In Transit

~For Leita, wherever you're going ~


The morning starts too early -- 6 hours too early, actually. The all-pervasive cigarette smoke (the invisible insidious kind that permeates the furniture, even the walls, and stays forever), and not exactly clean washrooms welcome me back to Europe. Charles de Gaulle is still sleeping in the comfortable zone of human and machine inactivity, despite the early morning bright summer light, set on making everything rise and shine. Charles de Gaulle... The Parisians have a funny, tight-mouthed way of pronouncing the "[o]" in "Gaulle," and whenever there is a PA announcement, I listen for it.



So, it's just after 6 am (midnight for me), I have three hours to kill until the next flight, I am back in Europe, and I want something to drink. In the vastly empty terminal building everything still seems closed; here and there, various airport workers are yawning their way into the new day, soon to be brimming with faces, and luggage, and plane noises. Half-way down, finally something open, or on the verge of opening. The menu displayed on the counter promises decaf coffee, and like a bad Eastern European, I feel a surge of relief, and order a cup, reaching into my bag for the change. The girl behind the counter looks at me sadly, and says they don't have any decaf. Before I can protest, she tells me she can make regular coffee and add water to it. I look at her for a long second, wondering if she really means it. She does. Half-indignantly I tell her that's out of the question and walk on, resigned to not drinking anything.



At the end of the 750-meter long corridor, peppered on both sides with sporadic sleeping figures twisted into themselves on metal seats and often barefoot, I come face to face with a shiny plaque proudly announcing that this new terminal, "Le Satellite 3, a été inauguré par M. Nicolas Sarkozy, le Président de la République, en juillet 2007." I begin to imagine the French President smashing the bottle of champagne against the wall... but quickly freeze and disperse the sequence in my head, realizing it is not the right one. (But how does one inaugurate a plane terminal???). Right there, in the fraternizing vicinity of the plaque, and bordered by enormous windows on three sides, is the Elite Busines Club. A tall blue sign with all the key words (gold, silver, platinum, and petroleum) warns you in not so many words to keep off if you're not part of this elite. And there, beyond the pale for the ordinary non-elite traveller, is a mini airport-paradise: a bunch of long, leather resting-chairs, positioned next to the glass so that the elite traveller can lie back, watch the taking-off or landing planes on the runway in front, and speculate (on gold? silver? platinum? or petroleum?).

The obedient citizen in me - trained early on in my civic development not to pick fights with officials especially if they are of the minor kind - hesitates for a second, but the overwhelming need to stretch out and a healthy dose of rebelliousness override anything else, and make me trespass into the elite territory. With no one in sight, the gigantic resting-chairs have a bizarre look of whales stranded on a beach but are surprisingly comfortable, and at this early hour in this surreal place, they charm me into a short snooze despite my open book.

When I open my eyes 20 minutes later, the airport has woken up and there is a sense of growing activity everywhere. A few more people have discovered the elite beach with whales and have occupied the remaining ones. A couple of vulture-looking late-comers who didn't get a whale of their own are keeping a watchful eye on the rest of us from the sides, ready to jump at the first vacated spot. Outside, a small truck is leisurely towing a big-bellied white plane with large red letters on its side ("Kenya Airways: The Pride of Africa"), hot wavy fumes spurting out of its narrow butt.

I like it here so much, I don't want to move, ever. Beyond the runway there are green patches, and what looks like a highway in the distance. My eyes get blurry from gazing and when I refocus them, they catch a vague brown dot in midair close to the terminal. It seems to be fluttering in one spot. Is that... I sit up and lean forward to see better... a flag? Flapping in the wind? But I can see no pole underneath. I squint and look some more. A tiny shift in the dot's position reveals what it is: it's a bird, flapping its wings vigorously, but not advancing an inch due to a strong air current hitting it face-on. I watch, mesmerized, this perfect balance between the bird and the wind, and for some reason, I know the bird is doing it on purpose; it is playing. (Just like those crows in the Central Cemetery in Belgrade, where I sometimes went to study many years ago, which would throw themselves in what looked like suicidal jumps from the tree tops only to fly up playfully when they almost hit the ground).

The bird measures itself up to the wind for about ten seconds, then tilts its body and lets the wind carry it away, disappearing completely.