by Joan Barfoot
She is completely nuts.
Imagine seeing other people’s lives merely as hurdles for her own salvation. Imagine being so distant from heartbreak and brutality, her son’s or her husband’s, not to mention her own, that she tucks them away as God’s will.
“That’s quite a god you have there,” Lila says.
“Oh yes, indeed, exactly. I’m so glad you see that.”
“And do you see me as another test of your faith?”
Adele’s forehead crinkles. “Yes, I suppose, in a way. It’s never been easy for me to approach strangers, although I’ve had to many times; it’s part of what we do. I always have to make myself strong enough by saying it’s what God wants. Sometimes it can even be frightening, because people don’t always know what they need, and they aren’t always ready to hear. They can be angry, but then I think, really they’re just frightened by the truth. Facing up to God’s judgment is hard. But of course when I heard you speaking with that other young woman, I knew there was no choice. It’s a God-given opportunity, do you see? You have a chance for repentance, and if the worst happens you’re saved just in time, and if it doesn’t, your life takes a new path anyway, and you’re separated from sin.”
Interesting concept, being separated from sin. Like a fence, with sin on one side, Lila on the other. She pictures herself scrambling over in fairly short order.
A peculiar word, too: sin. She understands good and bad in quite a different way. Good is respect, care and affection—what her grandmother and Aunt June called decency, mainly. And bad is the opposite. Simple enough.
Lila’s mother and father were bad, together, because they lacked respect, care and affection for each other. Their bad act was staying together. Tom and Dorothy, also, may be bad in a similar way, although that’s an assumption; Lila doesn’t know enough about their life together to be entirely certain. Lila and Tom, on the other hand, have generally, with the critical exception of recent moments and a few others along the way, been good.
This is not, however simple, a perspective Lila will undertake to explain to Adele. They are unlikely to have a meeting of the minds.
“Your husband?” she asks. “You stayed with him?”
“Goodness yes. Of course. It hasn’t been easy, but the Lord gives me courage. Remember, marriage vows are really vows to God, not man. I’d like to talk to your friend; he needs to be reminded as well.” Wouldn’t Tom be pleased if Lila returned with Adele in tow; wouldn’t he enjoy a natter about the divine importance of marriage vows? That would be a really good punishment.
“I’ll remind him, don’t worry.”
“You will? Then you do understand?” How hopeful she looks. And also rather stupid, and also rather evil.
“Oh yes. I understand.”
“I’m so happy. I feel as if, if this plane goes down, my last acts will have demonstrated my faith. I’m very grateful. I hope you are, too?”
“Definitely. Grateful.” The idea of madness—of going mad—has occasionally crossed Lila’s mind as something that could be, assuming one survived it, a broadening, enlightening sort of experience. New perceptions from new perspectives, casting entirely fresh light, the whole world altered and tilted.
Maybe so, if one had an invigorating sort of madness, but there are awful alternatives; including Adele’s sort, which looks like deliberate dimming of human light, not expansive at all, and also quite vicious.
“It’s been—interesting to meet you, Adele. Good luck.” Luck can have no meaning to her. Luck, good or bad, will be simply God’s will.
What unhappy luck for Lila to run into her instead of, oh, a zen monk smiling plumply at foolish attachments.
Satori, yes; salvation, no. Lila laughs, causing a few people to stare again.
Now Adele can wander the plane, giving her testimony, saving last-minute souls in the obsessed, self-absorbed style of the ancient mariner. That should keep her occupied and distracted from doom, which seems to be the general point of her faith. Heavens, what a life!
Yes, well, what a life Lila has, herself.
Where does lying fall in her personal scheme of goodness and badness? Where is the breaking of promises on her scale of decency? She is, if not a liar or promise-breaker herself, at least a very serious accessory.
She shrugs, joggling a man pushing by. It would have been better for her parents to discard their promise to each other than to endure their lonely years together. There is a scale of decency, in which actions must be weighed against each other. Lila is as certain of that as Adele is of redemption.
Lies are more slippery. There are kind or weary lies, such as the ones she and Tom may occasionally tell each other. There are words left unsaid which result in quite false impressions. And there are big, blatant lies for which the most sinuous reasoning can’t give a good account.
Those are the ones, difficult to arrange on her scale of decency, in which Lila is implicated.
This is neither new nor soluble. She shrugs again.
What happened to radiance?
Still there. Or some similar, glittering, peculiar sensation.
Adrift from Adele, returning to Tom, Lila feels nearly insubstantial, unreal. She is floating. Her feet stepping along the aisle don’t seem to touch it. Her head is light. She has no idea what will happen when she gets back to her seat, but if any day were going to slice into her heart and open it up, today would. Maybe, if she looked again, it would break.
She bends, peers out the nearest window.
Oh.
Flames still flicker orange even in the high sunlight. The shadow of the plane on the clouds below reflects the fire darkly. Has it spread? Is it larger, smaller, more contained or more extensive than before? Tom could gauge. He saw it first, watched longer, and perhaps has spent the time she’s been away looking out at it.
“Please get back to your seat, ma’am.” Sheila has stopped in front of her. “You mustn’t stand in the aisles.” Her make-up isn’t what it once was, but she has managed to tuck in her blouse. Lila looks carefully into her eyes, but still can’t decipher what they’re hiding: good news or bad.
“Is there,” she hears herself asking, “anything I can do?” What, clean up vomit? Urge other people back to their seats?
“Thank you, but the best thing to help is to go back to your seat. And please don’t forget to fasten your seatbelt.” Sheila is wearing the glazed, calming smile of the professional dealing with the annoying.
“Are we ...?” Lila begins. She won’t finish the question, although she knows what she’s asking.
So does Sheila. “We’ll hear from the pilots whenever there’s anything. Any updates. I’m sure it’ll be soon. Meanwhile, please, ma’am.” She is looking over Lila’s shoulder. Of course she must be in a hurry, much to do, much to accomplish, many needs to attend to.
“Hey, hi there.” The many-ringed young man from the washroom line-up is leaning, glittering in his own way, into the aisle, looking up at her. “You finally got away from the Bible babe, huh? Sorry I couldn’t help you better.” He’s grinning like a conspirator. And why not? She smiles back.
“Thanks for the effort, anyhow.” He’s not quite as young as she’d thought, but he does have those gorgeous brown eyes and sculpted cheekbones, although the cropped dark hair is, to Lila’s taste, unfortunate. From here she can see Tom, a few rows ahead, bent forward slightly, right arm moving. What is he doing?
He’s apparently not, at any rate, anxiously wondering where she’s gotten to and if she’s all right. The young man with the eyes and cheekbones and rings is still smiling up at her.
“Actually,” she tells him, “she was interesting in an awful sort of way. You might want to know that she mentioned hunting you down. She thinks your soul could use some saving, also.”
It does feel a bit cruel to make fun of crazy, insistent Adele. This wouldn’t be a n
ice time for the plane to go down, not a nice last moment at all.
“Christ, that’s all I need. Listen, if I shift over, would you sit down for a few minutes? Keep me company, ward her off?” He’s already unbuckling, moving towards the empty seat beside him.
He is quite beautiful.
“Maybe for a minute. I don’t think I’d be much help if she’s as determined as she was with me, though. Are you on your own?”
“No, but my girlfriend’s gone to the can. We were kind of getting on each other’s nerves so we took turns taking a break. You?”
“No. My seat’s just up there,” and she nods towards Tom.
“The dude that’s writing?” Is that what he’s doing? She peers, and it does look as if he’s scratching away at something on his lap. “I spotted him when I came back and sat down. I thought, There’s a pretty cool guy. Shit.” He shakes his head. “Hey, I’m Jim Webster.” He reaches out to shake her hand. “Friends call me The Web.”
“Goodness, do they? I’m Lila. Friends call me Lila.”
This is ridiculous. What is she doing here, sidetracked by glorious bones, deep eyes and golden rings? Do they hurt? Especially the one in his nose?
And what is Tom writing?
There’s an abrupt crackling. “Ladies and gentlemen”—that cool, deep voice again—“could I have your attention.” Instantly, except for the sound of the plane itself, the cabin is almost silent. The Web grasps Lila’s hand as if she is his last touch of skin.
“Oh god,” he moans. Poor kid is terrified. He could be one of her students. He could, if she had ever especially felt the desire, have been one of her children. She would like to moan, too, and almost gets up to go to Tom, but this boy—this scared man—how can she?
The tug of the vulnerable young is not resistible. Which she supposes is what Tom keeps telling her. Apparently, like his well-launched, grown-up daughters, it doesn’t matter how old the vulnerable young become.
There’s a joke about that, although Tom, when she told it to him, did not find it funny: A couple in their nineties go to a lawyer, seeking divorce. The lawyer is astounded that this tottery pair, obviously on their last legs, are determined to separate. “At this point,” he asks, “why would you bother? What took you so long?”
“Well,” they tell him, “we had to wait for the children to die.”
Where is The Web’s girlfriend? Why isn’t he looking around for her, trying to get to her, or why isn’t she reaching for him?
Lila sees Tom isn’t looking around, either.
Possibly none of this matters. Everyone here, except maybe those with small children, must be alone in their souls at this moment. Lila settles back and lets her hand be gripped.
“Thank you. This is your co-pilot, Frank McLean, again. As I promised earlier, we intend to bring you up to date on developments and to respond to some of the questions you’ve been raising. First, many of you have noticed some changes in air pressure.”
Does that account for the headache beginning to build behind Lila’s eyes? Sometimes she’s wondered what it would be like to go blind; to have words blur and fade, losing meaning in front of her eyes. It would start small, with a pain much like this one.
God, fate, karma—whatever—often seems quite a joker, popping up with whatever cruel trick a person most fears, whatever hurts worst. Or, an alternative prank, sneaking up with the most startling, unexpected variation of doom. Like today. Either way, what a laugh for the heavens.
“While we regret the discomfort you may be experiencing, we want to reassure you that the air is fully safe and adequate. Those of you travelling with very small children or those of you with chronic ear problems should be aware, however, that there may be some minor risks. Your flight attendants will be able to advise you of appropriate precautions you may want to take.” Somewhere a woman, no doubt one with a small child, cries out briefly.
“As to our main problem”—and how many are there exactly, beyond painful pressure and flickering wings?—“to this point, we have been unable to gain manual control of the wings’ fire-extinguishing system, which is not operating automatically as it should. Naturally, those efforts continue, with the help of communications with experts at ground control and the aircraft manufacturer, and we have every expectation of success.”
Isn’t life just one thing after another? First the fire, bad enough, but then the extinguisher system fails. Human bodies can also fall apart this way. A single insignificant trouble seeps into arteries, plugging them, or slips into organs, causing them to collapse. Few people know when this is happening. They find out in cataclysmic ways, and may well not connect disaster with the original small flaw.
This can be true in other matters, as well. It’s not always simple to distinguish the trivial from the vital in much of day-to-day life, and this may result in larger confusions and blunders. Tom mentions a movie he and Dorothy have seen, telling Lila the plot, his impressions, and weeks down the road, one night when he’s leaving Lila for home, she snaps that they never have enough time, he never makes enough time, and he says for god’s sake, he does his best, and off they go until they are finally left staring at each other angry and baffled, and with no idea that this started with a plot he’d described from a movie he saw with his wife.
“Due to this function delay, however, we are now flying on three engines.” There are gasps, but how can anyone be surprised? Lila is surprised they still have three—and for how long will they?
The Web is taking deep, harsh breaths. “In fact,” the voice continues warmly, reassuringly, “we’ve been flying on three engines for approximately the past eight minutes, so you can judge for yourselves that there is only a marginal difference.” Lila sees heads nodding; oh, they agree, they agree, scarcely a difference at all—what a relief!
Don’t get your hopes up, she thinks. Take a look out the window.
“We have remained in constant contact with our departure and various possible arrival locations, and have been proud to be able to reassure everyone that you are responding to our difficulties with calm and dignity.” The Web moans again, but others, still nodding, now also look pleased with themselves. Lila wonders if this clever speech was carefully crafted long ago and goes everywhere on these planes on a set of fill-in-the-problem, reassure-the-passengers cards. Either that, or this Frank McLean is unusually coherent, a shrewd psychologist of the air.
She hopes the pilot is as good at keeping them flying as his co-pilot is at this small chore. Perhaps they flipped coins: “Heads you keep them quiet, tails you try to fly this fucker.” She imagines them hooting, and slapping their thighs.
“In consultation with ground experts, we have had to make a series of decisions, among other things, settling on a destination.” Lila suspects their destination is obvious, but maybe she’s wrong. She also thinks he’s still using far too many words—a sign that succinct, blunt fact would not be bearable?
“To bring you up to date, we determined from the start that we were beyond a feasible return to a North American airport. Ordinarily”—ordinarily!—“in that situation we would, as I mentioned earlier, consider Iceland. However, due to electrical storms in that region, we have ruled it out, and in fact have concluded that Heathrow remains our optimum preference. We are now following a revised flight plan that is actually slightly more direct than our usual one. Also, naturally, we will have priority landing rights, so I am pleased to announce, ladies and gentlemen, that if all goes as expected, we should arrive approximately ten minutes ahead of our originally scheduled landing.”
He sounds so cheerful and confident about this that Lila imagines some passengers may be happily anticipating time for an extra drink at the airport, or an early arrival at a rendezvous.
“We are now flying somewhat south of our normal route over the Atlantic.” There is a fresh stirring of unease at this reminder that they are over water. Li
la feels it herself, the horror of falling into that cold expanse, sinking irretrievably into a world of strange, unknown creatures, her flesh becoming food for their flesh. She still can’t think exactly why this seems worse than plunging into hard, unforgiving earth. The result for passengers is the same, after all, and certainly from the point of view of people going about their business on the ground, it’s far preferable. Imagine this huge craft suddenly appearing over land, plummeting through the clouds, wiping out lives instantly vulnerable due to an accident of geography and where they happen to be standing.
There are perilous prospects ahead for various unsuspecting English people. Look out Cornwall, for instance, those quaint little resorts, all the bed-and-breakfasts. Oh, look up, look up!
“We will also be shifting to a lower altitude. In fact you can probably feel this already occurring.” Thank heavens he said that. Otherwise Lila would have sworn they were beginning a slow plunge.
Maybe they are, and he’s trying to keep people quiet as long as he can.
Oh, those last moments, heading straight down, terrible seconds! Such turmoil, people scrambling and hurtling about—it’s Lila’s turn to grasp The Web’s hand very hard.
“Again, we’re asking everyone to remain in your seats at all times except to use the washrooms. Along with changing our altitude, we anticipate some manoeuvres intended to compensate for any losses of power we experience, and we want to ensure that no passengers or crew are injured during these exercises.” Exercises? Strenuous, hearty, mechanical aerobics that will leave the plane and its passengers more fit at the end?
But okay, maybe that’s true. If they do survive, Lila can’t imagine who wouldn’t be permanently changed in some regard, possibly made stronger.
“Therefore, don’t be alarmed by any unexpected movements of the aircraft. We will not be able to forewarn you when some manoeuvres are being attempted, but you should be perfectly safe with your seatbelts fastened. Those of you travelling with children should take particular care to ensure they are well secured.