Permanence (7 page)

The wave of attention moves along the isle to the people occupying the seats in the middle of the plane, four abreast, to the passengers occupying the opposite side of the plane. People lift themselves from their seats—a rough sea of bad news. In a few seconds, everyone in economy class seems aware of the fire.

Someone shouts.

“My God, what’s happening?” This is an old woman who occupies a center-aisle seat.

A flight attendant scurries up and down the aisle. People grab at her skirt, but she pulls away from them, ignoring their hunger for information.

The plane drops and rises and drops again.

I feel the movement in my stomach.

This is more than turbulence. This is, according to doctor, “a sudden shift in the stability of this aircraft…but nothing to be alarmed about.”

Is he kidding?

Our jet plane is on fire. Fire and smoke is, I assume, something I should worry about.

Within seconds, everyone is occupying the port side of this plane, straining to see outside the windows. Doctor takes hold of my arm. “Relax,” he says. But his voice is not the steady, calm voice I remember. His voice has become broken and shaken. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he insists. This time, I do not believe him.

I try to relax, but my heart feels as though it will explode. My chest tightens. I find it difficult to breathe.

Why no information from the pilot?

My stomach closes in on itself.

Doctor leans over me, bodily. He is getting a better look, I imagine, at the failed engine with the orange and red flame spurting from its tail in the eerie haze of morning. The silence that only moments before shrouded coach class is now destroyed. Confused, meaningless voices turn into shrieks and shouts. I hold tightly to doctor. I say nothing, as if the remaining stability of this jet plane depends upon my silence.

The NO SMOKING and the PLEASE FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT indicator lights flash. A gentle chime sound repeats.

“We’re going to die,” shouts the old woman from the center aisle.

“Shut up,” shouts another.

I hear the sound of a baby crying.

“If God wanted us to fly…,” shouts a drunken man dressed in wrinkled suit with his necktie pulled far down on his chest. “Well, you know,” he says. “Parachutes. God would have had parachutes sewn into our backsides.” He’s laughing a hoarse, smoker’s laugh. He seems to be enjoying himself thoroughly.

The flight attendant wears a false, confident smile. “Try to remain calm,” she says. “There is no danger whatsoever.”

Is she joking?

Other flight attendants move up and down the aisles, making sure smoking materials are extinguished and that all seatbelts are fastened. They gather food trays and drinks. I concentrate on the movements of these airline personnel and hold tightly to doctor.

“Relax,” he mumbles like a refrain. “Relax.”

But I am no longer sure if the person he is trying to convince is me or himself.

The plane runs smoothly for a few moments. Then it drops and rises again. I feel the drops in altitude in my stomach. This sudden shift in stability forces the entire economy class to shriek, as if on cue. I look at doctor. He is pale. He is breathing heavily. He takes a cigarette from his chest pocket and lights it. But the illuminated sign indicates “no smoking.”

Doctor ignores the order.

He lights this cigarette and inhales as though this is his last cigarette. And maybe it is. But a flight attendant discovers the lit cigarette. She is on doctor within seconds, insisting all smoking material be extinguished. Doctor’s smoke is not even given the chance to rise. Doctor puts the cigarette out without an argument. He does this, I’m sure, in the interest of the other passengers. Clearly, with his white face and shaking hands, he is a bundle of raw nerves.

“We can ride on two engines without a problem,” he says, calmly. “Maybe even one if need be.” I discover that doctor is not looking at me at all, he is looking right through me, perhaps examining the wing and the healthy engines, attempting to determine their fate. He holds to the armrests as if gravity will otherwise force him out of his seat.

If Jamie were here to tell me we could fly on one or two engines, I would believe him. Jamie is an engineer. He understands engines and how they work or how they fail to work. For now, I have only doctor to believe. And I do not believe him when he speaks about engines. I believe him when he speaks about fear. But listen to this: I think that for all his talent as a psychiatrist, doctor is not trying to convince me with his words. I think doctor is trying to convince himself.

The mechanics of Emergency Procedure

The flight attendant stands at the fore of the coach-class compartment. She is smiling. She begins, without introduction, to explain emergency procedure, including the dreaded C word: crash landing.

I am all ears.

How this tall, dirty blonde flight attendant manages to hold our attention without panicking is a testament to her self-control and, I assume, faith in something more powerful than herself. Perhaps something mechanical.

I envy her composure.

While standing, she places a seat cushion into her abdomen and tells us to observe. Then, while managing to keep the pillow against her abdomen by crouching at the knees, she places both her hands over her head, as if surrendering. I know she does this to simulate the sitting position that may promise to save our lives.

The flight attendant then lifts a demonstration oxygen mask (an actual mask that has been cut away from its supply of oxygen) and places it over her mouth. She performs this demonstration with exaggerated motions so we do not miss even a single word of her instructions.

She begins to demonstrate the emergency technique of breathing slowly and (I quote) “normally.” (“In case we’ve forgotten how to breathe,” shouts the drunken man from four seats up.)

I try to ignore him.

Next: the flight attendant places a yellow life preserver over her thin shoulders and instructs the economy class passengers to follow suit. Another flight attendant, a woman, hands them out to us one at a time.

From where I am sitting, I can see the drunken man cradle his life preserver in his arms. “So we don’t drown,” he says, “when we slam into the ocean at seven hundred miles per hour. What we need are some fucking parachutes.”

Doctor leans into my ear. “Don’t listen to him,” he says. “He’s drunk.”

“I wish I were drunk.”

“You’re doing just fine,” says doctor. But I know this: what doctor really means is that I am facing my fears without falling apart.

The flight attendant describes the process of pulling a small black plug that would release the air into the demonstration life vest she wears around her shoulders. She pulls the plug and the vest begins to fill up with air. The air-filled vest now covers her entire torso. She immediately commands the passengers not to pull our black plugs unless we are specifically instructed to do so.

But the old woman in the first row pulls the plug on her life vest. She does this, as if this will save her life before it requires saving. The entire coach-class compartment fills with the sound of rushing, whistling air filling this woman’s vest. From my seat I can see the bright yellow, canvas fabric spreading, inflating beyond the edge of her seat and into the narrow aisle. The flight attendant steps forward, attempts to stop the vest from filling. But she is too late. And the old woman and the vest are too far gone.

I look outside and see the smoking remains of one jet engine.

I feel my stomach.

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.