Girl on a Plane (11 page)

I stand in the doorway, watching the others move a little way off from the guards waiting at the bottom. Now it's my turn to go down. I wish I were wearing shorts, not my miniskirt. Hoping desperately that no one is looking up, I start climbing down the rough wooden ladder propped against the plane. I try to hold my skirt down as well as the rope slanting alongside, but the rope wobbles so violently, I have to let go and hold on to the ladder with both hands. God, this is so embarrassing. Which is worse—​Sweaty seeing my underwear or David? It's a long way down. The sun's heat burns the back of my legs.

Strong arms help me down the last bit. I feel the metal bed of the Jeep under my feet and turn around. The young guy whose ammo belt I got caught on looks solemnly down at me, his eyes a startling green. I blush and thank him.
Shukran.
He immediately springs down onto the sand and holds out both hands to help me again.

I withdraw my hands as quickly as I can, covered with confusion. He smiles, and his face lights up, quite transformed.

I'm relieved to feel the hard, compacted sand under my feet, but the light here is blinding and the desert wind hot and relentless. I screw up my eyes and peer far off, at the wavering heat sheen distorting the horizon.

I turn and squint up at the great, smooth white body of the plane, shining high overhead, see the thick stripe down the side and the great, tapered, swept-back wings reaching out well down the body. I look up at the navy nose cone, with its slanting rectangular windows, at the windshield wipers lying still and quiet on the glass, and feel the enormous, majestic plane looking softly down at me.

A huge Palestinian flag has been draped alongside the open door. Its red triangle with black, white, and green stripes ripples in the hot wind. Above it, painted in black, are the letters
P.F.L.P.
—​the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The sun beats down on my head. Instinctively I step back into the shade under the plane where the others are sheltering.

“Och yes, she's a great flier,” Jim's telling David and Tim, “especially in hot and humid countries. She's perfectly made for high-speed landings and takeoffs.” He looks up at the plane's underbelly. “Her body shrinks and expands in the heat and cold, you know.”

“What? A lot?” Tim asks.

“Aye—​well, enough.” Jim grins. “Looks like it's our turn.” The captain is about to be led away to talk to the reporters. Jim catches up with him. Two guerrillas take them over to the crowd of reporters ranged behind a makeshift cordon of rope. Cameras click continuously as they approach. Some reporters have their notepads out; others are filming. Someone calls out a question.

“Yes,” the captain says, somehow managing to look dignified in his crumpled shirt. “We were ordered to shut the engines down, which means no water, toilets, or air-conditioning. The passengers are very uncomfortable. The heat during the day, as you can imagine, is pretty awful, and at night it's extremely cold. During the day we open the escape hatches when we can, to let more air in. We've had no proper food since we landed, despite the Red Cross meals that are apparently waiting for us in Beirut. And, although we have a little water at the moment, it's having to be severely rationed.”

“Do you know what's going on back in London?” a man holding a clipboard shouts.

“We know we face the possibility of being blown up if the British government doesn't release Leila Khaled by midday on Saturday.”

It's Jim's turn to answer questions. He steps forward, the back of his shirt dark with sweat.

“Can you tell us what it was like landing the VC Ten in the middle of the desert?” a man in mirror sunglasses calls.

“Well, it wasn't quite what we were expecting to be doing, but luckily the ground was firm, thank God. The main risk was running out of fuel before we located the landing strip.”

“How are you all coping with the deadline?” a woman calls.

“Not too badly. We have a day or so yet.”

“So how are you coping otherwise?” she insists.

“Ah, well, things turned a bit nasty last night but soon calmed down. We're finding the lack of food and drink difficult, but generally we're managing to keep our spirits up.”

“Can we have a shot of those three kids under the plane now?” a man holding a TV camera shouts.

“A
shot,
” mutters David. “Subtle.”

“One of them filming earlier,” Tim says, “asked if I was missing my parents.”

“What did you say?”

“I said of course I wasn't.”

“What? Why? Was that wise?” I ask.

“It's our code,” Tim replies. “Dad'll know. We always say we're not missing each other when we are.”

How I wish that I could send a message to Marni, coded or not. I look at the press, jostling for position behind their rope, and wish I had the guts to shout something out to them. Maybe, if I could get closer, I could ask them to contact my family. But where? In Bahrain? In the UK? Where?

At least I'll have my picture taken. In the end, that may be the best message I can send: a picture of me alive—​if they ever see it. We wait for Jim and the captain to be escorted back to us.

I look at the reporters, so busy with their equipment. “They aren't
really
interested in what this feels like, are they?” I say to David.

“No,” he agrees. “They're just out here to get their story, and the story is . . . we're going to be blown up.”

“David!” I give him a
not in front of the children
look. He opens his mouth to reply, but Sweaty pushes us from behind, out into the searingly bright sunlight.

Now I can see the luggage piled up under the wing and the circular grilles on the engines whirling in the wind. And, farther off, the TWA plane parked behind us.

The photographers are shouting instructions and pointing. “Farther to the right, no, farther, yes, more, no, there.” We obey wordlessly, squinting into the sun at the banks of cameras.

We must look like we're just out for a stroll in the desert.

I glance back at the captain and Jim, sheltering under the plane, see the two other planes shimmering in the distance and our three distorted shadows slanting a long, long way behind us. We stop, as directed, with our plane behind us, its wings outstretched like a huge mother bird's.

As we stand there in the desert, I feel the hot wind sucking the moisture from the land and from my body. It ripples my T-shirt, tugs at my skirt, flipping the wrap-over open. I try holding it down with one hand, but the wind tosses my hair up around my head, into my eyes. I reach with the other hand and hold my hair down behind my neck in a ponytail. Gritty sand whisked up by the wind stings my legs and arms. I screw up my eyes against the sun. And the cameras continue to whir and click, click and whir.

All too soon I'm back on the plane, wondering what happened out there. What it was all about. And what good it will do us.

I lie across my three seats, feeling exhausted and wondering when and if I'll ever leave the plane again. My head throbs now; my arms and legs ache. I'm so hungry, so empty, that I feel as if I have no substance, as if I've been completely hollowed out.

And I think how crazy it is that the reporters managed to get here, to Amman, and out into the desert to come aboard the plane, but no one thought about bringing us the meals from Beirut or any water—​or anything.

I watch the reporters packing up their photographic gear and climbing back into their minibuses, and I feel disappointed, betrayed, even. If this were a movie, we'd have been rescued by now. But it's not a movie—​it's real, and no one can possibly rescue us with all these explosives on board.

A man walks up and down, slamming the minibus doors shut. Then they're off, snaking their way across the desert, until the last one disappears in a trail of red dust. The dust settles and the desert is still again. And it's as if none of them were ever here.

Rosemary sits down in the empty aisle seat and drops several long packets of duty-free cigarettes into the seat between us. “Phew! It's hot!” she says. “We're nearly out of duty-free now. I can't offer a meal, so may as well keep everyone's spirits up. And these are the last few packets of cigarettes. Everyone's smoking like chimneys—​have you noticed? Do you want any? Do you smoke?”

“Only occasionally,” I say. “And not in front of my parents.”

“Well, you're welcome to have one of these. A present for someone when you get home, perhaps.” She passes over a carton of two hundred Rothmans.

“Thanks.”

“Tim was funny,” Rosemary says. “He asked if he could take some to give to his dad.”

“Really? And did you give him some?”

“I'm afraid I did. I didn't want to ruin his reputation in front of the twins.”

“They look so sweet.”

“Yes, they are. Quite mischievous too.” Rosemary looks at me. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, all right . . .” I hesitate.

“I heard about you and the skinny hijacker.” Rosemary grimaces.

I shrug, noncommittal. She's so nice, but I wish she wouldn't be kind. It reminds me of Marni and makes everything much more difficult, pierces my hopelessly thin armor.

“Hungry, I expect.”

“Mmm, and thirsty,” I say.

“You know, they're promising us food tonight.”

I look up. “That's good. If we can wait that long!”

“Did I hear the word
food?
” David swings into the aisle seat opposite us.

“Only
some,
” Rosemary says. “And, frankly, I'll believe it when I see it. I don't want to raise your hopes. Up at the front, we've been distracting each other with recipes.”

David groans. “That sounds like torture.”

“My mother's sherry trifle and the curry in the officers' mess were definite favorites,” Rosemary says.

“Don't,
please,
” David says.

“Oh, and bacon sandwiches,” she adds.

“Oh God. I can smell them.” David closes his eyes and swallows.

“Spaghetti Bolognese with grated Parmesan,” I say. “Then homemade vanilla ice cream . . .”

“Ah . . . with melted chocolate on top!” adds Rosemary.

“
So
cruel!” David grimaces. But then he grins at us. “I'd have—​a hamburger and chips with loads of tomato sauce, or a great slab of steak, grilled mushrooms, garlic butter . . .” He stops and shakes his head. “Now I
really
know what it feels like when your stomach caves in.”

I glance out my window at the circle of Jeeps and the tanks beyond. “Are they definitely the king of Jordan's tanks, Rosemary?”

“Yes.”

“Why are the guns trained on us, then?” I ask. “They can hardly pick off the hijackers, so what's going on?”

“I don't know. But we've been talking to the very tall hijacker.”

“The Giant,” I say.

She laughs. “Yes. He says all his comrades are Palestinians who've been living in refugee camps here in Jordan for years and years, ever since they were forced out of Palestine. They think that the rest of the world has ignored what's happened to them, so this is what they've had to do to get attention—​and help. They're desperate, he says; otherwise they wouldn't be doing it, and they are hoping against hope that someone will help them return to their homes in Palestine. They say they've been driven to take action, including taking over areas of Jordan and putting up roadblocks, so the king of Jordan's making his presence felt with those tanks. I just hope it doesn't end up in a civil war.”

“Are they actually fighting each other?” David asks.

“I don't think so, not yet, but we don't really know. Syria, on the other border, is looking like it might get involved.”

“Invade Jordan?” I say.

“Possibly.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. To stop the unrest?”

“Then we'll be in the middle of a war as well!”

“Well, let's hope not.” But she doesn't sound sure.

“So all we can do is sit here,” I say, feeling desperate, “and wait for it to happen?”

“Well, not entirely.” Rosemary smiles. “The captain's arranging for each of us to send a telegram to Ted Heath.”

“Ted Heath, the prime minister?”

“Yes, the British prime minister, to try to persuade him to release the Palestinian terrorist captured in London. The hijackers are obviously behind the idea too.”

“Was she the one on the Israeli plane flying from Amsterdam?” I ask.

“Yes, to New York. It was rerouted to London. Do you know, Leila Khaled is only twenty-something, my age—​imagine. Apparently she wears a ring made from a bullet.”

What happens to make you end up hijacking a plane in your early twenties? I wonder. Something
very
serious. And what can it be like to be made to leave your home and country? Become homeless? I really want to know, to make sense of it. I know what it's like to move so often, but we always have a home to go to. We always have a choice.

“Celia! Where's Rosemary?” It's Mr. Newton, and he sounds very drunk. “Yes, Rosemary.” His voice is querulous. “I want her. She promised me . . .”

Rosemary stands up. “I'd better go. I'm not sure that Celia should have given the Newtons an entire bottle of whiskey. They've drunk half of it already.”

Tim's spending more and more time with the twins. They've all rolled up their sleeves and walk around with their school shirts unbuttoned and flapping to try to keep cool. Lucky them, I say. I even heard Tim begging Rosemary to cut the legs off his school trousers.

He says the twins are very impressed with Fred. They have an agreement: if they can have Fred sitting on their table with the lid open, they'll let Tim read their comics. He doesn't let Fred out of his sight, though. Ever. They've also swapped their Spirograph for his Etch A Sketch, and right now the three of them are talking to one another up and down the aisle on walkie-talkies.