She walks slowly back up the plane. Once she is again in her seat, Vita will nap, and Joan will be left in the silence she thought she had wanted at the start of the trip but now finds herself fearing.
Joan offers a bottle of water to the big man and is surprised when he takes it, surprised when he smiles and thanks her, and even more surprised when he says to Vita Brodkey, “If you’ll permit me—” and then Vita Brodkey is dangling in the air like the weightless doll that she is, her head close to the ceiling, her feet hanging over the narrow void of navy-blue carpet in front of her seat. Just enough room for Joan to duck and reclaim her corner. “If you’ll permit me—” the Indian man says again, and Joan hears Vita say, “Yes, how lovely,” and Vita Brodkey descends through the air.
“Thank you, kind sir,” Vita Brodkey says to the big man. But he has already recalled himself, his eyes glued to the front of the plane, the bottle of water resting in a hand as big as a mitt. Joan moves this way and that in her seat, trying to see what holds the big man’s attention. She wonders if he is on the trail of a criminal or in search of a lost love, but all she sees are racks of heads, hair in a range of colors, bald spots, a cauliflower ear on a man lifting himself up, rearranging a pillow. It is impossible to identify the furtive or lovelorn from the backs of heads. She glances quickly at the big man, his stare unblinking, his eyes turned inward now. Maybe he’s meditating, Joan thinks.
“Lean forward,” she says quietly to Vita. The pillow, a beige canvas-covered square with a keyhole, fits around Vita’s slender, mottled neck, suddenly poised as if on a chopping block, as if her head has already been relieved of its body.
“Is that comfortable?”
Vita nods, her eyes already closing, like a cat falling into a nap, and within a few minutes, Vita Brodkey, who is journeying to the place of her birth in order to die, is fast asleep.
Outside, the sky has changed again, gone from the deep-diving blue to a calm, solid wash of gray. By Joan’s watch, there are nine hours to go before they land. Soon, shades are lowered and the cabin dark is cut by the movie flashing from the small screens above each seat, where people dressed in sherbet colors are running around on a lawn. All that extruding happiness makes Joan sad. She wonders how many others on board this flight have suffered at the hands of their children, who else wishes they could find themselves in some remembered place where they were once happy. She knows where her own happy place was—at her dining-room table in her East Village apartment, the pages she was writing multiplying. Then Joan is also asleep.
She is dreaming deeply. Great waves of water splashing up from somewhere far below, cool drops raining on her skin. When she peers down, she realizes she is standing over a crevasse, balancing on a tightrope pulled taut between two enormous trees. She thinks, I must be very, very careful; then she feels a tug that excites the wire, and she’s gripping her toes hard, hanging on, regaining her balance, feeling relief, but when she looks behind her, there is Daniel, kneeling, about to pluck the wire again, a deep laugh as he wraps his fingers around it, ready to make it ricochet like a sling.
She wakes to a man’s voice saying, “This is your captain. The local time is nine thirty a.m., and the temperature is 36.67 degrees Celsius, 98 degrees Fahrenheit. For everyone aboard, you might be happy to know that Delhi appears to be in a cooling trend. It is one degree cooler today than it was yesterday.”
Vita, too, is just waking up. The big man seems not to have moved at all.
Thirty minutes later, they have landed. When the plane comes to a stop and the seat-belt sign is turned off, the big man, whose linen suit has remained uncrushed, lifts Vita Brodkey out into the aisle, plows his body backward for a second time, and allows Joan to move out of their row until she stands in front of him. There is a delay in deplaning, they are told, and a groan rises up. It takes only a few minutes before the temperature in the plane rises, the air growing even more stale.
“How are you getting to Udaipur?” the big man asks Vita Brodkey.
“Aren’t you a darling,” Vita says. “A car is picking me up here, driving me there.”
“That’s nearly a ten-hour drive, madam,” the big man says. Vita Brodkey nods happily. “Oh, yes, I know. I want to see the country one last time before I never leave Udaipur again.”
The big man nods, as if what Vita Brodkey has said makes sense. It makes no sense to Joan.
Over Vita’s head, the big man says to Joan, “And you? Where are you going?”
“The Delhi train station.”
“Fine. You’ll both follow me. I’ll get you through baggage claim and customs,” he says, snapping his fingers.
“Oh, marvelous,” Vita says. Joan nods uncertainly. They shared a row of uncomfortable seats for fifteen hours, but he never said a word. He did not introduce himself when they first settled in, and he has not introduced himself amidst this hint of comradeship. Knowing his name would not alter his status as a stranger, but if he can do what he says he can do, she might as well accept his offer.
A breeze meanders through the cabin, too warm to refresh, but the doors have opened, and they are finally disembarking. “Stay close,” the big man says.
*
At the gate, the big man catches a porter’s eyes, nods, and a wheelchair appears in front of them, for Vita, who sits down happily. The big man leads the way, pushing Vita fast, and Joan slings her carryall around her body and hurries to keep up with his pace. He smacks his shoulder into a swinging door, and they are through, into a quiet back alley of the airport, and then into an open-air hangar, where the plane that brought them to Delhi sits like a stranded whale with its belly ripped open. Suitcases and bags and boxes fly through the air, tossed down the line of baggage handlers until they are loaded onto carts.
Three metallic gold suitcases topple out and Vita cries, “There is my suite of suitcases.”
The big man yells, “Sunil,” at one of the handlers, whose uniform is faded and grease-stained. Soon, Sunil has nestled Vita’s bags around her wheelchair, like golden offerings to a queen. A few minutes later, Joan spots her black bag with its jaunty red ribbon. Next to Vita’s aristocratic bags, it looks utilitarian, plebian.
“Everything retrieved?” the big man asks, and Joan feels like a child when she nods.