gate A-4

 

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed

four hours, I heard an announcement: “If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any

Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.” Well— one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my

own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore,

was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,” said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her

problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly. “Shu-dow-a, shu-bid-uck,

habibti? Stani schway, min fadlick, shu-bit-se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew,

however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely.

She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, “No, we’re fine,

you’ll get there, just late, who is picking you up? Let’s call him.”

We called her son; I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got

on the plane. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we

called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten

shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know

and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life, patting my knee, answering questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies— little powdered sugar crumbly mounds

stuffed with dates and nuts— from her bag and was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single traveler declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from

Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo— we were all covered with

the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

Then the airline broke out free apple juice and two little girls from our flight ran around serving

it and they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend— by now

we were holding hands— had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with

green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay

rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to

live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate— once the crying of confusion

stopped— seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to

hug all those other women too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye