by Joan Barfoot
Where the hell are they going, and why is it taking so long? She is so very thirsty; she could drink dark water from puddles, sweat from her companion’s skin, ice from wings, blood from a stone. She would kill for a coffee, die for a Scotch.
Well no, hardly that.
Suddenly they’re passing through a set of automatic doors into a blast of heat and damp-woolly smells, a huge blank grey high-ceilinged room filling rapidly with vivid rescuers and drab rescuees.
So many faces! Some ring a bell, but from what circumstances, exactly? Moisture rises, making the atmosphere steamy.
The smell of coffee is filtering through the air. Shrugging the heavy blanket back off her shoulders, Lila heads for the source, and the yellow arm falls away, too. There are no cameras here.
She’s still grinning, and why not? Why isn’t everyone? But uneasy people shift out of her path, as if she’s the odd one in a room filling with shivering, stunned survivors.
They, too, should get rid of those awful wet blankets.
Isn’t this lovely, isn’t it kind—thoughtful people have set up a long table with cookies, and glasses of orange juice in rows, and huge urns of coffee and tea. Just the thing.
Lila smiles at a plump woman behind the table, takes a cold orange juice, downs it in a swallow. “Coffee too, please.” She can at least hear her own voice, and is gratified that it’s steady and firm.
It’s a bloody great miracle, this hard, durable floor under her feet. Looking around, she sees yellow-slickered figures moving through the growing crowd like fireflies, and survivors emerging from their blankets to reveal jungle-bird splendours.
Her own flattened reflection in the shining, silvery urn is briefly startling. Doesn’t she look younger than when she started out, and wouldn’t it make better sense if she looked considerably older? She leans forward, peering, and her features flatten further in the percolator’s curve. Her hair is godawful, all over the place.
Her hair is brown. That’s why she looks younger, she dyed it last night. She’d forgotten. Just last night. Time is as distorted as reflections in curved, shiny surfaces.
The plump coffee woman looks both concerned and benevolent; the kind of person Lila imagines would be a good mother. Lila would not have been a good mother. For one thing, she lacks the sweet, come-to-my-bosom countenance of good mothers, like this woman.
“Thank you,” she says, taking the cup, taking a sip. But it’s loaded with sugar, practically syrup, not straight and spine-stiffening the way Lila likes it. “Could I trade this for a black, please?” She offers the cup back. “And is there a bar someplace here? Is there a real drink to be had?”
She can’t quite make out the answer, but concentrating on the plump woman’s lips, trying to read them, she also can’t make out a clear yes or no. The woman is frowning slightly, in a worried, not disapproving, sort of way, and pushes the sugary coffee back, nodding insistently. She has spoken what look like several full sentences before she gestures to someone over Lila’s shoulder. Lila supposes she may have one of those accents that are hard to understand anyway, never mind having to lip-read.
Turning, Lila finds a man at her side. He, like the woman, looks earnest and concerned, although lacking her maternal appeal. He’s wearing a white jacket, somewhat stained and disordered, and she assumes he’s somebody medical. “I can’t hear what you’re saying,” she tells him loudly, as if he’s the deafened one. She keeps smiling widely, though, in what ought to be a reassuring way but apparently is not.
Nobody seems as pleased by events as she is. Of course there are flaws, naturally there are. What pleasure is ever quite pure? But they’re here, they’re alive, and that’s as good as a day like this gets.
It doesn’t look as if Tom would agree.
It’s a shock to see him coming through the door under the guiding arm of his own slickered protector. Her heart leaps at the sight of him, out of habit, or love.
She didn’t exactly forget him, but she did somehow forget she is not entirely solitary here.
He isn’t grinning, or even smiling. He looks, in fact, decidedly grim. She should be hurrying towards him, arms open.
She sips her sweet coffee. He is a balding, beautifully boned, slightly pot-bellied man whom she has apparently loved mainly for his energies and appetites. Even morose or disgruntled, he has felt big to her, oversized in his desires, wanting much and daring quite a lot.
Now he looks ordinary. Deflated and fretful. Wild-eyed, of course, but who isn’t? One arm of his shirt is ripped, and his trousers, like her own, are grimy. He has a bruise on his forehead, which is purple and bleeding a little, but it doesn’t look serious.
He looks very serious.
“I would really, very much, like a Scotch right now,” she tells the white-jacketed man. Through the peculiar din in her head, she makes out a few words: “medical ... wait” and even “forbidden.” Imagine forbidding anything to the people in this room! Surely they are no longer likely to be, if they ever were, people who take no for an answer.
At least she’s beginning to catch words here and there. Before she approaches Tom, though, she wants to be able to hear precisely the words he says first, when he sees her alive and uninjured. “Oh my darling, you’re safe, nothing else matters, you are the world to me now,” she imagines, and hears herself snort. The medical person looks very concerned and reaches out for her arm.
A day like this does not make them children. Quite the reverse, Lila would say. This fellow, whoever he is, knows nothing at all.
She is dazzled by life, amazed by death, and astonished by what the tiny space in between can contain. Parts of her, and not just parts of her body, feel wrenched into unfamiliar shapes and postures. In time they will probably come to feel natural.
She is blessed with time, thanks to the determined struggles of the plane, now abandoned out in the chilly darkness, terribly wounded. How carelessly she hurried away from it the first chance she had. That’s very sad. Only, it was a mad scramble, confused and noisy and desperate, and she simply forgot to feel grateful or tender.
Tom, of course, that good man, behaved well.
He is looking around anxiously, presumably for her. Is it cruel of her to take shelter behind a tall back?
Someone else who behaved well was the big man by the emergency exit. As it turned out, he was a cool and orderly figure who must have saved a number of people, including herself, and possibly Tom.
That moment of silence when the plane trembled to its halt was only that: a moment. Then, terrified people scrambling over seats and each other in the sudden darkness, struggling and pushing, discipline and civility, as she’d suspected, mainly vanished.
Tom, gripping her wrist, shoved his own body forcibly into the aisle past pressing bodies and loud voices, pulling her after him, making space for her firmly in front of him. His eyes were narrow, lips tight. Also as she’d suspected, there was no way to make out the emergency lines beneath all the trampling feet.
A voice from the cockpit was only dimly audible in the uproar. Some people shouted, “Let’s keep calm, take care,” but the message wasn’t widely heard or heeded.
Tom, behaving well and sternly, as no doubt other quiet, decent people did, released Lila’s wrist and pushed her forward, letting Susie and her mother into line between them. Lila heard a man protesting, Susie and her mother crying, and Tom’s hardest, coldest tone of voice. She lost track of him then.
He is a good man. A man who does good. She watches him take a coffee from a woman, with a quick, distressed smile that gets nowhere near his eyes.
Her heart goes out to him, but the rest of her is still unwilling. She isn’t ready to deal with his despair; although it’s possible this day has transformed his heart, as well, and despair may be the farthest thing from his mind.
It would be difficult, from his bleak expression, to imagine so, however.
The plane’s emergency exits opened into tunnels, dark flowers blooming downwards. The big man braced himself against the open space. “One at a time,” he commanded. “Go easy, don’t push. Efficient and safe, that’s what we want.” He had a rumbling, chesty sort of voice which, if it didn’t exactly stop people in their tracks, at least held authority.
Where was Sheila? Saving lives, maybe, or dealing with injuries, or overcome. Lila didn’t hear anyone question why the big man should take charge, and found she rather wanted, herself, to live up to his demands.
He counted off people with a touch to the shoulder and down they went, into the chute, vanishing into the night. “You there,” he ordered someone pushing behind her, “get back and be quiet. Your turn’s coming.” She felt almost docile, nearly safe. She turned briefly, searching for a glimpse of Tom, but then the big man touched her shoulder, said “Go!” and she slipped obediently past him, onto her ass and down.
Where is he now? “I’ll come,” he said, “when you’ve all gone through properly.” As if his restraint guaranteed their survival, and as if his appearance would be a reward for their restraint. Who was he before today, and what was he flying towards? No fleeing wife-killer, after all. Was he surprised by himself, taking charge in a critical turn of events, or is that normal for him?
If it’s the kind of decisive, stony man he always is, what sort of day-to-day companion would he be? Rather difficult, perhaps.
Lila once had great, if ill-defined, hopes. She sees, peering towards Tom around shoulders and between bodies, that love has been one great thing; if hardly the only thing.
Who else is here? Who else is okay?
She can’t spot Sheila, but perhaps the crew was taken elsewhere. They probably have more difficult hours ahead; obviously there will be investigations.
Susie’s mother is sitting cross-legged on the floor, against a wall off to Lila’s right. Her face is buried in Susie’s neck, with Susie curled into her lap, and they are rocking back and forth together. Now there’s relief, and joy, and love.
Jimmy and Mel are obviously fine, too. They stand out even in this brightening crowd, all high handsomeness and striking posture. They’re twenty steps and a world away from Lila, narrow bodies folded together, heads tipped into each other’s shoulders, swaying as if they hear slow music playing.
For all Lila knows, there is music playing.
She’s happy for them. They’re almost certainly among the people here who will make the most of the results of the day.
She’s happy for Sarah, too, whom she spots standing over to the left, with a woman bending towards her holding a steaming cup. It’s like watching one of those time-lapse photography programs that show a plant growing, unfolding, beginning to blossom. Sarah nods, sips, and slowly, slowly begins to look up, look around, her eyes focusing, her body straightening. Rejoining the land of the living, Lila thinks.
Sarah spots her and grins, a big, wide, full, sudden grin. She raises her fist, a gesture of defiance and victory. Lila grins back, raising hers in return.
This is a victory. They have taken part in a triumph.
Sarah’s sister will be waiting somewhere in the terminal. Whole different dramas will have been endured by anxious people waiting on the ground. Probably they’ve been herded into a huge room of their own, to be fed syrupy coffee and careful, hopeful words. In that room, too, there will have been weeping and suspense, some unfortunate behaviour and some acts of virtue, and also, in some instances, no doubt some reconsiderations.
Lila imagines Sarah and her sister will be spectacularly glad to see each other. Soon, Sarah will be jumping with impatience; unless she has changed, too, and no longer speaks whatever comes into her head. Her husband may well find her a surprise when she gets home. Her children may be puzzled.
Lila can’t see Adele, but she’s little and easily lost in a crowd. Also she is old, and may have been one of those whisked off by ambulance. Her bones could be as brittle as her faith.
“Brittle” is one of those appealing, ambiguous words Lila likes: implying something breakable when referring to bones, but something much harsher in connection with faith.
It’s a relief to feel words coming back.
Her hearing, too, is sorting itself out. She can distinguish some individual voices now. “Jesus Christ,” she hears. And “How long till we get out of here?” and “I don’t have a thing; I can’t even prove who I am,” and “I swear to god, I’ll never fly again.” Nearby, a man’s sceptical tone: “It probably wasn’t even that serious. Nobody tells the truth about anything. I bet they ditched our luggage for nothing.”
This, Lila thinks, is a truly impressive cynicism. She has an impulse to say to him, “Asshole.” She was a gentler woman, with gentler impulses, when she couldn’t hear. She laughs, but only to herself.
A bulky, grey-haired woman barrels through, talking loudly although not to anyone in particular. “Did anybody see what’s going on out there? The plane’s on fire. I heard there’re three people dead, a couple and an old woman. Dead! Never mind how many hurt. My god!”
Is this true?
It could have happened easily in that dark stampede. Briefly, Lila feels herself back there, her own breath being squeezed, her own bones crushed. To have all those hours, and all that fear, desire and grace, turn out fatally—tears finally come to her eyes. It seems they’re for everything. Everything.
She hopes the couple was content, being together. She hopes the old woman was not Adele.
She hopes what the bulky grey-haired woman said is not true.
Imagine making it all the way to that moment of stillness, to have life right in your sights, and then to be trampled by frantic fellow passengers also with life right in their sights.
Terrible, too, to know yourself later as one of those with frantic feet.
And the poor plane, getting just as far as it needed to, doing the very best it could, and then not being saved, itself.
So much for Tom’s letter. It’ll be burned to a crisp.
She laughs again, about that at least, and oh hell, here’s that white-jacketed fellow back at her side. “Please, come sit down. We’ll get you looked after in no time.” Now that she can hear him, she decides his voice has a rather pleasing, lilting cadence. Something northern, nearly Scottish. She smiles at him, but pulls away. “Are you injured?” he is asking. “Are you hurt?”
Hard to say, really. Her soul feels somewhat bashed, if that counts, but she doesn’t suppose there’s much aid here for battered souls. “Just fine,” she says brightly. “I had a little trouble hearing, but that’s fixed itself, and now I’m perfectly fine.”
“Are you with anyone?”
“Yes, I just spotted him away over there,” and she gestures in a direction far from Tom. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go let him know I’m all right, and make sure he is too. I do thank you for your concern, though.”
How very kind people can be. She is again suddenly, profoundly, fond of each one here, and very glad to be among them still.
Someone with a microphone is setting out to create order, bringing everyone back to normal life.
There will be those forms to fill out, practical matters to be dealt with. Spirits will begin to enclose themselves, the trembling of remembered terror will gradually ease. Love and gratitude will lose their most acute, sharp edges.
Strands of people are already forming into structures, patterns of movement are developing, attentions are being gathered up and aimed in one direction.
It turns out not to be very difficult to slip away.
Lila keeps an eye on Tom as she works her way around the edge of the crowd towards an unobtrusive, unmarked grey door. He is a rare, kind, funny, cold-tempered, greedy, generous man who has desired everything, and tried very hard. Now events crash down on him. He looks lost and sad, and also quite worried. H
e is still trying to manage two things at once.
She would like at least to be able to comfort him, but can’t afford to. These moments of clear possibility are rare in a life, as briefly illuminated as strobes or fireflies.
He will be frantic, but although it’s cruel, and hardly the same, she has worried at times about him. When he’s been out of touch. Off on a trip. Driving through hazards without her. Or at home with his wife.
Later he’ll be terribly angry, but there have been times Lila’s been angry with him, including today. He will grieve, too, but there have been hours and days when sorrow has emptied her heart.
This isn’t vengeance, merely something she knows.
The grey door opens into a very long, grey, narrow corridor. Sliding through, she could still slide back; it’s not too late.
Far away, she can see another unmarked door. She feels each step, remembering her yearning not long ago to have her feet on firm ground, heels touching, toes touching, moving forward.
The next door opens into another hallway, and shuts behind her with a click.
The silence now is so impressive it almost feels solid, and she stops for a moment. There are also not many truly silent moments in a life.
In this passage, red arrows have been painted on the walls, pointing only ahead. It still isn’t too late, though, never mind locked doors. Nothing is irretrievable yet. She is creating irretrievability, however, by heading towards something which may not be quite familiar, but which is there for her to put her hands to, her mind on. Something touchable.
A day like this is a gift, although a monstrous one.
It turns out, as she pushes open the next door, that she has reached a broad and finally familiar concourse. She’s never before been in the customs and immigration hall when it’s empty, but the painted lines and signs and booths are recognizable and oddly, comfortingly, homey. She only came at it from an unusual angle, that’s all, possibly following the private route of employees or baggage.
Now she knows where she is.
