I was flying from Australia to the Philippines, or perhaps to Fiji, or to Hawaii. I would have to check my notes. Due to some problem, a mechanical failure, a meteorological disaster, or a woman giving birth aboard – I would have to check my notes – the plane had to make an emergency landing.
The landing itself was horrifying. That’s at least what I think. After all, I was sitting inside and I had never mastered the art of separating the body from the mind, save for quite frequent squabbles with my better half. The plane was nosediving right into the ocean. I had no idea that passenger planes could perform acrobatics reserved for dive bombers. If it hadn’t been for the yellow bile that came up into my mouth, I would have wondered what we would drop instead of bombs: fuel, the WC contents, or perhaps a few people of colour?
(The event I am describing took place before political correctness was invented.)
The blue surface grew bigger and bigger in the window. Everything around was shaking as if someone were making a war movie with a hand-held camera. The oxygen masks fell out of the upper compartments. We were so low that a possible dehermetization of the cabin wouldn’t hurt anyone. A more serious problem was the prospect of dehermetization of our stomachs.
The plane was nosediving, and the engines wailed on a high and false note, mimicking the ’70s group Exotic Trio. Outside the window, I saw individual plumes of waves. Then something that looked like fly shit in the shape of a drawn bow without a string appeared in the distance. The plane turned towards this fly shit. “Turned” may not be the right verb. “Crashed” would be much better. The locks in the luggage compartments gave way, and the bags spilt all over our heads. It was a genuine shower of chocolates, alcohol, and perfumes – Christmas gifts.
At last, the plane landed. I mean, its wheels touched the runway and bounced several times. This kind of landing is called a kangaroo landing. Somehow, I was not surprised. After all, I was flying on the Australian Airlines Qantas. Maybe it is their tradition and emblem. We have a white-tailed eagle; they have a kangaroo. And as far as I remember, a kangaroo can’t fly, just like a kiwi – close to a kangaroo both in a geographical and a cultural sense.
The plane finally came to a stop. All the passengers who had appeared in multiple colours during the boarding now simultaneously turned green. One of them started to clap, and his sparse applause was followed by more and more hands, and suddenly, in the climax of clapping, something was howling without a pause. The fuselage broke in half. My head hit the back of the seat in front of me.
The evacuation slides were inflated automatically at the emergency exits, just like water slides in any aqua park. We were evacuated very efficiently. Some with accidental bottles of alcohol in their hands. However, it was a great relief while sliding that our feet and asses hit the asphalt and not water.
The airport personnel did not interfere with the evacuation.
I don’t even know if they noticed the landing at all.
We walked away as far as we could from the broken plane, in other words, not too far, to the other end of the runway. No one was hurt, neither the passengers nor the crew. Just a few broken noses, some bruises, cut skin, and soaked underwear. Trivialities. The simplest first aid kit and a washing machine will deal with this in no time.
The plane, broken like a cigar with its tip cut off, was not going to explode, although we knew that sooner or later the fuel would leak from the tanks. It always leaks. So we can still look forward to fireworks. Happy New Year. Which year was it? 85? 87? Some uneven year. In any case, it was before the Roundtable Negotiations.
It was clear as the blinding sun that the plane was not ready for the return trip. What is more, it had made deep holes and ruts in the ground surface, and had lost a lot of parts that were littering the runway as far as you could see. I want to add that you didn’t have to look far. The island we landed on was just a little bigger than the plane itself and much lower. I realised that the highest point of the island was the circling birds. I could only hope they were not vultures.
We, one hundred and twenty-seven passengers and eleven crew members, got together, forming a tight group. We all smoked cigarettes. Even those who didn’t smoke, smoked. We shared bottles of duty-free alcohol. We survived the crash. Such a survival in one piece deserves a celebration or at least a serious hangover.
Unfortunately, no one took any interest in us. There were no fire trucks, ambulances, or police or customs officers. There weren’t even any thieves. Because no one wanted to rescue or save us properly, one of the pilots decided to take matters into his own hands. He told us to walk towards the terminal buildings, that is, towards the shacks covered with sheet metal. They could be anything, from a brothel to an airport.
We moved in unison in that direction. It was incredible. Almost one hundred forty people who didn’t know one another and who spoke many different languages did something unanimously and collectively. Like lemmings walking towards the abyss. As if the tower of Babel had never been destroyed.
The temperature certainly exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t know how much it was in the shade because there was no shade on this petty island. We walked towards the buildings. I hoped to find a bar there. Double whisky with a lot of ice, and then I could go to jail.
We reached something that might have been a terminal. I read a sign on the building: “Tuvalu me te Atua”. So we found ourselves at the real end of the world. I knew very little about Tuvalu. Nine atolls formed an archipelago of the Lagoon Islands. The plane probably landed on the biggest island, Vaitupu, which spreads over almost five square kilometres. After all, it is a little more than my apartment in Poland.
In the building, we found two customs stations. I write “found” although we didn’t look for them. Unfortunately, the customs representatives were not present. I summoned up the courage and got inside the box in which there should be, I repeat “should be”, a customs officer. There were two stamps on the counter: one with a free one-month visa and the other with today’s date. I decided to let my fellow travellers into Tuvalu.
I meticulously stamped their passports with two stamps: one with the visa, the other with the date. Each time I made small talk with a smile.
“Hello, may I help you?”
Occasionally, I added:
“Purpose of the trip: business or tourist?”
Usually I heard:
“No, just a crash.”
“So, have a nice stay. Never Qantas,” I responded.
“Never Qantas.”
We were very amused by this customs control. But it was I who had the most fun. I stamped almost one hundred forty passports. Mine was the last one, and the ink was very pale.
I left the customs box and said:
“Claim your baggage anyway. If you dare. Qantas.”
I was met with applause louder than after the landing, or “landing”.
We walked outside. There was practically nothing in front of the airport terminal. It meant that this island was so small that there was no space for anything. However, the view was completely different from what one can usually see outside airport terminals all over the world. So we walked outside the airport terminal and found ourselves without any warning in the city centre. Or the village centre. It is hard to say. The heat jumbled the words.
The architecture was obviously low, the vegetation was obviously tropical, and the humans were obviously absent. What moved me – and I am moved very easily, especially a moment after a miraculous salvation – was that the buildings just stood there. Without any embellishments, Baroque, Renaissance, or Scandinavian functionality. Generally, the buildings stood as they were built, or stood as if they were to collapse at any moment. I had some significant experience from other ends of the world, so I was aware that this flimsiness and transience were superficial. Those buildings would survive anything. Even the seven plagues of Egypt, or whatever their number, I don’t remember, or was it Egypt at all?
The island was so narrow that even Chile could get rid of its inferiority complex. I wouldn’t exaggerate too much by saying that if a tall basketball player lay down across the island, both his feet and his head would end up on a beach. I mean, on the beaches.
I was standing next to a chubby, forty-something English woman. At the Sydney airport, we had exchanged a few courtesies. Now the English woman decided to introduce herself.
“Hi, I’m Karen.”
We shook hands. She handed me a bottle of Ballantine’s. I took a large and graceful sip.
“Do you think a hotel could fit in such a narrow country?” Karen addressed me.
“Dear Karen, we should be happy that this country turned out to be not only narrow but first of all long. Otherwise, our plane couldn’t have crashed so comfortably,” I said.
“But can a hotel fit in such a narrow place?” she insisted.
“Certainly,” I calmed her down.
“The beds are undoubtedly single,” she remarked mischievously.
It turned out that a hotel did indeed fit some fifty meters from the airport and that it had enough space for a receptionist. The hotel was called Vaiaku Hotel Funafuti Tuvalu. It was empty and so low that I started to miss haystacks. It offered sixteen rooms in a new wing. Up to three people and the A/C could squeeze into each room. Three times sixteen is forty-eight. It also turned out that it was the only hotel on the island, which meant that almost one hundred of us wouldn’t have a place to stay, and fifty of us would share a room with an unknown bunch of people. After an extended interview with the receptionist, we found out that there was an old wing ready to take a dozen people, but that didn’t have air-conditioning.
The first cracks appeared in our so far unanimous group of survivors. Everyone wanted a room. Luckily, the plane captain was an alpha male, and he commanded that those entitled to the rooms, or rather beds, were in the following order: the elderly and the sick, mothers with small children (there weren’t any), and terrorists (just a joke). The remaining beds were to be distributed in a lottery. Everybody dropped his or her boarding pass into a large bag. Then Karen, who had the honour to play one of the Fates, would pick a piece of paper from the bag and read the sex and the first and the last names. All this was meticulously recorded. After distributing forty-eight beds, including cots, the captain followed the receptionist to check the old wing without A/C.
In the meantime, we, the forty-eight lucky ones with assigned beds, went to the hotel bar. The bar was not large, but it had three virtues: the roof, a dozen chairs, armchairs and sofas, and a young guy behind the counter.
It happened that it was Karen who spoke to the bartender first.
“Do you speak English?”
“No, I don’t,” he answered.
“Well, it is actually irrelevant what language you speak. It is only important that we understand each other. What is your currency here?”
“Tuvalu dollars.”
“What?!”
Karen got annoyed as if she had heard about the inconvertible currency for the first time. I came from a country with an inconvertible currency, if you don’t take into consideration its convertibility into other inconvertible currencies such as Soviet rubles, Hungarian forints, and Czech korunas. But this was abstraction or economy at its highest level.
“Tuvalu dollars – but you may pay with Australian dollars.”
“And pounds?”
The bartender shook his head.
“There is a bank nearby. But it is closed now. You can exchange…”
I came to Karen’s rescue. I had a lot of Australian dollars.
“Mister, I’d like a bottle of Walker, two bottles of red wine for the lady, four large bottles of mineral water, two cigars, and packs of cigarettes. And a bucket with a lot of ice. Not melted, of course.”
The bartender didn’t seem to be surprised by this request. Orders in this hotel were probably so rare that he couldn’t tell the difference between an ordinary request and a crazy one. First, he summed up everything carefully, took the money, and delivered the products. With Karen’s help, I took the bottles, cigarettes, glasses, and the ice bucket to the nearest table. A line was already formed behind us. I knew that soon everything would be gone. After all, I came from a country where nothing would ever be gone, but only because there was nothing there to begin with.
Karen and I sat in comfortable armchairs. I opened a bottle of wine and filled her glass. Then I poured some whisky for myself. I raised my glass.
“My ass is your ass,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry,” I replied with embarrassment. “That’s supposed to be a greeting in this country. But my information may not be accurate.”
“Aha,” she replied.
We drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes. I saved the cigars for a rainy day. The passengers of this unfortunate flight occupied not only all the tables around us but every single piece of the floor as well. Karen and I talked smoothly about nothing. It was like flirting, like sand trickling in an hourglass. We told each other about some polished fragments of our lives, shiny snippets, and digressions with punchlines and punchlines that were not funny. We were getting increasingly drunk and tired.
I began to like Karen. I was a bit tipsy, she was forty, ruddy and chubby, properly monumental but sparing with gestures. I was struck – I remember – that she barely had any makeup on or hairspray. But, after all, it was the eighties. The times of Freddie Mercury, Michael Jackson and Sabrina, the size of whose bosom was only slightly exceeded by her fame.
I had no idea what time it was. My watch was showing six in the evening, but anyone could easily be lost in the chaos of the crash and the time zones.
“I’m over fifty. I’m tired,” I said.
“Do you have a toothbrush?” asked Karen.
I wondered whether in English the word “toothbrush” resembled “condom”, or perhaps “tired”. I thought Karen had made a slip.
“Did you say exactly what you wanted to say?” I just wanted to be sure.
“Oh, yes,” she responded. “A toothbrush.”
Then, from her purse that she had taken during the evacuation, she pulled a tube of toothpaste and two brand new brushes.
Obviously, I had no brush or toothpaste.
“The green one is yours,” said Karen, handing me one toothbrush.
“Thanks. I have to lie down. I’m tired.”
I took with me the bottle with the remaining whisky, and Karen grabbed a second bottle of wine and mineral water. We walked to the reception desk. It was not a big surprise that we happened to get the same room. Fate wasn’t idle. No one was dropping sand into the gears of destiny. And so on.
“Who is this third person?” asked Karen.
The receptionist checked the guest book.
“Jack Snow, 28 years old, Australian citizen.”
“Thanks. It’s a cool name.”
“Just in case the air-conditioning doesn’t work,” I interrupted.
We went to the room. We cleaned our teeth and fell asleep. In separate beds. At least I fell asleep. Jack was absent. It was alright, the A/C worked beyond reproach.
I slept like a dead body for many hours. When I woke up, Karen was not in the room. Instead, Jack Snow, I suppose, was sleeping on a cot. He was snoring a little.
I brushed my teeth, took a shower, got dressed, and so on. In the hall, I met Karen. She was excited, and she shouted:
“Amnesia!”
“What amnesia?” I asked. “You don’t remember my name?”
She waved her hand impatiently.
“I don’t remember your name because it’s too difficult, but that doesn’t matter!”
“So what is this about?”
“Yesterday was Christmas!” she exclaimed.
“So what? Christmas has been happening every year for almost two thousand years. You can get used to it.”
“Amnesia!” she shouted again. “Everybody forgot about Christmas.”
I couldn’t understand her excitement. Evidently, at the moment of a plane crash, Christmas recedes into the background.
“Amnesia! Christmas!” she cried, clearly disappointed with my attitude, that I couldn’t understand her.
She stared at me intensely and then broke into tears.
I kept her company. I broke into tears, too. Christmas. Well. The next one might not have come. It still may not.
Translated from Polish by John Markoff and Małgorzata Markoff
