“Wait one moment,” said a woman as I started putting my shoes back on. “You go with him.”
I looked up to see a serious-looking man staring at me from the side of the scanners. I grabbed Gobi—still in her carry-on bag—and my luggage and followed him down a narrow corridor. He showed me into a sparse, windowless room that had nothing much more than a desk, two chairs, and a large bin full of confiscated lighters and water bottles.
Keep calm, Dion. Keep calm.
The guy stared at my passport and boarding pass and started typing at the computer. Minutes passed, and still he didn’t speak. I wondered what it was that I’d done or said that could have landed me in trouble. I knew I hadn’t outstayed my visa, and it had been weeks since I’d last given an interview. Could it be the pills that Lucja had given me to help keep Gobi calm during the flight?
More typing. More silence. Then, suddenly, he spoke. “We check dog.”
My heart sank. I knew two hundred was far too cheap a price to pay to sort things out. And I knew that by now Kiki would be gone, and even though I had a file stuffed with paperwork from the vet, including proof that Gobi’s vaccinations were up-to-date and that she’d passed the ninety-day assessment required before she could be brought into the UK, I’d have absolutely no chance of explaining anything to anyone. Without Kiki, I’d be at the mercy of Chinese bureaucracy.
The guy stopped typing, picked up the phone, and spoke for a moment.
“You wait minute,” he said, once he had hung up and turned back to his keyboard.
Gobi was still in her bag, which I was clutching on my lap. Through the mesh I could see her looking up at me. I wanted to tell her that it was going to be okay, to get her out and give her a cuddle to reassure her—as well as myself—but doing so wasn’t worth the risk.
So I waited. It was the longest minute of my life.
The phone rang. I listened to one half of the conversation, clueless about what was being said or what the outcome might be.
“Okay,” he said eventually. “Dog cleared to fly. You go.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Fly.”
I hurried back down the corridor, past the scanning machines, and eventually to the terminal. I found an empty gate and took Gobi out to give her a drink. I heard some French people nearby count down and burst into cheers. I checked my watch. It was midnight. The most remarkable year of my life was over. The next adventure was about to begin.
“Listen, Gobi,” I said to her. “You hear that? It means we bloody well did it! We made it here, and we’re about to go. It’s going to be a long journey, but trust me that it’ll all be worth it. When we get to Edinburgh, you’ll see; life is going to be amazing.”
Air France made sure that the seat next to mine was empty, so even though Gobi had to stay in her carry-on bag for the duration, we travelled in style. She was a little unsettled as we took off, but as soon as I could put her bag on my lap, she calmed again.
I watched the in-flight map and waited until we flew over the Gobi Desert. It put a smile on my face to see Urumqi flash up and think about the way a city I’d never heard of a year earlier had become so significant to me now.
The cabin lights were dimmed, and my fellow passengers went to sleep. I turned the seat into a bed and quietly took Gobi out of the bag. She had started to get a little restless again, but as soon as she curled up in my arm, she fell into a deep, deep sleep.
I closed my eyes and remembered what it felt like to run on the long day. I could feel the heat all over again, the way the air was so hot it threatened to scorch my lungs. I saw Tommy struggling to stand and remembered the desperate search for shade. I also remembered that even though I was faint and queasy and worried that I might not make it out alive, I knew that if I did, I would do everything I could to make sure that Gobi and I spent the rest of our lives together.
I couldn’t hold back the tears when I saw Lucja at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Gobi, on the other hand, couldn’t hold back the fourteen hours of pee that her little bladder had stored up. I’d taken puppy pads with me and tried to get her to do her business on the plane, but she had refused. Only when she stood on the highly polished floor right in the middle of the concourse did she finally feel ready to let go.
I was sure that the rest of the journey home was going to be a simple affair, and we even made a detour into the city to show Gobi the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. After that we headed north to Belgium first, and then on to Amsterdam and the home of Lucja’s uncle, aunt, and cousins.
Seeing their excitement at meeting Gobi for the first time reminded me of the way people had responded to Gobi’s story in 2016. The year had been full of sad news, from celebrity deaths to terrorist attacks. Much of the world had been divided by politics, but I’d read many comments from people who felt Gobi was one of the few good news stories that restored their faith in human nature. In a year marked by grief and fear, Gobi’s story was a beacon of light. After a shower and a rest, Lucja, Gobi, and I said goodbye to the family and made our way to the ferry terminal that was just around the corner from the house. Lucja had spent weeks persuading the ferry company to bend the rule that forced dog owners to leave their pets in their cars or keep the dogs in the kennels provided on board. There was no way that was going to work for Gobi, and the company had finally agreed that we could take her with us in a cabin.
So I thought boarding would be easy and we were going to be fine. Nothing could go wrong, could it?
Well, yes, it could. And it did. Almost.
The moment we handed over Gobi’s pet passport at the check-in desk, the air changed. The woman behind the counter was flicking manically back and forth across the pages, a look of total confusion on her face.
“Do you need some help?” said Lucja in Dutch. “What are you looking for?”
“I can’t read it,” she said. “It’s all in Chinese. If I can’t read it, I can’t let you on.”
She called her superior over, and the two of them riffled through the pages all over again.
“We can’t read it,” said the boss. “You can’t come on board.”
Lucja had spent weeks learning about all the various requirements for moving a dog across borders, and she knew the rules inside out. She carefully and calmly showed both of them which stamp related to which vaccination, but it was no use. They weren’t changing their minds, and until they did, Gobi was stuck in Holland.
Then I remembered the stack of paperwork that Kiki had given me for when we reached UK border control. It was all the same information but in English. I handed it all over, watched them look through it all carefully, and listened to them finally make some encouraging noises.