Plain acquaintances
Would it be different in first class? Would it feel different? It wasn’t about the leg space. Leg space wasn’t that important, as she was small, ample space to move her legs around. But would she be more pampered? Pampered so much she would forget she was in a plane? Would they get more, or better alcohol?
She hadn’t dared yet accept a drink. Now 2 hours up in the air, and she still felt like she wanted to open a door and run out and never come back. Like all the other times she’d been on a fucking plane.
She rubbed the palms of her hands over the arm rest. They itched monstrously. Was this because of the pills she’d taken, or the dry air in the plane, or her nerves? Or some rare disease? She tried to catch the air-hostess’ attention, but the hostess was engrossed in the trays she was handing out. Everyone a neat tray with some sort of meal, it could best be described as ‘sort of’. She was there now, and Elisa spoke. ‘I was vegetarian’. Like it was something from the past. Or a fairy-tale.
The hostess apologized. ‘I don’t see you registered as such. But I’ll see what I can do.’
She handed out trays to the others in her row and then hurried back down the aisle to the pantry.
Elisa cast a terrified glance outside, and saw just the clouds, like it was supposed to be, but like where they weren’t supposed to be, since they were not birds. She plucked at her knitted sweater.
Then there was a large bump. Very large. Like they fell down quite a bit and then hit some solid rock ground. She didn’t know whether this would make her pale or beet-red, but definitely she was crying. She looked around her, whether other passengers were reacting the same. Was this still normal? How did the others, maybe more experienced passengers, appear? Were they nervous?
One air-hostess came stomping through the aisle, carrying a tray that looked upset or something. Something must have gone wrong in the turbulence.
The passenger behind the hostess was even more in a hurry it seemed, so close to her he seemed to be breathing in her neck. A handsome guy, one of those Mediterranean types, a bearded fellow though. A beard seemed to hide a bigger part of the features then was actually covered. But handsome nevertheless, with those big black eyes and heavy-set eyebrows. Maybe he was afraid of flying too, he certainly looked nervous.
She got distracted by the people in the row before her, who started complaining about the food, or more correctly, the lack of food. The fact that the air-hostess had gone because some vegetarian was making a fuzz. That was obviously no mood improver. She hid her face behind one of the magazines she had taken with her.
They went over another series of bumps. She knew this could well be the end. She’d felt it from the moment she entered that plane, but now she felt felt it. She experienced it. That the quality of her life was really not that important, important thing was she was afraid of dying, of dying right then and there and nothing she could do about it. The other passengers though didn’t seem to care. Or maybe she herself managed to look like she didn’t care? She tried as hard as she could to be a normal, easy-going woman.
Another passenger hurried through the aisle, followed at a distance by another air-hostess. She waved at the lady. ‘Miss, about my food. Can I talk to you about that?’ The hostess stopped and leaned over toward her, smiling encouragingly.
Her smile was friendly, professional friendly, trying to hide her nerves about something it seemed. She gazed in the distance, to where the passenger had gone, further on in the plane.
Before Elisa could finish what she was saying, the hostess interrupted her abruptly, telling her the food would arrive, soon, very soon, but she had to go to the pantry to assist a colleague. All Elisa had wanted to say was ‘Don’t bother, I’ll just shove the meat or fish aside and eat the rest, it’s not worth all the time’. But too late for that now.
The air-hostesses seemed busy with something altogether different, something peculiar. Despite the turbulence that played up again, 2 of them walked hastily to the front again, and stopped in front of the rows of passengers. One of them carried a piece of paper, and started to read from it, her voice crispy clear over the intercom.
‘It is my sad duty to inform the passengers’, she started, and then hesitated, looking up at the passengers and then nervously back at the paper: ‘that the plane has been hijacked. We would like to ask of you to please remain calm. There is no reason for panic whatsoever. The hijackers have assured us if all remains calm, nothing will happen to us and to you, passengers.’
The text appeared to have been written by the hijackers themselves.
The other air-hostess cleared her throat and continued. ‘Now this is the deal. You all remain seated. We will continue to hand out the dinners, and you will eat in quiet. Hijackers would like to keep the noise level down. No loud conversations. Please whisper when you have to talk.’
Their English wasn’t perfect, but quite sufficient.
One of the hijackers appeared next to the air-hostesses. He was a bit shorter then both air-hostesses, high-heeled women with their hair in a tight bun.
‘She is right. You keep quiet all and nothing will happen. Nothing. Eat well.’
Elisa felt faint. In fact, so faint that it felt like she was gliding away in a nothing, a frightening nothing. She tried to see it as soothing, but despite the faintness the thought still ruled in her mind that she might be dead, maybe even the next minute. How was it possible to have a head spinning like a drunk merry-go-round and still thoughts bombarding the senses? The air-hostesses were now busy in the aisles, and more hijackers appeared. They all seemed to frequent the same hairdresser, or should one say beard-dresser, which made it difficult to tell them apart. She would have to memorize their clothes to tell them apart, she figured.
In fact she now realized she couldn’t tell the air-hostesses apart either. Yes, all this while she’d just seen the uniform, and never bothered to get accustomed with their individual faces. She was just aware there was one woman with exceptionally plump calves, and one didn’t have a bun but a high pony tail, and one young woman was so skinny she suspected her to be anorexic. Now all these women walked through the plane with the dinners, still smiling and asking after special wishes, as the lady did who handed her the vegetarian dinner.
‘Our vegetarian’, she remarked, smiled, and asked could she bring something else. Elisa shook her head. Then thanked the lady looking up with her teary face. But she was moving on already.
Apparently they kept extra vegetarian dinners for people who’d forgotten to register. Not that she had. Then she saw that it said at the side ‘crew dinner’. So a member of the crew had given up his or her dinner to please her.
Still there was turbulence, though not as much as before, and she concentrated on the food, this was hard though, she had to make an effort to not look around her in the plane or through the windows, but just at her plate at her plastic knife and fork at her cup.
So she was startled when the man next to her got up, and another man sat down, one of the bearded guys.
‘Elisa’, he said.
She looked at him. Did these guys memorize the passengers list? Or did they mistake her for someone important? But in that case, he wouldn’t have said ‘Elisa’, would he?
She didn’t dare answer. For one reason or the other this man had hijacked a plane. And now he wanted something from her?
‘You’re nervous, aren’t you?’
She shook her head, then realized she should nod, and did.
‘Why don’t you speak to me?’
‘Because I’m nervous.’ She added: ‘I guess.’
‘Hey, you write that all the time. I guess.’
He smiled at her.
‘Do I know you?’
He gestured to another hijacker, with a broad smile on his face, as if he were just in a restaurant having a good time, having recognized an old friend.
‘We’ve talked so much. You’d think you would recognize me. But then, you’ve never ever seen my face. Not really, that is.’
She realized it must be someone from Orkut. One of the Muslim guys from Orkut, she guessed, but she knew so many. It must be someone for whom her face was familiar, someone she’d been in a discussion with.
‘The Lord doesn’t approve of the way you dress.’
He said it as if he were giving clues, but she felt he meant it too. Yes, she was dressed for a sunny day, a happy Summer dress that she’d chosen to make a happy impression despite the fact that she just knew she would die on that goddamn plane. Like she’d known every other time she’d been on a plane. And the weeks before.
‘I think the Lord can judge for himself.’
‘Wow! You say exactly the same thing as you posted on the Fraandship community.’
She tried to decide which person this young man could be. Most of her online acquaintances were young men. Some of those were serious, intellectuals, religious people, and he must be among those. Certainly not one of the hot and/or horny.
‘Will you let me guess who you are?’
‘I don’t think we have the time for that.’
He stood up and walked down the aisle. Only then did she see his gun, now swinging nonchalantly at his right side. It seemed to fit him. It WAS him. She tried to remember whom of her Orkut friends would be involved in these kinds of activities. Wondered at herself, her euphemism self, calling it ‘these kinds of activities’. Would he advertise it on Orkut? Or would he have expressed himself as an open-minded Muslim, or as a Hindu? Who is who on Orkut? A misogynist might be posing as a radical feminist to stir up a fight. A Hindu might be posing as a Muslim fundamentalist. This young man may very well have called himself ‘Sweet smile’ and put a picture of a young woman or a little baby in his profile. Right now, for the time being, he was a bearded terrorist, a man who at the very least pretended he could handle a gun.
There was no more distraction for a while. The people around her had thrown curious glances at her, but they dared not comment, and had eventually stopped staring. They seemed to be in awe of the lady who was in contact with the hijackers. She took another valium and tried to swallow it down without water. But even such a little pill got stuck, and she half panicked to get it down. There were less hostesses around, probably some were held hostage at another part of the plane, so she got up and walked towards the pantry, gesturing and stammering that she needed water. One of the other hijackers stopped her, commanding her in broken English to get back to her seat, but then probably feeling sorry for her tears, he ordered a hostess to bring her the water immediately.
She returned to her seat, like a wounded little bird. Looking in front of her, trying not to notice the clouds going by, the people around her, the ambiance of a plane. If she could only forget she was up in the sky, where she didn’t belong. How could all these people see it as just a place to be, a means to get some place, as a place where they could eat ‘free’ peanuts and drink ‘free’ drinks. This was hell with wings. Time passed so slowly she lost track of it, she checked her watch every couple of minutes, and felt cheated every time, again just 2 minutes, again just 3 minutes. She felt it was amazing how much noise the constant whispering of the other passengers could make. It could have been a soothing noise in a church, in a hospital, in a school. But it wasn’t here. Not soothing. It disturbed her to the marrow. She felt like being rushed towards her death into this plane tearing through the clouds, and yet not going fast enough. And these people weren’t oblivious to the fact anymore. They realized now this mobile bar could be a coffin, just like that. Just like those young men getting on the plane, and one way or the other smuggling their weapons in.
That was what she asked when at once the guy was back, in the seat next to her. The man who’d been her neighbor before, hadn’t dared take his seat again. Maybe he sat somewhere else.
She asked how they’d gotten the weapons in. He smiled a light smile, as if she’d asked whether he’d bought his fruit in the supermarket or the market place.
‘You can ask.’
‘But you won’t answer?’
‘I could lie. You want me to lie, just for you?’
She nodded.
‘Well I have this make-up bag in my backpack, and the gun fits in there if I disassemble it. I hid the bullets in my cheeks, I had to take care not to laugh while entering the train, no plane, as I’d spit them in the hostesses’ face.’
‘Who are you then?’
‘The kind of guy who carries make-up around with him. That’s me. All over.’
She turned in the seat so that she could see his entire face, tried watching past the beard. What would he look like without a beard, on a profile pic. Then she noticed his eyes. One was bigger then the other. Not so that he looked like a freak, but it was clearly visible.
‘You’re Servant.’
‘I am.’
Oh, the discussions she’d had with him. But they’d always ended cordially. He was in her friends list. Their views weren’t even that far apart, but for him there was only one right way, that was his way. No other way. And she hadn’t joined him there. There’d always remained that distance between them.
On sexuality. Chastity. Virginity. The position of woman in society. The position of woman in sexuality. No place for woman in her eyes. The right place in his eyes.
On religion. On Muslim-bashing, as she called it. She remembered the humiliation the time Wilders was right smack in the center of attention.
‘You can’t blame me for what that man says. He doesn’t even represent the majority of the Dutch people.’
He knew right away what she was talking about. Yes, they had discussed this before.
He retorted: ‘What about European elections though?’
‘Not the majority.’
‘Yet. And you know what I mean.’
‘Still you can’t judge me on what that madman says.’
He smiled superior. ‘He wants to remove all Muslims from Europe because of what I think.’
‘Do you have to execute your thoughts?’
At once he sounded curt. ‘I execute other people’s thoughts.’
He jumped out of the seat. Only his back visible to her, to her amazement. Why the sudden mood swing? Or was there no mood swing? Was he just playing with her mind? A superior game of mind-fuck, like they’d played together sometimes on Orkut? She was good at it too. It could be real. It could be mind-fuck. He could have experienced feelings he didn’t want her to know about.
His hair was longer then she’d expected, a bit curly as well. Now he walked away she could see. Maybe he was handsome. She didn’t know. The beard didn’t go well with his face. And on the profile pic she’d only seen his eyes, the rest being veiled.
She wanted to read again, try to forget where she was and what was going on. But just then the moment was there the other passengers turned against her. .
The man sitting at the window-seat turned gruff on her. ‘You don’t take any trouble, do you, to talk them out of it? Do you even care whether we get out of this alive?’
Yes, she did care. All this while already she’d been nervous about this being her dying day. She was on a goddamn plane! She wasn’t supposed to be in the sky. Being hijacked was one of the many things that happened on planes, but it hadn’t occurred to her before. She had counted on being spit into the ocean by an exploding plane. Some technical or human error.
‘I don’t think I have such a positive influence on him.’
‘But he’s speaking to you, girl, talk him out of all this.’
One way or the other people kept addressing her as a girl, though she was well into her 40s.
‘And the others? He’s not the only one. He’s not even the leader, what can I do?’
‘Talk him out of it. Look, that girl. The bearded guy next to her is infatuated by her. So that could be 2 of them down, if you work on this one.’
Servant down? Not likely. Not bloody likely. He’d never been down one moment of his life. And he wouldn’t.
But he did seek her out again, after half an hour. She saw the eager faces of passengers around her.
‘Elisa, I really like your company online’, he said. ‘Keeps me sharp. Pity you’re not a Muslim girl.’
He mentioned it even before she could venture herself.
‘But I am.’ It could even be true. She felt it could be true, become true. ‘You think a woman can’t be a Muslim when she’s not veiled? It’s not in the 5 pillars of Islam, though.’
He looked at her suspiciously. She tried to remember whether he’d been a member of the poetry community, where she’d discussed a poem about surrendering. He would be the type to enjoy poetry, these young religious men often did, but had he been there? Would he remember her applauding it?
She continued. ‘I’ve always had an immense admiration for people who can surrender to a higher cause. Total submission. I could never do that, I always had my own views which were more important, my own way of life. But in fact that life is a prison, I’ve come to realize that the real freedom lies in submission. In losing the self and gaining the all.’
‘And that would make you a Muslim?’
‘I saw that Muslims experience their religion that way, the only way you can experience religion in my opinion.’
That was entirely true. She was not religious, and therefore had high standards for people who claimed to be. No regard for people who didn’t go all the way.
So she was totally ready for Islam. Except that she had lost the ability to believe in a God.
He smiled patiently.
‘You don’t believe in God. You told me yourself. Your parents killed your rabbit and then you lost faith.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Well you don’t believe in God.’
‘There is only one God and Muhammad, Peace be Upon Him, is his messenger.’
‘Anyone can recite this.’
‘Anyone can live this. It came true to me. I realized this must be the truth.’
He stood up impatiently and sat down again. She became aware of the other passengers listening in eagerly.
‘You must be kidding. When did this happen?’
‘About a month ago. I had an experience. I felt at once that this must be the truth.’
Both him and her sweated now, despite the air-conditioning. She smelled her deodorant giving up on her. And he too started spreading a scent, a male scent like having cut wood in a forest for several hours.
‘It doesn’t really matter, you know’, he said in a soft, tender voice. ‘It doesn’t.’
‘You must have read me on Orkut. You must know I always had an admiration for that total submission to your faith. Your religion, I mean. There is no other way.’
He bowed his head. She couldn’t really read what he felt or thought. It might be disappointment. Or dread? He knew all she didn’t know, but was that an advantage?
He got up, but the voice of the man next to her startled him.
‘You can’t hijack the plane when there are Muslims on board. I mean, that many Muslims.’
He look defiantly. Oh my God. The hero came forward. The man who would fight for their survival on that damned plane. The one with the peanut brain.
One of the hijackers came walking from the other end of the plane, a deliberate walk, this man was the leader. She hadn’t seen him before. Peanut brain was getting out of his seat, squeezing his overweight body past her, but being pushed right back by the leader and Servant simultaneously.
‘Everybody stays seated’, Servant said. The leader was clearly someone who didn’t need to speak. Peanut brain wouldn’t go back. She sat there with his gigantic ass practically in her face. Leader addressed Servant in a language unknown to her, an exotic language that sounded like holiday. It wasn’t Servant’s mother tongue she felt when he answered, a bit halting. He pointed at the man. The leader nodded towards her. Servant spoke up for her, she could feel. He even made that Indian head bob she’d often seen on television, and imagined her friends in the east would make.
‘Listen, I want to speak to the leader’, Peanut brain said, his voice much too loud for the circumstances.
Both hijackers ignored him. They had their hands firmly planted on their weapons though.
‘Who is the Muslim here’, the leader asked.
‘Me’, she almost whispered.
‘It is of no consequence. But you will be fine.’
She felt relieved. She hadn’t expected him to be this lenient. And then he turned his back on them, just like that. They would be wise not to rebel, even oppose him anymore. Peanut brain still had his butt wedged firmly in front of her face. He seemed stuck there. She heard the hijackers vaguely muttering. The leader was telling them what to do, and they agreed with simple monosyllabic utterances.
Servant and another hijackers pushed Peanut brain back in his seat. He still had a defiant look on his face, but the hijackers didn’t seem to care about him. When she was free again, visible for them again, Servant came forward. He had a smaller gun then the big one over his shoulder, and he did something with it, getting the safety off she guessed.
The leader had walked to a more central spot, and addressed the passengers. It was just a simple message.
‘I expect you all to be quiet and calm from now on. Some smart-ass thought we might make exceptions for Islamic passengers. It wouldn’t make much sense if we did. Any Muslim will be happy to die for a good cause. I think it will be hard to persuade some of you, so it’s time we set an example.’
He pointed nonchalantly in her direction. Servant was there, with her, with the gun.
‘Now I don’t want you people panicking. This is a plane. We all behave peacefully.’
She wished she felt peaceful, like he advised the passengers. She knew she would be scared, but had never experienced scared totally out of her wits… and yet be paralyzed waiting for it to happen.
All she could do was watch. She saw tears streaming down his cheeks, while he came closer to put the gun against her head. The tears ended up in his beard.
And she saw the expression on the other passengers’ faces, when finally they realized what they had done, and knew this man was capable of doing anything, seeing he was capable of killing her with his heart breaking at the same time.