In the distance I could already see his grayish mane sticking up between the brightly colored saris. The two of them sat side by side next to their two suitcases and newly acquired parcels, among the colorful crowd of passengers gathering near our flight counter, which had not yet opened. Lazar was very pleased by my punctuality, even though he had no cause for concern, because it had already been announced that our flight would be two hours late. He made room for me next to him and asked me to put my luggage with theirs. “From now on we should stick together,” he declared, in case I might be contemplating some new adventure. His wife inquired about my visit to the Vatican. They themselves had not seen anything of particular importance, only strolled along some beautiful streets and bought essential presents. “Do you have to bring back presents even from a trip like this?” I asked in surprise. “Why not?” asked Mrs. Lazar with a smile, and a somewhat reprimanding look which was apparently directed at her husband too, who explained that she still suffered from the old Israeli guilt at the very fact of leaving the country, which had to be covered up by expensive gifts for those left behind. “Guilt?” I persisted. “For this trip?”
“For every trip,” his wife said quickly, turning to her husband and adding, “Perhaps we should buy something to eat, sandwiches and snacks. Who knows what kind of meal they’ll serve on this peculiar flight, if they serve one at all.” He immediately rose to his feet, but she got up quickly too, saying, “I’ll come with you.” This woman really can’t be alone, I thought, smiling to myself. “We’re a little past the age for these charter flights,” apologized Lazar, who seemed put out by the character of the crowd gathering around us, which consisted mainly of teenagers with huge backpacks. His wife offered to bring me something from the buffet too, but I politely declined. “I’ve already eaten a full meal,” I said, “and I think it will last me until we reach India.” I suggested that they go and sit down in the cafeteria and eat a decent meal, while I stayed behind and looked after the baggage. I had already noticed that they suffered from a chronic anxiety about remaining hungry, and that they were constantly sucking candy or chewing gum. And indeed, they were both obviously overweight, although Mrs. Lazar was more disciplined about the way she carried herself and succeeded to some extent in disguising the roundness of her belly. They quickly vanished, and I put a couple of parcels on the chairs they had vacated to keep their seats for them. In the meantime the commotion about the delay increased, although someone from the airline had arrived at the counter and started negotiating with problematic passengers.
Suddenly, through the display window of a small, fancy shoe boutique opposite me, I saw her silhouette. Sitting on a little armchair in her skirt and blouse, stretching one long leg toward the gentleman who was lightly supporting her foot in order to demonstrate the virtues of the dainty shoe to Lazar. He examined it closely and compared it with another shoe he was holding in his hand. A pale green light, faintly reminiscent of the lighting in an operating room at home, shone from the little display window and lent an air of secrecy to the picture of the plump woman stretching her long legs out to the two men. Passersby stopped to look. They were really a strange couple, these two, caught up in their pleasures to the last moment, seemingly indifferent to the difficult journey awaiting them, and perhaps even to thoughts of the condition in which they would find their sick daughter. When the flight was announced over the loudspeaker at last, they hurried up excitedly, carrying wrapped sandwiches in a bag and two cardboard shoeboxes. “The shoes here are so cheap that it’s hard to resist the temptation,” explained Lazar, “and they’re so beautiful too.” He went on apologizing while his silent wife, who seemed embarrassed at his apologies, opened the two suitcases, the contents of which I was already becoming only too familiar with, and stacked the Roman purchases one on top of the other, trying to leave the shoes in their boxes. But Lazar immediately jumped up in protest. “You’ll burst the bag with those idiotic boxes,” he warned her. But she refused to give in. We both watched hostilely as she stubbornly tried to cram the shoeboxes into the suitcases. One of them disappeared into the depths of the case, but the other rebelled. It seemed that she would be obliged to give up and bury the naked shoes among the clothes, and then, I don’t know why, I suddenly felt a strange compassion for this middle-aged woman’s childish disappointment, and I offered her my suitcase as a temporary lodging place for her new shoes. Lazar still objected, and started scolding her for her stubbornness. “Why on earth do you have to drag that damned shoebox all the way to India and back?” But his wife didn’t even look at him. She raised her head, shook her collapsing hairdo out of her eyes, and looked at me with a flushed face, not even troubling to smile her familiar smile: “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
On the flight to New Delhi, which took off at eleven o’clock at night, I read a few pages of Stephen Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time, which my father had bought at Ben Gurion Airport when he discovered I didn’t have anything to read, then sunk into a deep sleep, the sleep I had been looking forward to since morning and for whose sake I had been tiring myself out all day long. It fell on me sooner than I had imagined, but it was also shorter than I would have wished. When I woke up after three hours, with my seat belt still fastened, I didn’t know where I was, and for a moment I imagined that I was on night duty in the hospital. It was very dark in the plane, and the passengers were all asleep, sprawling in the seats and also lying in the aisles, as if they had been struck down by a sudden plague. Beyond the swaying wing of the plane I tried to discover in the darkness of the sky the first hints of dawn, which by my calculation should have appeared long ago if the plane had followed a logical course. Now I saw that Lazar or his wife had visited me in my sleep, for one of the sandwiches they had bought at the airport, in addition to a large bar of Italian chocolate, was stuck in the pocket of the seat in front of me. They must have noticed that I had missed my supper when I fell so swiftly and soundly asleep. I wrapped myself in a blanket and greedily devoured the sandwich and the entire bar of chocolate, delighted at this welcome manifestation of their concern. And suddenly I was seized by the desire to see them both, or at least to know where they were sitting, but I decided to wait until dawn, which I was sure was about to break soon.