She had, she felt obliged to respond, been runner-up in a beauty contest, and though nothing could have been further from her mind than involving herself in a conversation with the man who had settled himself beside her, this being of all possible options open to her the last she would choose, as she had more than once tried to convey to him, she nevertheless drifted into communication somehow and found herself answering when she should have kept quiet and even responding, if only with a word or two, when she should have turned her head away, so that she was genuinely unaware that she had become involved with a complete stranger in exactly the conversation she had wished to avoid, explaining to him how dog-tired she was, because to take this moment as an example, she had no idea how long she would have to wait, and how utterly unaccustomed she was to waiting like this so that she might meet and have the responsibility of escorting a passenger in a wheelchair, an old Swiss lady, and to do something she had never done before, that is to transport her to the airport and assist her onto the night-flight to Rome; and so, in telling him this, she had entered into an informal conversation with this man despite her best intentions, and whether it happened this way or the other, who cares, she didn’t particularly mind in the end, she told the others once they were on board, it was only the beginning that was so weird, for she thought she was dealing with a lunatic or something, the kind who talks to himself, but he wasn’t that, he was different, perfectly harmless, with rather nice big ears, and she had always had a weakness for big ears because they made the face look sweet, and in any case she could have stood up and left him any time she wanted, but was happy enough for him to tell her practically his entire life story, because it was simply irresistible, she just had to listen, and cross her heart, she did listen, though, to tell the truth, it was hard to know whether he was telling the truth, for could it really be that someone of such advanced age as forty-something, who knows how old exactly, could sell up and go to New York, not because he wanted to make a new life for himself but because he wanted to end his life there, for nowhere else would do, as the man kept saying, but “the very center of the world,” which New York might be for all she knew, anyway he was pretty convincing, she continued in the cabin, it was impossible to think otherwise, though it is natural to be a little skeptical in view of everything one hears nowadays, none of it true, and though this man, of course, did not seem to be the sort of person whose word you’d doubt, far from it, in fact after a while she herself had seriously told him such things as she hadn’t told anyone else, for they did have to wait an awfully long time, and she had, in this way, so to speak, opened up to him for he himself was so earnest that she grew quite upset, and somehow she kept feeling that she might be the very last person ever to listen to him, it was really that sad, and he was so fulsome in praise of her beauty that he had asked why she did not enter a beauty contest since she would be sure, absolutely certain, to win it, in response to which she did at last confess that once, in a moment of weakness, she did in fact enter one but had come away so terribly disillusioned with what she saw that she felt quite embittered by the experience of entering in the first place, and it was so nice when his answer to this was that she should not have been named runner-up, because that was clearly ridiculous and wholly unfair, but should have been awarded first prize.
I need a ticket for the next flight, said Korin at the desk, and when he leaned across it to explain the matter to the clerk who was staring into her computer, making it clear to her that this was no ordinary journey, nor he an ordinary traveler, meaning he was not a tourist, not on a family visit, nor was he a businessman, all she said, after a lot of hemming and hawing and shaking of heads, was that she would be grateful if he would stop leaning across her desk, and that his one very faint hope of success lay in a so-called “lahsminih” flight, though he would have to wait for that too in order to discover whether it was in fact worth waiting, and so, if in the meantime, he would be so good as to return to his seat … but Korin begged her pardon, asking what that meant, and she had to enunciate it clearly, syllable by syllable, “lahs-min-ih” while he kept turning it over and over in his mind, aloud, until his English lessons of the last few months kicked in and he realized that what she meant to say was probably “last minute,” yes, that was it, now he understood, he said, though he was far from understanding anything until, on his puzzled return to the bench, the stewardess explained it to him, though it transpired that he would also need a “so-called visa,” and naturally he didn’t have one, at which point the stewardess’s beautiful face darkened for a minute, and everyone looked at him repeating, Visa? does he, Korin, mean to say he has no visa? but does he know what this means? does he understand that it can take up to a week to obtain a visa? and how can he present himself at the desk with an on-the-spot request for a ticket? indeed, too bad, the stewardess nodded in melancholy fashion, then, seeing how Korin had sunk back beside her in desperation, advised him that he shouldn’t despair and that she would have a go, and, so saying, she stepped across to the nearest telephone and began phoning, ringing first one place then another, though because of all the noise Korin couldn’t understand a word she was saying, and after half an hour or so someone appeared announcing that it would be all right, sir, regard the problem as solved, and Korin solemnly declared that the stewardess was not only enchantingly lovely, but that she could work magic in other ways too, until the man returned to inform Korin that the visa would cost him fifteen thousand, fifteen thousand! Korin repeated aloud, the color draining from his face as he stood up, but the man merely repeated fifteen thousand, saying Korin could, if he wished, try going to the consulate himself, and stand in the long queue on his own, perhaps returning after three or four days, he might have the time to spare, but if he didn’t this was the price, there was not much chance of anything else turning up, in consequence of which Korin excused himself and popped into the toilet, took three five-thousand bills from the lining of his coat, came out and handed the money over to the man who told him that everything would be all right, he could relax, for he would fill the necessary parts of the form out for Korin, then take it in and go through all the proper procedures which meant he could stop fretting, it was all in the safest possible hands, he would have his darn visa by that afternoon and could therefore, he winked before disappearing with the appropriate information, take it easy for the next ten years, sleep soundly for ten years; and so Korin told the desk clerk that he would after all have need of a ticket for the next flight, then sat down again beside the stewardess and confessed that he had no idea what would happen to him if the old lady in the wheelchair happened to arrive, for, to tell the truth, he had never flown before, had no idea what to do, was in constant need of advice and his prospects, which had brightened so dramatically, would immediately cloud over again if she was required to attend on the old lady with the wheelchair and so leave him.