whiskey left in his bag.
The luggage carrier demands his money and quickly bolts upon receiving it. The servants shut the door in Pauls face and he is left alone in the sandy street. Still in shock, Paul feels his signet – it seems genuinely his.
After a heated discussion with the train personnel, Paul is permitted to search the train for Iris even without a ticket. It seems she has vanished. Only an older man, Mr. Tennet, takes interest in Paul and says to have seen a young woman on the train. Yet he can not clearly remember if it was her.
The personnel requests Paul to leave the train as it is about to leave the station. But Paul resists and fights the personnel, two of whom he strikes down.
Tennet has calmly watched Paul and offers him a sleeping cabin. He tells Paul there is a small airport at the end of the line.
Paul needs more alcohol but the personnel tells him that in a religious country like this, there is no way Paul could get alcohol. There is none to be purchased. Not in the train, not at the train stations. Nowhere.
Covered in sweat and plagued by withdrawal, Paul stares at the empty painting in his cabin, the walls closing in on him. He shivers and seems to feels cold despite the heat. With his last bit of energy left in him, he slips the painting through the small window – it is gone. Paul falls back to his bed. The train lashes through the night, in the direction of Pauls own hell.
The next morning, the personnel brings him a suit – Mr. Tennet invites him to an imperial breakfast into his cabin. There, Mr. Tennet reveals the unspeakable to Paul and it concerns nothing less than the inversion of God.