Permanence Read online

  The flight attendant seems to give up on the old woman and her demonstration. I suppose our salvation is up to fate or, like these yellow life preservers, modem technology. My God, our very lives are dependent upon the remaining healthy engines and a couple of over-stressed pilots.

  Repeatedly, I do something I should not do: I stare outside the porthole window at the blackened, failed engine. There is the occasional sputter of smoke. Other than that, nothing but blue, heavenly sky.

  This is crazy, but I feel like laughing.

  I feel like crying.

  My stomach is as heavy as a stone.

  Doctor leans across my lap. “The engine is finally dead,” he says, his voice suddenly calm, poised, and accepting. “The engine is gone.” His face is white; tiny beads of sweat run from his brow onto his closely cropped, salt-and-pepper beard. “Just dead,” he repeats, in a whisper voice.

  “Dead,” I say, for lack of something else.

  “Dead,” says doctor, as if trying to convince himself.

  Safe, but not sound

  The flight attendant requests that we remain in our seats for the duration of the flight, unless using the bathrooms becomes a matter of life or death.

  Life or death.

  Strange words for a flight attendant, considering the blown-out, burned-out engine.

  So this is life in the face of death.

  And, of course, I have to use the bathroom. I feel the near perpetual pressure just below my stomach, but I am afraid to move. I feel that even the slightest motion will send this plane plummeting into the ocean.

  Life and death.

  A new flight attendant appears from behind the white curtains that separate the flight attendant station from business class. She whispers something to our tall, blonde attendant. Together, they smile. Doctor leans into my ear and whispers: “That smile is a sight for sore eyes.”

  The flight attendant announces to the passengers of coach class: “The captain has informed us that the fire in port engine number one has been properly extinguished. It will now be possible to continue our flight on the remaining engines.”

  But what I want to say is this: do we have a choice?

  Somehow, I am not relieved.

  As I said, we are requested to remain in our seats with our safety belts fastened. We are expected to maintain emergency procedure.

  NO SMOKING!

  This is life and this is death.

  “We have begun our decent and should be landing safely in Rome in approximately one half hour,” the flight attendant adds. But I know this: the hour will seem like a lifetime.

  I turn to doctor.

  “What does she mean by ‘should’?”

  “She means we will,” insists doctor. This is the expected answer. Our hands are moist from holding on to one another. I decide to trust doctor, whether I want to or not. He is all I have in the place of God. He is what I have in the place of Jamie and baby. I need him like I need no other. He is my life in the face of certain death.

  On the house

  The blonde flight attendant comes up behind doctor. She is pushing the drink cart. She smiles at doctor. “On the house,” she says. “Compliments of the airline.”

  “Make mine a parachute,” interrupts the drunken man from where he is seated, four rows ahead. The flight attendant ignores the man. She says nothing; I say nothing; Doctor says nothing. We are not amused by the drunken man.

  “Scotch,” says doctor, casually, like ordering a drink inside a bar on the safety of the solid ground.

  “I’ll have the same,” I say. My voice trembles and breaks. I smile, as though embarrassed by my fear of crashing—a travel agent who finds the friendly skies very unfriendly.

  “Make it two,” says doctor, looking up to the flight attendant and smiling an uncommon smile. “Two drinks apiece, that is.”

  This is not like the doctor I know at all.

  Some kind of bad dream

  I’ll tell you what else is unlike the doctor I have come to know: he places a tranquilizer on top of my fold-out table. Then he lifts my full cup of scotch and places it back on his own table. But I am apprehensive about taking the drug since I have already swallowed some of the scotch. And this: I am carrying doctor’s baby. Also, I cannot forget what I have learned so far about crash-landing—the participant is required to be wide awake.

  Doctor hands me the pills. He insists there will be no crash landings or no crashes for that matter. All the same, it is better if I go to sleep.

  Somehow, I am not reassured.

  I pop the tiny pill into my mouth and swallow with a small sip of scotch. Within minutes I am a million miles away.

  Mother carries me to the top of the staircase. There is so much heat, so much smoke, I can hardly see her through the haze. But I can feel her arms wrapped around me. There is no sound other than mother’s voice: “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay, baby.” Only, I’m not okay. Not anymore. I’m ten years old and I can see the bright orange light of the fire; I can feel the heat. My mother’s voice is drowned in the increasing power of the fire moving its way up from the floor beneath us. The fire suddenly forms a wall of sound; the heat and the acrid smoke burns my eyes. Mother stands at the top of the stairs. I am cradled in her arms, like a newborn. “It’s okay,” my mother lies. I cuddle my face into her nightgown. There is nowhere to go. There is too much fire, too much smoke. We’re trapped inside our own home. Where is my father?

  When I wake, my head feels about to explode. My head feels as though it could split in two. But my head is cuddled in doctor’s lap. I lift it, slightly. I am startled. I smell the smoky aroma of doctor. I feel the slight irritation of his woolen suit against my face. I am confused. For the moment, I could be inside my apartment or inside doctor’s office. I swallow. My ears pop and I can hear the strained, droning noise of the remaining jet engines.

  Then I remember everything.

  “We’re nearly home,” doctor tells me, rubbing away the moisture that has formed on my brow. “We are landing safely.” He rubs my hair back flat. “You were having some kind of bad dream,” he says. “I know the signs.”

  I lift myself away from doctor’s lap. I sit back into my seat and rub my eyes, my face. I breathe a deep breath, feel my ears clear completely. Other than the mechanical noise of the engines, this jet plane has become eerily silent.

  “You want to talk about it?” asks doctor. “About landing? About your dream?”

  But my head is filled with fog and I am clean out of answers.

  Outside this porthole window, nothing but the silent, blackened remains of the dead jet engine, scattered clouds against a metallic blue background.

  “I see,” says doctor, turning away from me. I can tell he does not want to press the issue of dreams.

  Landing

  We hear the captain’s voice coming to us from over the loudspeakers of this jet plane like God from the heavens. He informs us that we are about to land at the Leonardo Da Vinci-Fiumicino International Airport in Rome, Italy. From there, doctor whispers, we will travel to beautiful, romantic Venice. But I pray we will not be getting on another plane. I pray we will not be risking our lives any more than we already have.

  Listen: I want to take a car to Venice; I want to take a boat or a train; I want to go Greyhound.

  Now I look outside the porthole window. The solid ground is visible below me. There is the blackened, dead engine. The captain requests that we follow the “Emergency Landing Procedures” that should have been demonstrated earlier by the flight attendants, although he is quite sure we will have little use for them. “This is not overreaction,” he presses. “This is routine procedure during a situation of this nature.”

  I am not reassured because this is not a natural situation.

  Doctor takes my hand into his and squeezes it. He forces an unusual smile from behind his beard. “Just relax,” he says, “and everything will be just fine.” I believe him, whether I want to or not. I have no choice but to be
lieve doctor. I need him.

  The passengers of economy class emit small shrieks as the plane increases its angle of descent. Here’s what I do to prepare for Emergency “Crash” landing: I let go of doctor’s hand. I return my seat to its upright position. I sit up straight. I smooth the creases in my clothing. I smooth the creases in my life preserver. Flight attendants scurry about the isles, checking and testing the security of the passengers’ seatbelts. The flight attendants no longer have the look of cool confidence. They now have the same horrified expression I must be wearing.

  Thank God for the absence of mirrors.

  There is nothing outside but brown, arid land. Clumps of buildings and scattered farmlands separated by the black, snaking outline of roads; sometimes pools of water that glisten like tinfoil in the sun.

  I feel my stomach turn inside out.

  I place the seat cushion into my abdomen and, along with doctor, lean forward and place my head between my knees. I can see my feet. Quite suddenly, I sense a sharp drop in altitude. Then a quick rise. I say nothing, make no reaction at all. I do not look up. Neither does doctor. I look at my feet. My head is groggy from the Valium and scotch. My head buzzes. My mouth is dry. My stomach is tied in double knots from nerves and the presence of doctor’s baby.

  I do not pray.

  There is a small cry for “help” coming from the front of coach class. This is the old woman with the inflated life preserver.

  “Thank God for life preservers,” shouts the drunken man from four rows ahead. “We can swim in the dirt.”

  What happens next happens quickly.

  There is the sound of the remaining engines screaming and the quick jolt of the plane as it touches down on the solid runway. My forehead bounces into the soft underside of the seat in front of me. I hold my head tightly between my knees, stare onto the floor and my feet. I am isolated, alone. But in my mind I picture the smiling faces of baby and Jamie. They are my comfort in the very face of death. I feel the braking of this plane thrusting me forward, the seat cushion compressed into my abdomen. We speed along the runway, the air rushing through the engines and the break flaps.

  Abruptly, we begin to slow down.

  We come to a dead stop.

  There is an eerie silence coming from the cabin, as though we have crashed and I am the sole survivor.

  But we haven’t crashed.

  I reach my hand out to doctor. He takes my hand into his. Thank God, I think. Thank God doctor is alive too. Suddenly, I am praying.

  A solid round of applause erupts from the passengers.

  There is a call for everyone to remain in their seats.

  I raise my head. In the narrow distance of this jet plane, I recognize the sound of people crying happy tears.

  “Tears for fears,” says doctor, as he raises his head from crash position.

  “Truly,” I say.

  But then I lower my head again back into crash-landing position. I keep it down, stuffed into my seat cushion, the cushion pressed into my stomach. I do not cry as the Emergency Exit doors are thrown open by the flight attendants. I do not shout for joy. I live. That’s all.

  Once on the solid ground

  “Welcome to Italy,” says doctor.

  Is he joking?

  Together, we are clinging to the floor-to-ceiling stainless steel railings inside the bus that transports us from an isolated airstrip to the airport terminal. The old woman from the front of coach class has been transported not by bus, but by ambulance. Her body was prone, laid out on a stretcher with wheels, a transparent oxygen mask attached to her face. Once on the solid ground, the drunken man from four rows up went to his knees and kissed the tarmac. He took a separate bus to the terminal. I suppose I’ll never see him again, for as long as I live.

  We ride these buses in silence.

  Not a mention of the disaster that, only moments before, we narrowly avoided. As if nothing happened. Maybe risking our lives had all been a bad dream.

  For your fear

  “The best thing for your fear,” says doctor inside the busy airport terminal in Rome, “is to fly again…as soon as possible.”

  I say nothing.

  I stare outside the floor-to-ceiling airport windows and watch a jet plane coming in for a safe landing on this sunny, warm morning in late October.

  I feel my stomach constrict.

  “I thought we might drive to Venice,” I say.

  “No car,” says doctor. He takes my hand and leads me into the terminal for the domestic flight that will take us to Venice. He takes care of our transactions with the counter attendant and hands me a ticket, closing my fingers around it. I look at the ticket in my hand.

  “Oh,” I say, because I know I have no choice about flying.

  “For your fear,” doctor says, “and mine.”

  Doctor is had

  Venice begins for doctor and I where the land ends and becomes water, literally.

  I stand close to doctor, by the docks. I watch his expression go from blank to blanker when he peels away the money, bill by bill, from the stack he carries in his coat pocket. The cab driver who transported us from the airport to the canals is making doctor pay fifty-thousand lire for a ten-minute ride. Doctor presents it to the cabby who snatches the bills away from his hand.

  Doctor stands perfectly still. Like a statue. He seems in shock. He is holding on to the remainder of his money as the cabby jumps back into his car and spins the rear wheels, churning up the dirt and dust into our faces. It isn’t long before we realize this: doctor has been had. He isn’t himself. We stand there for a few moments while, or so I assume, doctor reacquaints himself with Italian currency denominations and while he counts what’s left of the stack he carries.

  Doctor looks up at me with his familiar, indifferent frown.

  “Watch your money,” he says.

  So I pull some of the Italian money doctor had handed me earlier out of my pocket. I spread it out in my hands as though reading playing cards. I stare at the money intently. I am really watching it.

  I begin to laugh.

  But doctor isn’t in a laughing mood.

  “But Venice can only be so large…”

  “In the interest of saving cash,” explains doctor, “we’ll take a water bus to our hotel.” This, instead of laying out cash for the sleek, stylish water taxis that also inhabit these canals.

  But something is wrong. As doctor and I board this slow-moving, white barge, I have the strange but urgent sensation of being lost. I am confused by the foreign landscape, the homogenous structures and architecture.

  I look at doctor.

  I am worried about his lack of direction. He looks one way and then the other, and back again.

  Apparently he is as confused as I am.

  The boat is moving.

  Doctor begins to say something but stops in midsentence. Angry passengers are forced to climb over our suitcases. They brush up against us with stiff shoulders and speak at us angrily in native Italian.

  I feel like a tourist. And I am.

  But I do not want to appear like a tourist.

  A half an hour passes as doctor and I travel the famous, romantic, Grand Canal by water bus. We pass dozens of nameless buildings, jetties, and docks made of wood and stone.

  Doctor is smoking. I can tell by his tight, frowning expression that he is growing ever impatient.

  I remain silent and try to have confidence in him.

  We are utterly lost.

  Suddenly doctor decides to disembark at the next stop. “We can find our way by walking,” he says. “Besides, how large can Venice really be?”

  I step onto the stone platform and begin my search, along with doctor’s, for a landmark I have no way of recognizing. Then doctor seems to discover this: “The Adriatic Sea,” he says, “is directly to our backs. We got off the bus on the wrong side of the Grand Canal.”

  “Any suggestions?” I say, the two suitcases I carry growing heavier in the thick afternoon air.
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  But doctor is not listening to me so much as he is scanning the Venetian landscape. He is carrying four suitcases—two by the handles and two more tucked beneath his forearms—and the sweat is beginning to run off his brow, down his face, and onto his beard.

  “Look for a pedestrian bridge that spans the river,” he insists.

  But I locate nothing; doctor locates nothing.

  Doctor begins walking toward a dock occupied by two empty gondolas and a gondolier. He drops the luggage.

  “Will you take us across the canal?” poses doctor to this young gondolier. “I hope you speak English.”

  The gondolier turns to doctor, smiles, and shakes his head as if to say, “Yes.” He laughs a wry laugh as doctor places our suitcases into the black, ornately sculpted gondola and steps inside, extending a helping hand for me.

  I step into the narrow boat and quickly take a seat.

  “How much?” doctor inquires to the gondolier, whose smile has grown wider.

  There is the unsteady rocking of the boat so that I hold to the sides for balance.

  “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?” I ask, but doctor ignores me.

  The gondola begins moving across the canal.

  Doctor produces a stack of lire from his pocket and holds it in the air as this gondola moves slowly forward and bounces in the wake from the canal. “How much?” he repeats.

  “Thirty,” says the gondolier in a low but firm voice. He poles the gondola over the water with one hand and looks away from us, over us, and at the dock approaching on the other side of this canal.

  Without an argument, doctor peels the money away from his already dwindling stack and hands it to the gondolier. With his free hand, the gondolier quickly deposits the money inside the pocket of his black trousers.

  But we are only halfway across the canal when doctor spots a pedestrian bridge a few dozen feet away, hidden by the abrupt comer of a stucco building facade where the canal banks sharply to the left.

  Listen: we could have walked over the canal for free.

  “My God,” doctor says. “I don’t believe it.” I can hear the laughter coming from this gondolier. But I say nothing. I merely maintain my forward focus, pretending not to notice anything. Doctor, I imagine, must be thoroughly embarrassed. Perhaps he is humiliated. But if he is anything like me, he is too exhausted to care.