In the novel Absent in the Spring, Princess Sasha Hohenbach Salm is a Russian princess. She was married to a German man and had lived in Italy for a long time and as a result could speak nine languages fluently. She traveled from Aleppo to Istanbul on the Taurus Express. From there she would travel to Vienna, to see her doctor. Sasha is very certain that there will be a war, and that it's very unlikely that the Germans will win it.
On the Taurus Express she shared compartment with Joan Scudamore and they talked much together.