She writes until a loudspeaker voice says, “Dearest passengers, our wondrous flight to Delhi will soon board and we would be eternally pleased if all of you would be kind enough to prepare by gathering your belongings and making a neat and lovely line.”
Inside the carpeted bay leading from airport to plane, the civilized line dissolves with a boarding delay. Information filters backwards about the cause: an obstinate passenger, an old man, is gripping his wheeled walker, refusing to release it, insisting on rolling to his seat on his own. The voices at the front grow louder, and the trapped mass goes quiet when a male flight attendant says, “Sir. Please. Listen to me. The walker won’t fit in the aisle. No matter what you do, you won’t be able to wheel your own way. Do you understand? We will get you into your seat another way.”
People shift from one foot to another, move bags from one shoulder to the other, stare at the advertisements on the rounded walls, avoid one another’s eyes, and then the flight attendant’s voice rings out again, louder this time. “I do understand, sir. But do you?”
The old man must understand, must relinquish control of his mobility device, must place himself into the unknown hands of others, because there is a swell of movement, and the throng separates, people shifting into place, smiling carefully at those around them, re-forming into a neat line that moves sluggishly onward, heading into the plane.
Joan is two people away from stepping on board. The attendants are checking boarding passes, directing passengers to the various aisles.
A calm flyer under normal conditions, Joan flinches at the sight of the plane’s wide hatch, like the open jaws of a behemoth creature prepared to swallow her whole. One person ahead of her before Joan must step into the jaws of the beast. She has a collapsing fear, a premonition that she ought to run back the way she came, until she is out again in the hubbub of the airport.
There is movement behind her, a jostling against her spine, and she takes a step, and then another one, and she holds up her boarding pass, and then she is inside, and the aisles appear in front of her, long stretches of rows, each three seats across, all the way to the tail of the plane, which is too far away to see. She is in a flux of people, tightly squeezed, but the proximity of all these strangers calms her fear.
Joan looks behind her.
The jaws have turned back into a hatch door, the behemoth is just a plane, and this is a trip she must take.
There is no reversing through the tunnel.
She does not mind all the bodies angling and stretching, the mass of hands avidly forcing bags into the overhead bins. People are scooting down into their seats, arranging their small spaces into semblances of home, kicking off shoes, settling blankets over laps, setting out treats in seat pockets, tucking magazines and newspapers at their sides.
As she inches down her aisle on the far side of the plane, she hears opera, then something orchestral, then a woman’s heartsick voice wailing; rapid bits of music spiraling out from buds in countless ears, a curious soundtrack that accompanies Joan’s steps, the music changing form and construction, rising and falling, seeming to track the journey she is about to make, that she has already begun to take.
Past first class, past business class, she reaches the last curtain that marks entry into economy, where the cheap seats are. The line slows again. The overhead bins are already filled with the bags of those flying in a more comfortable way.
She should have flown first class. Business class at least.
Why did she not think that fleeing home because two sons have stolen her life in different ways earned her some comfort, a deeply reclining leather chair, a footstool that would cradle her feet, as much gratis alcohol as she desires? Martin always flies first class when he is off to save sight and souls. This is her own soul she is going to try to save and she could have used the legroom.
She checks the aisle numbers and here is her seat, located halfway between the restrooms at the front of economy and those in the tail.
The first two seats in her row are already occupied.
In the aisle seat is a solid, middle-aged Indian man who looks like he could be a champion weight lifter. His head, a gleaming brown dome. His suit is linen, his striped tie a broad knot at his throat; he is impeccably dressed for a fifteen-hour flight.
The middle seat holds an old woman, teeny, not much bigger than a doll. She is creased and wrinkled and rheumy-eyed. Her eyes, though, beneath their cloudy scrim, sparkle like emeralds. And she is bright. She is very bright. Her cheeks rouged a happy pink. Her sweater a hot pink, the vibrant color masking the heavy load on her sloped, thin shoulders.
She looks up at Joan and smiles. “Hello, darling. Are you here, next to me?” pointing to the seat next to the window.
“Yes. So sorry,” Joan says.
The big man steps out into the aisle, one hand in the pocket of his crisp vanilla suit, the matching elbow crooked. He is dressed to promenade a lady in the park, but the idea of a courtly Indian gentleman vanishes when he plows backward, forcing the people behind him to make way. There is audible displeasure, but when he glances back at the muttering, the noise evaporates.
The old woman must make her way now. Seated, her feet don’t touch the cabin floor. One foot locates it, plants itself shakily, then she shifts forward, until her other foot finds its way. She warily lifts her body until she is standing, tottering really, and she smiles up at Joan, as if Joan’s face might provide her with the necessary strength to carry on, then she takes a cautious sideways step, then another, again and again, until she has cleared the outside armrest, and Joan can squeeze past, move into the row, settle into her seat.
Already she is dreading the future hour when she will need to use the restroom, require them both to give way once again.
The flight attendants roam the aisles, checking seat belts, slamming closed the overhead bins, forcing everyone’s eyes forward for the speech about emergency maneuvers in the event of a crash on land or at sea.
Joan listens for a minute and turns away. No one on this plane would survive a crash landing on any surface.
Then the plane is racing down the runway, the scream of rushing air, the nose lifting up, vibrating seconds of suspended uncertainty.
They are aloft.
Part II
TRUTH IS BEAUTIFUL; SO ARE LIES
Ralph Waldo Emerson, bastardized
Satya sundara hai; jhū?h bhi vaisa hi hai
30
Recording #1
… I’ve considered how best to start, and I think it is like this: