Wednesday, 29 October 2003 | Airport buddy

The woman to my right is wearing all black and a face full of wrinkles. Her eyes are dark, sunken, and she has a hook nose, and veiny, strong-looking hands. She looks like she's done a lot of hard work, but I don't know what it is about her appearance that makes me think that. We met when I asked her if we were sitting at the wrong gate, and she nodded and shook her head and smiled and said, "No English." Twenty minutes later, when people with ties and briefcases and boxes on wheels formed a single-file line, she looked at me and said, "No Raleigh! No Raleigh!" Our gate had furtively turned into Boston.

An hour later I tried to explain a convoluted announcement about our flight by holding my boarding pass parallel to the floor (pretending it was a map), making an airplane with my hand, and pointing at my watch. I've been speaking to her in broken English, and she's been speaking to me in what I think is Greek; I wonder why she speaks in her language, since I clearly don't understand it, and she probably wonders the same about me. But we continue.

Our communication success rate is low, but she did, perhaps coincidentally, give me a piece of candy minutes after I told her I couldn't find any food in the airport. It had been in her black leather bag for a while; it adhered to the wrapper with a fierceness that new candy doesn't possess. It tasted like cherries, and I chewed it into nothing immediately, the way I'm always compelled to do.

Another hour. She urgently waved me over to the new gate, saying something that rang of importance. The words sounded curved and soft, like doodles on a page. She sat by me at the new gate; she stood by me in line; she deliberately sat in a seat that wasn't hers on the plane and suggested that I sit next to her. I took my own seat, figuring we'd eventually have to do that anyway, and she followed me and sat directly across the aisle from me.

She covered her wavy hair with a scarf that she tied under her chin and held her black bag in front of her, both hands gripping the handle. Soon after we sat down, the anal-retentive flight attendant (who took roll three times before we left the ground) made her move to her assigned seat. She cleverly protested, "No English," but he didn't let her stay.

...

By the way, my new bionic arm (somewhat disappointingly) did not set off the airport's metal detector. I accidentally said, "Really?" after the man waved me through, but he apparently didn't hear me.