still a fool. In Stone's hands the instruments had taken over, and they were doing the thinking for him. Matron knew that nothing good could ever come out of that.
5. Last Moments
AT THE VERY LAST SECOND, just as she braced for the plane to smash into the water, Dr. Hemlatha saw the ocean give way to dry scrubland.
And before she could digest this, the plane flared to a touchdown over shimmering asphalt, squealing its tires, wiggling its tail, and, when it bled off its speed, scampering down the runway like a dog unleashed.
The passengers’ relief turned to bewilderment and embarrassment, for the most godless among them had prayed for divine intervention.
The plane stopped, but the pilot continued arguing with the tower while dragging on a cigarette, even though he had made a big point of turning on the NO SMOKING light after they landed.
The little boy whimpered, and Hema rocked him with an adeptness she didn't know she possessed. “I'm going to put a
When the throb of the engine ceased, Hema felt the silence within the cabin press on her eardrums. The pilot looked around, a smirk on his face, as if he were curious to see how his passengers had held up. Almost as an afterthought, he said, “We are stopping to pick up some bagg-aje and some Very Important People. This is Djibouti!” He smiled and showed his bad teeth. “They did not give me permission to land unless it is emergency. So I make an engine failure.” He shrugged as if modesty prevented him from accepting their accolades.
Hemlatha was startled to hear her own voice shatter the silence.
“Baggage? You bloody mercenary. What do you think we are? Goats? You just shut down an engine and drop out of the sky like that and stop in Djibouti? No warning? Nothing?”
Perhaps she should have been grateful to him, happy to be alive, but in the hierarchy of her emotions, anger was always trumps.
He stood before her, huffing from the effort. He seemed to take far more exception to “bloody” than “mercenary.” His contempt for this Indian woman was greater than his anger. But he had raised his hand. “I will offload you here, insolent woman, if you don't like it.” Later he would claim that he had raised his hand merely as a gesture, with no intent to strike her—God forbid that he, a gentleman, a Frenchman, would strike a woman.
But it was too late, because Hemlatha felt her limbs move as if by their own volition, fueled by anger and indignation. She felt as if she were observing the actions of a stranger, of a Hemlatha who had not previously existed. The new Hemlatha, whose license on life had just been renewed and its purpose defined, came to her feet. She was as tall as the pilot. She could see the tiny feeder vessel in the starburst on his left cheek. She pushed her glasses up on her forehead and met him eyeball to eyeball.
The man squirmed. He saw she was beautiful. He fancied himself a lady's man, and he wondered if he'd blown the opportunity to have drinks with her at the Ghion Hotel that evening. Only now did he notice the people huddled over the whimpering boy. Only now did he notice the father's rage, and the clenched fists of some of the other passengers who had lined up behind her.
What a specimen, Hema thought as she studied him. Spider angiomas all over his exposed skin. Eyes tinged with jaundice. No doubt his breasts are enlarged, his armpits hairless, and his testes shriveled to the size of walnuts—all because his liver no longer detoxifies the estrogen a male normally produces. And the stale juniper- berry breath. Ah yes, she thought, coming to a diagnosis beyond cirrhosis: a gin-soaked colonial resisting the reality of postcolonial Africa. If in India they still are cowed by all of you, it is from long habit. But there are no such rules on an Ethiopian plane.
She felt her rage boil over, and it was directed not just at him but at
Her proximity to him, her encroachment of sacred
The upraised hand was insult enough, but when Hema saw it start to move, she reacted in a manner that made her blush when she recalled it later.
Hemlatha's fingers shot up the pilot's shorts and locked around his testicles, only his underwear intervening. There was an ease to her movements which surprised her, and an ease to the way the gap between her thumbs and index fingers allowed passage for the spermatic cords that connected balls to body. Years later she would think that what she did was conditioned by her surroundings, by the propensity in East Africa for
Her eyes burned like a martyr's. Sweat changed
“Listen, sweetie,” she said (deciding that there was indeed testicular atrophy and also trying to recall
“Are you listening now?” she said (thinking that she didn't really want to know a man's anatomy this way). “Are we talking as equals? … My life in your hands and now your family jewels in mine? You think you can terrify people like that? That little boy broke his leg because of your stunt.”
She turned her head toward the other passengers but, keeping her eye on Frenchie's face, said, “Anybody have a sharp knife? Or a Gillette?”
The rustle she heard might just have been the cremaster muscles of all the males on board involuntarily reeling their dangling sperm factories back up to shelter.
“We were unauthorized … I had to …,” the pilot wheezed.
“Take your wallet out right now and pay for this child,” Hema said, because she didn't believe in IOUs.
When he fumbled with the notes, the young Armenian grabbed the wallet and handed it to the boy's father.
One of the Yemenis, finding his voice, let out a stream of profanities, wagging his finger in the pilot's face.
Hema said, “Now, you refund the plane tickets for the boy and his parents. And you get us back in the air very soon, … otherwise, you will not only be a eunuch, but I will personally petition the Emperor to make sure that even a job as a camel driver, let alone flying khat, will be much too good for you.”
They heard the cargo door open and sharp exclamations from the coolies milling around outside.
The Frenchman, his eyeballs sinking in their sockets, nodded mutely. France had colonized Djibouti and parts of Somalia, and they had even jockeyed with the English in India before settling for a foothold in Pon di cherry But on this steamy afternoon, one brown soul who would never be the same again, and who had Malayalis, Armenians, Greeks, and Yemenis backing her, showed she was free.