Chapter Thirty-Nine
The baggage carousel at Entebbe Airport had limped around on three slow, reverberating cycles and had now ground to a complete halt. Leyton Drisdale cursed loudly and kicked the metal baggage trolley beside him, sending it wheeling off in an erratic arc across the tiled and polished floor of the reclaim lounge.
“Must be some sort of problem,” observed Bob Cleeves, unnecessarily.
The past two hours had been nothing but a series of problems for the impatient lawyer. First there had been the news of the - still as yet unspecified - hitch in Goma which had resulted in the current diversion of their flight, then there had been the announcement that all passengers would be required to overnight in Kampala - at the airline’s expense, but nevertheless an inconvenience - and finally, Drisdale had ascertained that his precious cargo, which should have been met and cleared through a special security channel at the airport was to be lumped in with all the other travellers’ luggage and that he would “have to be responsible for collecting it” himself. Twelve steel suitcases, containing a total of six million dollars: it was not the sort of property with which he wished to troll through the streets of the Ugandan capital city. And still no clear idea what was the hold-up in Congo, it could be almost anything - civil unrest, epidemic, simple incompetence - the list of possibilities was inexhaustible. It was all so maddening. The impotent baggage carousel was the final straw. Bob Cleeves’ continued good humour and endless supply of airport anecdotes were not helping matters either.
“I was on a flight to Heathrow once, arrived in the middle of a baggage handlers’ dispute. We were stuck in the terminus building practically all night waiting for our luggage to come off the plane. Think it was the management of the airport who finally found it. Quite funny seeing all these smart suits carrying out all these cases. Met Will Self there, you know, the writer. He was stuck too. Didn’t seem to mind. Quite a nice bloke, surprisingly enough.”
“How is this helping?” asked Leyton Drisdale.
“No, nothing. I was just saying.”
“Well please don’t.”
“Just passing the time.”
Drisdale paced back and forth, talking to himself, “Will you just hurry up.” He stared accusingly at the curtain of dangling strips of rubber that marked the point of entry for baggage onto the revolving wheel, trying to look into the dismal void beyond, attempting to perceive the mysteries of this conduit which linked the unreal existence on board the plane and the terra firma reality of the terminus building. It was like a gateway into a different dimension. Others of his fellow passengers encircled the silent carousel, each vying with one another for the optimum position in order to be able to secure their own belongings in the swiftest possible time; not allowing someone else the opportunity of purloining their luggage, either mistakenly or by design. Everyone shared a similar look, not that of the happy voyager, travelling hopefully, but the downcast dejection which accompanies inevitable delay and the wayward hair, dry skin, bleary eyed dishevelment of the jet lagged long hauler. There was a nervy atmosphere of anticipation at the prospect of the baggage reunion to come, and a communal feeling of paranoia as everyone experienced the anxiety that theirs would be the suitcase that had been left behind, or re-routed via Ulan Bator, and that they would be left alone, deserted by their fellow travelling kin, to face the bureaucratic maze of lost luggage forms unaided, from that time onwards, forever to be tarnished, in this new land, by the embarrassing stigma of initial rejection.
The sudden clunk and whirr of the mechanical revolving belt made the encroaching group of travellers all take one step backwards, and the carousel began another slow and fruitless circuit, as still no bounty emerged from the presumably labyrinthine depths behind the rubber curtain. One hundred pairs of eyes watched the same dusty and half-open suitcase - a piece of unclaimed jetsam from a previous day’s flight - take another turn in the spotlight, each sharing its humiliation: the least loved dish of the day. And then, just when it seemed as though the status quo would last forever, and resignation had replaced despair, the scene switched to one of frenzied activity. Unseen hands were energetically thrusting a ragtag collection of holdalls and rucksacks, boxes and collapsed pushchairs, suitcases and trunks, through the dark portal, to be fallen upon with equal enthusiasm by the waiting passengers beyond. Camaraderie that had developed during the period of waiting was suddenly all forgotten as, one by one, passenger was reintroduced to baggage, and the fortunate pairing, smug and relieved, wheeled away from the scene of their former comrades’ continued anxiety: they had moved on; there was no going back.
Drisdale, attempting to retain a degree of dignity, located himself a generous distance back from the feeding frenzy which was occurring immediately beside the rubber barrier, and watched attentively for his own suitcases to make their slow progress towards him, like a mother duck keeping an eye on her brood on their first trip on the river. It was fortunate that his luggage was so distinctive, the squat - almost cube-shaped - glistening metal, silver strongboxes were hardly likely to be picked up innocently by someone else mistaking them for their own belongings. Patience. Here they came now.
Looking like exotic alien artifacts amidst the canvas and leather bags, the line of steel containers advanced slowly along the conveyor belt and, as they drew level with him, one by one, Drisdale picked up the weighty boxes and piled them up, neatly - as was his nature - on the luggage trolley beside him. Six, seven, another one there, eight. Nine, ten.
“Got everything?” It was Bob Cleeves again, smiling the smile of the reunited, proudly displaying his own, solitary suitcase.
“Almost.” Eleven. Drisdale turned back to the carousel to gather up his penultimate case. The airport building was not air-conditioned and felt hot and sticky, and Drisdale’s voice was breathless with his exertion. “One more to go.”
“I’ll be seeing you then,” said Bob Cleeves, callously, unwilling to wait around now that he had his own suitcase.
Leyton Drisdale waved the other man away, watching him momentarily until he disappeared behind the screen which separated the baggage reclaim lounge from customs and passport control, and the real world beyond.
One more to go.
••••••••••
Even amongst the strange and assorted variety of humanity who lurked in the parallel universe on the far side of the baggage carousel rubber curtain, Martin Meek cut an unusual figure. Always someone who would have been described as tall and gangly of frame, his body now appeared to have grown even more angular and bony since the start of his period of employment in the airport’s darker recesses and, with his wide-apart, slightly starey eyes looking like a cave-dwelling salamader’s blind, white optics, and the perpetual - and increasingly grubby - bandage, that he wore around his head, now more as a makeshift bandana to contain his greasy and unkempt hair than any longer as a serviceable dressing of wounds sustained in conflict, he looked like the sort of character that any sane-thinking person would cross the road to avoid walking alongside. That he also slept at the airport, few doubted. More disturbing, even than his appearance, was the non-stop monologue that he maintained, regardless or not of whether he was blessed, at any given time, with an audience. Most of his fellow workers had learned to ignore their most recent colleague’s continual chatter, although the few that troubled to listen would testify that his words carried a certain resonance and dignity, and that the man himself was not without charisma.
“Like he’s rehearsing giving a speech,” one colleague had said.
“Lalu. Omulalu*,” explained another.
None of his baggage handling brethren, though, irrespective of their private opinions regarding his sanity, could complain about Martin’s capacity for hard work. Since his arrival into the catacomb world of the staff-only service passages and private, by special clearance ante-chambers, which both mirrored and surrounded the public-access areas of the main airport terminal bui
lding, a realm invisible to the vast majority of the travelling clientele, Martin had set about his appointed role with alacrity. Even when he had first arrived, looking like a war victim fresh from the battlefield, dark blood still congealed on his forehead and matted into his hair, his recent close proximity to a high-speed bullet only too apparent by the scars on his facial features, its passage of flight marked by a wide, dark groove which started at the corner of his face where his left eyebrow stopped and then furrowed across the surface of the side of his head, the missing top of his left ear revealing the pellet’s eventual point of farewell; when he had been anaemic through loss of blood, and gibbering with shock, he had still impressed with the gusto with which he had been prepared to carry out his paid employment. How, precisely, he had arrived at the airport, no one was certain. Where he had come from, no one knew. That he had been treated - fairly inadequately - in a hospital at some point for his head wound appeared likely, given the evidence of the skewed bandage, but the man himself was not one to offer a confidence. Some mysteries would remain forever, and better for the world that they always should. What place in a world for religion, if every fact were known for certain?
It had been Martin who had supervised the transportation of the set of silver suitcases from the hold of the Boeing jet to the storage facility in the airport terminus and who had, single-handedly, propelled the first eleven cases into the public domain of the baggage reclaim suite. It was only as he was poised - in textbook-perfect baggage handling stance: legs bent, back straight, feet apart - to dispatch the final box through to join its steel kin, that he noticed the name printed in block capitals on the label on the case’s metallic side: Leyton Drisdale, New York. Martin did not know why but the name sounded familiar to him: a distant echo from a past existence. Martin had retained no clear memory of his life before his arrival at Entebbe Airport, but the name on the case stirred a primitive response within him; a feeling of déjà vu, that both excited and also scared him. There was something liberating about being a man with no past: this unexpected bridge that was suddenly providing him with a possible link back to a previous life was not necessarily a progression. Should he go, or should he stay?
Curiosity is a powerful emotion. Whether it killed the cat or not, it is a strong person indeed who can resist its irresistible pull, and it was Curiosity’s magnetic draw that now brought Martin, blinking and apprehensive, to the edge of the screen which divided his protected sanctuary from the harsh world beyond, to take a rare glimpse of the room beyond the rubber curtain. There was only one man left standing at the edge of the baggage carousel; the travelling hordes all now departed, happily clasping their possessions, ready to tackle the next hurdle on the obstacle course through airport customs. Martin did not instantly remember the solitary, smartly-suited, black man but, in the same way that the name on the case had provoked a small, electronic spark of recognition in his brain, so too did the figure before him: it was just that the details were all so hazy. He could not recall if the man was a friend; if he was an enemy: all that Martin knew was that in some way this person was linked to a past that had somehow become lost to him. Martin watched as the tall stranger paced back and forth, occasionally casting angry glances towards the dormant portal through which he clearly anticipated the imminent arrival of his final case, and from the obscurity of which Martin was able to observe him, unseen. The man looked at his watch, agitated, before aiming a frustrated kick at the revolving mechanism of the carousel. If this was Martin’s past, it did not appear to be a good moment to renew acquaintance. The subject of Martin’s scrutiny cursed loudly and threw his arms up in the air in exasperation, and then Martin watched in fixed horror as the man, obviously fed up of waiting and having resolved to do something about it, advanced purposefully towards his own hiding place, apparently with the intention of scaling the short slope down which the baggage slides when it first reaches the carousel, and even of penetrating the sanctum beyond. Martin took a pace backwards as first an unauthorised head and shoulders invaded his troglodyte kingdom, and then the whole man scrambled, ungainly, through the curtain of rubber strips and into the room beyond. Recognition was instantaneous: Drisdale need not have spoken, the look of open-mouthed bewilderment on his face was expression enough.
“You!”
Martin took a further step backwards, still clasping the solitary silver suitcase in his hand.
“You? Here? Meek!”
Meek. Of course. Martin Meek. The name acted like a boiled sweet during takeoff: Martin felt a sudden rush of memories fill his brain with a pop.
Interlude
Aviophobia* is a common phenomenon affecting as many as one in seven people. That means, that if you just considered the population of the central Boston metropolitan area alone, you would immediately find almost 100,000 individuals scared witless of ever getting on board an aircraft. And who can blame them? I do not consider these people to have a psychological problem, as some of my distinguished colleagues would claim, indeed, I would argue the very opposite case, that aviophobia is not an irrational aversion as is the dictionary definition, but is in fact a healthy, automatic, human self-protection response in the presence of a perceived and genuine threat to life.
Leaving aside the well documented instances of infectious diseases being rapidly transmitted from country to country by the agency of the ubiquitous plane, these are now so commonplace as almost to be regarded as a habitual risk of travel, and the names - SARS, Ebola, RIXS-2 - no longer evoke the same terror that they once did, but consider, if you will, just the terminology of the airport buildings, and you will see that any would-be traveller of the skies, has a perfect right to feel afraid. Terminal building: it is not a name to inspire hope. Departure lounge: a euphemism for the great hereafter? Do not tell me that it is only me that sees the implication.
(Transcript of part of a speech given by Dr. Ralph Dogra at a recent colloquium held in Boston entitled The Aircraft as an Agent for the Spread of Infectious Diseases.)