Travel, two chronicles, and the presence and absence of women

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I could have taken the 7:50, or even the 8:53.  It's Monday.  Mondays are dead quiet at work.  It's just that I couldn't take it anymore.  What was I thinking, staying Sunday night.  I don't know what came over me.  Two days are more than enough. 
--From The 6:41 to Paris, a short novel by Jean-Philippe Blondel, translated from the French by Alison Anderson (New Vessel Press, 2015).  First published in French as 06h41 (Buchet/Chastel, Paris, 2013).

Anastasia Finizio, the older daughter of Angelina Finizio and the late Ernesto, one of Chiaia's leading hairdressers, who only a few years earlier had retired to a sunny and tranquil enclosure in the cemetery of Poggioreale, had just returned from High Mass (it was Christmas Day) at Santa Maria degli Angeli, in Monte de Dio, and still hadn't made up her mind to take off her hat.  Tall and thin, like all the Finizios, with the same meticulous, glittering elegance . . .  
--From "Family Interior," a short story by Anna Maria Ortese, from her collection Neapolitan Chronicles, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein and Jenny McPhee (New Vessel Press, 2018), pp. 35-62.  Neapolitan Chronicles was first published in Italian as Il mare non bagna Napoli (Giulio Einaudi, Turin, Italy, 1953).

It turns out that MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières, AKA Doctors Without Borders] has no house for us.  We're going to have to find one.
In the meantime, we're living in the "guest house." It's where expat field workers live when they pass through the capital.  
The ground floor is taken up by MSF offices.  
For the first few days, I hole up on the top floor, while Nadège takes on her new duties.
Upstairs, I keep my eyes glued on Louis.
--From Burma Chronicles, a nonfiction comic by Guy Delisle, translated from the French by Helge Dascher (Drawn and Quarterly, 2008).  Originally published in France as Chroniques Birmanes by Editions Delcourt.

Two days later, at two in the afternoon, the yellow Saab 900 convertible was fixed and ready to drive.  The dented right front fender had been returned to its original shape, the painted patch blending almost perfectly with the rest of the car.  
--From "Drive My Car," the first story from Men Without Women, a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen (Knopf/Vintage/Penguin Random House, 2017).  Originally published in Japan as Onna no inai Otokotachi (Bungei Shunjū, Tokyo, 2014).

Women were occasionally allowed to study but not to get a degree in anything because of their small heads.  
Very occasionally a woman would learn a foreign language, go abroad to study, and come back qualified as a doctor, but that didn't prove anything except that women cause trouble as soon as you let them out.  
--From The Trouble with Women, a comic by Jacky Fleming (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2016).  First published in Great Britain by Square Peg.