Girl on a Plane (7 page)

“We need to go through all these used trays in the carts,” she explains, “and pick out any wrapped food that's left. Only unopened stuff, mind you. Excuse me,” she says a little sharply to Sweaty, who's in the way. He moves to one side, and she kneels down and slides out the top tray from one of the metal cabinets. “Crackers, cheese, cans of soda and water, especially water. Remember, leave anything that's been opened. Isn't it crazy?” she says. “We've got masses of duty-free booze, cigarettes, perfume, but hardly any food or water. They might have thought that one through in Beirut.” She picks up a sealed pack of crackers. “Pile it up on here, and we'll share it all later. Why don't you start on this cart?” She points to the one nearest the aisle.

I start sliding the trays out one by one and sifting through them. Loads of people have taken only one bite or spoonful and then left the rest, not able to eat then, like me, I suppose. They must be regretting it now. I certainly am. What I'd do to be offered that tray full of food again.

Though I'm uncomfortable having Sweaty's gun trained on my back, it's good to be somewhere else, doing something different, bending and stretching, not having to think about missing Marni or Tim's sad story or being blown up.

Suddenly the chief steward, Alan, steps past Sweaty and into the galley.

“Oh, hello,” Rosemary says with a quick smile. “This is Anna.”

“How're you doing?” Alan says to me. He's probably thirty-something but looks older, worn out—​as worn as Rosemary looks fresh.

“I'm OK, thanks,” I say, pushing a tray in and pulling out another.

“What brings you down here?” Rosemary asks him.

“Well, as you know,” he says airily, “I just can't leave you alone.” Rosemary shares a long-suffering look with me. “Actually,” he says, “I thought you might like a hand.” He starts rolling up his shirtsleeves, and I find myself wishing he hadn't come. Being with just Rosemary felt much less complicated.

“Celia and I have finished going through the food cabinets at the front,” Alan says, dropping a small can of tonic on the counter. “Not much there, I'm afraid. Why we didn't take on meals in Beirut I'll never understand.”

“Well, let's hope we have more luck here.” Rosemary adds a tiny can of tomato juice to the meager collection. “Anna sits between the two boys in row ten, by the way.”

“Do you, now?” Alan grins at me. There's a dark edge to his smile where some of his side teeth are missing. I go on searching through the trays. He comes and kneels by me. “Yeah, we only found a few crackers at the front.” His face close up is clammy and pockmarked. “Oh, and some peaches and about eight bread rolls.”

Rosemary sighs. “That's not a lot, is it? We've got ninety-eight passengers and seven crew members to feed. Oh well, we'll just have to cut them up and share them as best we can.”

Alan wipes the back of his hand across his forehead. “They say they might be able to get us some tomatoes and grapes and more water by tomorrow. Just hope they mean it. We'll be pretty desperate by then. I've explained that we have passengers with low-blood-sugar problems, diabetics and the like, who need regular food. Doesn't seem to register, though.”

I take a surreptitious look back at Sweaty. His eyes range restlessly up and down the cabin, then back to us. I turn quickly and concentrate on the trays.

“Ta-da!” Rosemary pulls out an intact can of pineapple juice.

“You know that couple with the pocket radio, the Newtons?” Alan asks. “They say our hijacking was on the last news. Apparently the PFLP has roadblocks in some parts of the capital, Amman, and the king of Jordan's sending tanks in to surround the hijackers. So it's all heating up, with us in the middle. Even the Syrians are massing troops on the border . . .” Rosemary shoots Alan a look over my head, stopping him in his tracks. But it's too late, I've heard too much, and it doesn't sound good—​
With us in the middle.

“I've been through the duty-free, by the way,” Alan says. “Got plenty of booze and a few sodas, loads of gold-plated Dunhill lighters, Nina Ricci scarves, Pierre Cardin stockings, cognac, miniatures, Peter Stuyvesant and Gitanes cigarettes—​but no water or food! Ironic, isn't it? Perhaps we can bribe the hijackers to swap our duty-free for some bread and cheese.”

We've reached the end of the trays, and we stand to survey the small heap of food and drinks.

“Thanks, Anna, you've been a real help.” Rosemary smiles. She picks out a packet of crackers and a tiny can of pineapple juice. “Share that with your two boys. I'll dole this little lot out to everyone else.”

With Alan behind me, I follow Rosemary back up the aisle, carrying my precious hoard. She stops briefly by the little girl who was sick. There's still a whiff of disinfectant around her.

“How are you, Susan? Mrs. Green? Everything all right now?” Rosemary asks.

“Yes, thank you.” Mrs. Green smiles wanly.

Rosemary looks at Susan. Her mother has taken off her messed-up dress, so she is sitting in her underwear. “You're looking so much better now, Susan. And I hear you're very good at drawing. Have you tried the coloring book yet?” Susan drops her head shyly. Mrs. Green smiles gratefully up at Rosemary.

We walk past the couple who were drinking whiskey. The man's deep in a
Reader's Digest.
His wife glances up at us from her crossword as we go by. We pass the place where the man with the bomb sat, and then, several rows behind our seats, I'm astonished to see Tim playing Travel Scrabble with the two boys in maroon and gray school uniforms. He must have sneaked out while Sweaty's back was turned.

“Got some goodies,” I whisper at him. His eyes light up. He makes quick excuses, slips out, and walks in front of me back to our seats. The Arab parents opposite David are talking quietly while their son sleeps between them. The couple behind is holding hands, resting with their eyes closed and heads touching.

I sit and put the snack down on my table.

“Hey!” David looks impressed.

“We'll have to take it in turns,” I say. “Just small sips. No glugging allowed.” I break the can open and take the first tiny sip. The pineapple taste explodes in my mouth. It's unbelievably sweet and so pineapple-y. I pass it on, trying to savor the taste before it goes. But all I want is more.

David takes a sip. “Ah! Nectar,” he groans.

Tim can't stop smiling. I give them each a cracker.

“Let's see how long we can make them last,” Tim says.

“But I'm salivating already.” David puts the cracker to his nose and inhales it. Then he bites into it quickly. Tim laughs, takes tiny nibbles across it, fast, like a frantic mouse. I eat mine very, very slowly, but, even so, it's soon gone, leaving behind only a delicious, creamy memory.

The captain, the navigator, Celia, and Rosemary seem to be negotiating with the Giant and Sweaty at the front. The little boy across the aisle has woken up and is driving a Matchbox car, a lime-green VW Beetle, up and down his mother's arm and over and back across her table. His father reads a magazine, undisturbed.

“Do you know what?” Tim says. “The boys farther back have a set of Monopoly!”

“Really?”

“Yes.” He's grinning. “And loads of other stuff. Walkie-talkies, a Spirograph . . .”

“Have you told them about Fred?”

“Not yet.” He opens David's pack of cards and starts setting them out for a game of solitaire.

David looks at his watch. “Do you realize it's past five thirty? Surely they'll let us out soon?”

“Fancy a walk in the desert, do you?” I say.

“Well, anything would be better than this.” He wrenches open his paperback, sighs dramatically, and starts to read.

I'm bored too, though I don't want to admit it. How can I possibly feel bored when these might be my last few hours on earth? But I do. And I feel restless. I turn around, kneel on my seat, and look back down the plane. The Arab couple opposite me glances up briefly, then goes on whispering. I look at the rows and rows of heads—​smooth, tufty, ruffled, bald—​at the long row of portholes, the only source of light now, and at the endless stretch of overhead shelving rushing toward the back, where the toilets and the galley cluster in the dark.

The couple drinking whiskey together earlier, that Alan called the Newtons, have swapped places. He's got a small radio pressed up against his ear. Her dyed-blond bouffant hair now looks like a tousled bird's nest. She's talking across the aisle to an elderly Asian couple.

In the front, in first class, Alan has twisted around to flirt with the two blond sisters in miniskirts. He's leaning over, offering them a cigarette.

Suddenly the captain peels off from the Giant and the stewardesses and positions himself at the top of the aisle. He raises one hand and calls: “Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys . . .” He pauses until the cabin's quiet. “The hijackers say that you can now move about a little, not all at once, please, and only quietly and sensibly, for just a few minutes each. So please stretch your legs, have a walk up and down the aisle, and then return to your seat. If we can do this without causing the hijackers concern, without too many people doing it at the same time, then I think we may be more comfortable, so please be thoughtful and don't overdo it.”

I stand quickly, slip past David before he can say anything, and walk to the front. I want to get to the open door, to see something else instead of the inside of this plane, to breathe some fresh air.

Alan is standing in the aisle now, still chatting with the girls. I squeeze past him. He smiles and says hi. The two girls completely ignore me. I'm obviously too young to bother about.

I pass the captain, who is standing with the navigator, talking with Celia and Rosemary. The Giant stands off to one side, leaning up against the bulkhead, his arms crossed, looking almost relaxed. His gun hangs over his shoulder, the barrel pointing down.

And suddenly I feel exposed being up here alone, but I'm desperate for that fresh air; I feel so sticky and hot. I'm glad that there's no sign of Sweaty and that the cockpit door is firmly closed. Is the man with the bomb still in there? And, if so, what's he doing? I haven't seen him leave. What would I do if he suddenly came out? The thought chills me.

I feel the blast of hot desert air long before I reach the door, and have to shield my eyes against the blinding pool of sunlight on the floor, which I pad through in bare feet.

A black seat is on the left and folded down, inviting me to sit on it. It's where the crew sit for takeoffs and landings and is held in place by two thick belts attached to the wall.

I put my hand out and touch the heavy metal door. It's inches thick and has been swung back to the left to lie along the body of the plane. Huge, blunt metal teeth down the edge of the doorway fit into the opposing ratchets on the door itself, and there's a great curved metal hinge. No wonder it takes so many people to heave it open. It feels indestructible under my hand, but I don't doubt that if the explosives detonated, the blast would shred this door. And I can't help imagining what it would do to my soft flesh . . .

Ahead of me, a sea of sand stretches away to the horizon like so many folds in an endless bed sheet. And three tiny horsetail clouds, like delicate brushstrokes, hang high up in the blue.

Across the middle of the open doorway falls a thick rope. It comes out of the wall above the door space, where it says Escape Rope behind Flap, and Emergency Exit. The rope falls all the way down to the ground, a long way below. If I fell, it would be like falling from a second-story window—​or a high-diving board.

I imagine myself on the high-diving board in Bahrain, opening my arms, flying up and out, that fantastic feeling when you're spread-eagled in midair, when, just for a millisecond, the world stands still. Then I'd drop through the air, down, down, until my hands broke the water open. And after the impact, I'd also fly, but under water, with my eyes wide open, my arms free in acres of cool water.

Suddenly the rope jerks. I lean out a little and see the shiny, black top of Sweaty's head. He's retying it to the bed of the truck below, his gun lying to one side. On the ground is a small, round rock shaped like a resting sheep and, next to it, a tough, low shrub with one tiny yellow flower.

Through the crack in the door above the curved hinge, I can see the cluster of the plane's four back wheels under the wing. And there, a ways off, shimmering and distorted by the heat haze, I see the foreshortened shape of the Swissair plane, the red and white bulk of it looking preposterous out there in the desert. The windows mirror the sunlight, and there aren't any doors open on this side, but I can just make out what look like the wheels of a truck on the other side, under its belly. The idea that some of the passengers shut in there might be able to see our plane feels weird, strange, muddling, somehow. I can't see the third plane, the one the man said was directly behind us. I look down again. Sweaty's still busy. I don't want him to see me, so I pull my head back in and stay just inside the doorway.

I stand staring into the open space ahead, at the seemingly endless desert and the low line of far-off hills. And in the relentless dry heat, with sweat dripping down my back, I dream of fat English clouds heavy with rain, of cool drizzle and mist, of catching the droplets in my mouth. And I think of the huge expanses of cold water covering the earth and of the days I've spent swimming in the bulging cool of the sea. I think of the boys ducking under water, doing handstands, the V of their legs wobbling and collapsing, and of them bombing me from the raft tethered inside the shark net, where shoals of tiny fish hide.

Suddenly there's a noise below. I peer over.

Sweaty, his gun slung over one shoulder, is scrambling up the wooden ladder toward me. “You! You! Go back!” he shouts. I duck back in, adrenaline surging. But he's already in the plane, pushing me. My back slams against the bulkhead. He shoves his face up against mine. My heart's pounding as I blink back tears, smell rancid sweat, his sour breath. And I hate him. For bullying me, for touching me.