Missing Promises

It was perhaps the rain drops

I cleaned from your lips

Instead of a kiss

When the evening breeze

Played with your hair

As I saw you leave

Promises behind

For youth makes believe

That time will always revisit

When silent promises are kept

Under the shade of a pine tree

Or in stony places

Under skies of passing rain

Drops, we wipe as if a name upon our lips

On lazy summer days

Hoping that we will find them again

Under other skies, in a new name

It was perhaps the way you said farewell

That got me closer to the rain drops

Upon your lips

Often kissed, without a name

To remember

For we had hoped we’ll find again

That short pine tree

Near the bluest sea

When your hair caught the breeze

And I told you to stay

But the breeze changed to tempest

And took us to faces new and pale

To cities of steel, to people of pain

And one August night

Without warning, we left again

Promises to lie

Where once promises were left

Near a tumultuous sea

A summer night, where we thought

We will always remain young

It was perhaps the single rain drop

I left upon your lip

To remind me of a kiss

And a promise

We left for others

To keep

(Date Unknown)

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Wacky Kwack

And the wet duck said “Rid me of my riddle”. 

… Two ducks walk into a museum to discover something new. They ask the goose at the desk “What is new?” And the goose says “Not much, it is a museum.”

So the ducks go out and find a pond to ponder. One says to the other “why do we keep on cleaning our feathers if we are waterproof?”  The second duck finds his pineal gland, bites gently, rubs his beak on his tail and responds:  “ … so that when the pond gets dry we have an old habit to talk about”.

Ducks are wise around Baltimore.

July 25, 2013

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

She Was Born Near Kiev

It was a cool autumn morning in Paris.  I was heading to the airport on an empty stomach as the breakfast at the four-bedroom pension did not start till 7 am.  England’s rugby team was badly defeated by South Africa the night before and there were still quite a few tourists, near the arches of La Defence, wearing green and holding bottles of beer.

It was Sunday morning and they did not search my knapsack at the airport.  Perhaps the security team was also at the rugby game the night before.  I bought a Campagnard sandwich and a double Espresso.

I had an hour to waste.  I could take a nap, write a few notes about the trip, or just watch the people around me.  A young lady rubbing her bare feet caught my attention.  A couple holding hands while jointly reading the newspaper was another tender sight.  So, I got another Espresso and waited for the gate to open.

A platinum-blond caught my eye.  She was rhythmically swinging her right foot while watching people go by.  She reminded me of someone I had not yet met.  At some point we were looking at the same person, an overweight woman wearing stiletto heels.  It was France, after all.

Boarding was on time and my aisle seat perfectly comfortable.  I said hello to the man sitting next to me and started reading Le Figaro.  Then Le Monde for better analysis. 

A few minutes after take-off I wanted to listen to French songs and do some writing.  I felt like writing.  I often do so on planes. 

The headset outlet was broken.  I tried to listen in mono mode, but that was not working either.  I called the flight attendant.

“Do you have another aisle seat I can move to?”

“Je vais voir, Monsieur.”

A few minutes later she told me that there was one three seats back.  And I moved.

It was a two-seat row, and the platinum-blond woman was sitting at the window seat.  I smiled.  And she reciprocated.

So I tried the headsets again.  This time Yves Montand was magnificently audible.  The first song was “A bicyclette” and I shut my eyes remembering my teenager years around the Mediterranean, on a bicycle.

“On était tous amoureux d'elle

On se sentait pousser des ailes

A bicyclette

Sur les petits chemins de terre

On a souvent vécu l'enfer

Pour ne pas mettre pied à terre

Devant Paulette

After a few songs I rubbed my eyes and looked to my left.  My compagnon du voyage was struggling with the headset.  Not with the outlet, but in figuring out how to put those ungodly single speakers around each ear.  The loops around them are counter-intuitive.  But also she had a thick head of hair and her ears were hardly visible.

“Je peux aider?”

“Sorry,” she said with an accent, “my French is very poor.”

“No problem,” I replied. “English is a fine travel language.”

So I tried to help her with the logic of the headset.  Showed her how mine goes on each ear.  How the loop is a mirror-image to fit the left rather than the right.

Did not work.  She did not seem to have a three-dimensional view of things.

“How about you pull your hair up?”

She smiled.  The reading lights were on and the window shades down.  Platinum hair has almost an aura around it under the reading lights.

The headsets were now well placed upon her ears.  Somehow, I also realized that she did not know how to use the movie selection feature. 

“What kind of movie do you like?”

“Mystery!”

And mystery I found.

…. I wrote for a short while, and then tried to shut my eyes and think about what I wrote.  Instead I turned left and asked:

“Please let me know when you need to go to the toilet.  If I am asleep, just wake me up.”

She did not reply, just smiled. She had an elusive attitude to things.  A bit European, a bit deterministic.

“Where are your roots from?” I had to ask.

“The Ukraine. And yours?”

“Armenia.”

“Ah, neighbors!”

When dinner was served, we talked about, what seemed to be, totally unrelated topics.

“I do not like American coffee,” she said and asked for tea during the beverage service.

“But I love French and Viennese coffee.  Why do you think the same coffee tastes soo much better in other places?”

“May be it is the seasoning of the machines.  One has to allow previous cooking or brewing to leave a mark on the environment where new cooking will take place.  That way, they will influence the taste.  Perfectly cleaned, polished and spotless pots have no memory, no taste, and no character.”

She looked at me.  Her hair was still pulled up and the headsets somehow still hanging on to her ears.

“People are like pots, yes? Past experiences shape the taste and nature of new ones.”

“What do you do?” I asked.

“Oh, the expected question!  What difference does it make?  You are just a taxi driver.”

A taxi driver??

“Yes.  You see, I will never see you again; you will never meet me again.  So, we feel ok talking about things stuck in a seat for eight and a half hours.  You do that with taxi drivers, no?”

Well, in a way…

“Tell me, what is the biggest challenge for a scientist?”

Oh la la!  What kind of a question is that?

“I do not know if I can answer.”

“Of course you can!  Tell me one thing that immediately comes to mind.”

“Well, perhaps knowing the difference between causation and correlation.  Perhaps the bigger challenge is teaching people about that difference.”

“Hmm, that is a good one!  What is correlation?”

“It is believing that you really do not know how to use the movie features on a plane even though you have been traveling for years.”

“And what is causation?”

“That I thought I was able to help you understand how to use the movies feature on this plane.”

“So correlation is the same thing as superstition?  Just because two things were of a certain order at one point in time when a third thing happened, one should not keep on believing that it will happen again if those two are in the same order?”

“Yeah, something like that…”

  “So, you travel for some kind of work, you use highly technical and academic language, you are interested in social issues, and you do not like American coffee.  And oh, you are Ukrainian.  How is the taxi driver doing so far?”

“Pretty good.  I also find that long flights are difficult without an interesting person next to you.  I am glad that the headset outlet was broken at your original seat.”

“Yes, I am glad too. Now, what should we discuss next?”

“Genomes.  You are a scientist in that area?”

“No.  Not in that area.”

“Neither am I -- so we can talk about it.  See, you were talking about correlation before.  Historically people have looked to the skies to figure out why two things came together when a third one was happening.  Now, through genetics and genomes, we are looking into the microcosm within us.  Are we asking the same questions?”

“In a way we are, yes.  In fact, we may even learn about causation in some rare instances through genomics.”

“Yes.  And then we may not accuse people of faulty lifestyles; we may not create classes of people based on their body weight; and, we may even understand why some people gamble, yes? That they gamble with their money or with their life.”

We were getting close to Washington.

“Would you like gum?  Helps with the descent pressure change.”

“Yes, I would.  Thanks.”

Then, there was a malfunction of the landing gears.  We circled Dulles airport for more than an hour till things were working safely again. 

I did not have luggage to pick up.  So, as she was heading toward the conveyor belts, I shook her hand and admitted that “it was truly an intriguing time up there, for ten hours!”

“Yes, it was”.

Then, she slightly turned back and almost without looking at me but in a whispering voice said:

“Hey, taxi driver, if you write about the past ten hours, do not forget to mention that it is always good to not clean pots totally.  Artists cannot write about seasoned pots because they are unseasoned themselves.  And I found that living in America all these decades has not scrapped your pot to a shine.  That is good.  It was good to learn about your résistance to becoming polished.”

… When I exited the airport and called a taxi, the driver was a gentleman clearly tired of driving, but he put on a fake smile and “So, Sir, how was your flight?”

I looked at him, and almost laughed!  No, I was not ready to talk to this “taxi driver”!

September 18, 2007

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Mossy Altar

“I will go to the shore,” he said without looking at her, “will cast into the sunrise.”

The red snappers were running close to the large rock from where he could reach them with a hundred yard of line.  Yellow line ending in a Finnish hook.  Frozen squid or shrimp to hide its sharpness.

The morning walk to the rock was a primordial celebration.  Like an altar reaching the frothy vastness of the restless waters, the rock served as his moment, his stand against the passing of times.  He has been there as a boy, trembling to the fight a sea bass would propose.  He recalls his first fish, his first deep inhale on a rolled cigarette, and his first loneliness because of a woman.  Always upon that rock.  In time, the rock had become mossier, in spots.  The incessant crash of waves, from lands he never knew, had given the rock a character he liked.  In the early lights, the mist was all embracing.  During sunsets, the last fish in his basket was cleaned on that rock.  Like an altar.  Like a sacrifice.  And always in thankfulness.

… This morning, his breath smelled of his woman as he inhaled deep the saltiness of the mist which welcomed him to his beloved rock.  The shrimp was half-frozen; his fingers were half-numb.  He cut the shrimp in half, threaded the hook so the sharp point exited between the eyes of the shrimp and formed a strange curl opposite to its antennae.  He coughed his morning cough, raised the long pole with both arms as if an ax, and cast as far as he could.  Into the rising sun.

Almost instantly, he forgot about the fish.  About the yellow line linking him now with the deep of the waves.  He scratched his unshaved chin and looked for cigarettes.  The rock was not for fishing.  The rock was his moment to forget about time.  To forget that once he was a boy dreaming of fish and women.  To forget that his life had been a constant hope that his cast would reach someone.  Somewhere. No, the rock was not for fishing.  It was the last point before the deep of the unda curled over and fell upon shores afar. 

… As the sun covered the sea in yellow and bright, he could not see his line anymore.  But he could feel it.

July 15, 2013

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Zorba and the Racks

            

"You are an early riser!"

I was.  And it was already oppressively hot in Atlanta, at 4:30 am.  I needed to catch the first flight out.  But I could not sleep the 4 hours I was counting on upon when returning  at midnight to my freezer-like hotel room. 

It was Game Four between the Celtics and Lakers, and I decided to postpone sleeping, unwillingly. The lamb rack with garlic, the artichoke with garlic, and the pureed chick peas with garlic were wide awake in me.  Or, perhaps it was the Lebanese anise liqueur that the lovely waitress generously poured into a water glass.  There was more tension in me than there was on the Lakers home court 53 seconds before the end of the game.

"Yeah, have been out here since 3 am.  Sometimes I have difficulty sleeping."

I put my head back and hoped for a cat nap till we get to the airport.

"Kazandjian-- that is a nice Armenian name."

There goes my nap, I realized.

"And, how do you know that?" I inquired.

"I am Greek.  Nikos Mavromatis. We know Armenians."

Then, looking at me through the visor mirror, "Do you know our national novelist Nikos Kazantzakis?  May be you guys are related!"

May be I will sleep during the flight, I consoled myself.

"Yeah, Zorba was my hero."

"I was born in Atlanta from Peloponnesian parts,” he said.  “My parents talked about the old country till their last breath."

"We are all immigrants," I agreed. 

"I do not remember much about Zorba, but only a few lines,” he continued. “Do you know how Zorba justified sleeping with married women?"

Ha!  I guess Nikos did not worry that some customer would be offended and complain to the office.  And Nikos could lose his job.  But it was too early in the morning for such worries.

"You wonder why I ask such an unusual thing, yes?"

Yes.

"Well, your name brought back memories of that novel I read when I was young. I apologize, sir, if I overstepped."

Charming!

"Ok Nikos-- how did he justify sleeping with married women?"

"He said that he returned them in better shape than he found them."

And Nikos did not laugh.  He did not wink.  Nor did he comment on Zorba's questionable rationale.  Nikos was a man of facts.

... I always cherish simple moments during travel.  An oasis of a time when unexpected tremors, incomprehensible encounters, or when an unusual thought is shared between two strangers with passion, perhaps because they know they will never meet again.

I was about to ask why he thought I would welcome such questions.  But his phone rang.

"Ehlooh!" he prompted.

I was contemplating the strong, eclectic, familial, dominating and victorious architecture of downtown Atlanta.  It was still dark.  It was warm outside.  And Nikos was now laughing over the phone.

"I thought I had heard it all," he said while folding his cell phone and carefully placing it in a special pouch on the dashboard.  "See, there is this mechanic who comes to my house to maintain my car.  He just called..."

"To say that...” but I controlled my tongue at the last second.  No, his mechanic could not have had read Zorba.  And he could not have just called to talk about Nikos' wife…

"Well, to say that he is not going to come this morning because his bitch is in labor!"

"I am sure you understand that, Nikos," I said.  These are important moments.  I am sure he needed to be there."

"Hec.  She seems to deliver fine every year by herself.  And eat her own placenta when no one is looking!"

Now I felt a bit lightheaded.  The Lebanese lamb rack with garlic moved again in my stomach.  I could count the times chick peas with garlic bounced around the lamb rack.

"Nikos, what the hec are you talking about?"

"Man's best friend, they say.  Well, I guess some dogs are better than some women," he suddenly became pensive. "They will always welcome you home.  They will not tell you how to drive.  They will not wear wool socks to bed!"

Nikos was on a roll.  I just let him be.

"I once watched Cesar (somebody) on National Geographic.  It was about psychotherapy for dogs.  He is amazing!  No dog was ever too big for him.  He changed all behaviors."

Now, I was getting upset that we were getting close to the airport.  I wanted to know more about Cesar-the-Mexican who now lives in LA and treats celebrities' pooches.

"But you know, Armenis filomou, no dog can be changed without first changing the master.  Cesar said that-- I think he is right.   One cannot change without changing context and friends."

"You are a philosopher, Nikos," I exclaimed.  "Do you always treat your customers to such delightful discussions?"

He smiled.

"No, very rarely."  Then, with a wink he added "last night my wife made the worse lamb racks on the grill.  I did not tell her anything, but could not sleep all night.  Tums do not help, yogurt did not help."

And, as I was going to laugh my brains out, he added:

"It was good I had the assignment to pick you at 5 am-- drank my coffee early with a sweet koulourakia.  Poly orea!"

As I said "Yassoo" to Nikos, I realized that through Zorba and Cesar, he had shaped a simple philosophy of life.  One where bitches deliver alone.  And husbands do not tell their wives how bad dinner was.

June 13, 2008
©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Questa è la tua canzone, Marinella

She sang her last song.  Every time I heard her sing, it was her last song.  “I love the same way,” she would whisper; “as if there will never be another one, another love which will make my morning cigarillo burn as evenly”.  Till the next love, the next morning, the next strike of a wooden match upon the side of a matchbox.

Her shoes were always a size too large.  “One cannot sing in Italian wearing tight shoes,” she justified.  Her nails were always bitten; her eyes filled of the moment.  Rarely of yesterday, never of domani.  Just of the moment when she lived her last moments.  Till the next song, the next new hug, the cold morning alone on the balcony with a bitten lip.  With a cigarillo hanging from the burning lip.

She did not care.  She was all comfort.  She was all for herself.  Unless she was for someone else.  Then she was all his comfort.  Till he left.  Till she asked him not to remember her.  For she had not remembered anything before him.  He was the only one who counted today.  That is why tomorrow should have no memories.  For she was going to have coffee alone, on the balcony, looking at the city with cast iron balconies.

A singer should sing. And one should listen as if it is the last song.  For in fact it is.  The next one will be sung by who had already sang her last song.  Who had kissed her last man.  Has looked at the city with her morning eyes.  Eyes she closed at night to see his surprise.  To hear his excuse.  And then hear him run down the stairs.  As if the city was on fire.  The city between smoky hills.

“I would like to sleep, once, under a pomegranate tree,” she said.  “I have not slept, really deeply slept for years.  And I have never seen a pomegranate tree.” 

That was the last time I saw her.  It was decades ago.  It was a time away from time.  When she sang her last song.  Inhaled deeply upon her cigarillo.  Held her breath and looked at the night.  To only realize that there were no pomegranate trees near the city.  Just mountains, tall as hills.  And men who ran down the stairs without letting her know if the city was on fire.

… I always think of her when I see women wearing shoes a size too large.  As if they still hope to grow into their own limits.  Again, each time, for the last time.

November 21, 2007

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

The Irish of Zagreb

It was before sunrise, in Zagreb. I had slept only a couple of hours as I walked the streets already in a festive mood. In fact the center of the city was like a Christmas ornament-- charming and fragile.  I watched the horse and buggy carry lovers around midnight, and I listened to a quartet play in the park. Soon, 2011 would be over and new times will shape our fears, our determination to accept what we cannot fully understand, and cherish our unmet loves.

I had asked for a 4:30 am wake up call to be ready for my 6 am taxi to the airport.  I jumped out of bed; I boiled water, made instant coffee, brushed my teeth and jumped onto the street.  My hotel was right at the center of the city, and the first night I was worried that the thousand of happy people in the streets would hear me snore, but they were too busy drinking hot wine, eating magnificent Croatian sausages, or enjoying the fried breads covered with jam, powdered sugar, or chocolate.  It was close to freezing at night and the brown-eyed women nestled in deep coats or fur-lined elegant jackets invited me to look at them twice.  Maybe even more often than that.

It was still dark, but even before sunrise there were lovers still in embrace around street corners, and the street cleaners were readying Zagreb for a new day.  A day closer to Christmas than was yesterday.

I had brought my coffee with me and walked the streets now familiar to me.  Indeed, I had walked the streets around the center of the city for 3 nights. I knew the major landmarks from churches to tramway stops; from the parks where at night they play classical music to the money exchange bureau, hidden in a passage leading to the entrance of Pizzeria Lida. After half an hour, the sky started to light over, and I had finished my coffee.  Holding my empty coffee cup in my hand, I stopped at a street corner and put my back to the concrete side of the building.  I was wearing a long brown coat, and probably looked just as I looked when got out of bed half an hour ago.

Deep in thought, I heard someone whispering in Croatian.  I looked up and it was a man in his late twenties, wearing a long green woolen coat, a snow cap, and a cigarette at his lips.

“Sorry, I speak only English,” I replied hoping that he would just let me enjoy the last half hour of my stay in Zagreb, alone.

“English, eh?” he said after a short cough and bringing his face close to mine. “English? Where are you from?”

It was clear that he did not use English often, yet he seemed to know the language.  He spoke with ease and with correct syntax.  It was also very clear that he had been drinking for a while.

“English,” I said, “from Newcastle.” 

I do not know why I said that. It was perhaps the latest EU and Euro discussions which were on my mind.

“Newcastle?”

Then he came even closer to me, and with a winkle in his eye slowly stated:

“I thought you were begging for money.  I do not have money but I was going to give you a cigarette.  But I see that you are not a beggar.”

I realized that my last half hour in Zagreb was not going to be passed alone.

 “You like Zagreb?”

His morning breath of cigarette and acrid alcohol made me think for a moment, but replied that I had wonderful evenings walking around the city. I also noticed he had very white teeth.

“This is an enigmatic city, believe me,” he said, “it just looks good for tourists.”

He inhaled deeply and noticed that three young ladies, in high-heeled booths and charming outfits were about to come our way on the street.

“See, all these girls, and what do we get you and me, eh? You look like a beggar holding your empty cup out, and I look like the king of the Gypsies looking for my kingdom!”

At this point I was happy to have met this young man.  There was something about him: he looked like he has been a citizen of the streets, yet his English was better than many I had met in the past days.

“I will shake your hand but I assume you, you from Newcastle, would not want to shake my hand.  Yes?”

I proved him wrong, and asked to sit down on the bench, for a short moment.  He seemed tipsy.  And yet there was certain logic to his movements or conversation.

We sat down, and he pulled a flask from his coat pocket.

“You shook my hand, Newcastle man, would you now drink from my bottle?”

That was too much for me. 

“You know I would not, yes?”

Instead of replying, he took the cigarette off his lips, and in a charming baritone voice started singing:

In Dublin’s fair city, where the girls are so pretty,
I once met a girl called sweet Molly Malone,
As she wheeled her wheelbarrow, through the streets broad and narrow,
Carrying cockles and mussels`

Alive alive o

I was not surprised.  I was hoping he would do something to validate my feeling that he was more than what he showed.

“That is Irish,” I said, “not English.”

“The same bloody thing!” he exclaimed and then launched into:

The day I lost my one true love

These prison walls are built of sorrow

These prison bars are built of pain

My prison cell is always with me

I live in hell, I've gone insane

“Is this English enough for you, friend?”

His baritone voice in the still empty city had slowed down a few passers-by.

“Let us go back to where you were, friend,” he said, “you hold your cup and I will sing. Maybe we will make enough for a ham and cheese sandwich.”

My curiosity had certainly peaked, and I found his humor charming.

I wanted to push him more, when a phone rang.  He searched in his pockets and pulled out the latest iPhone! Then he stood tall, cast his cigarette away, and seemed sober miraculously, as he spoke in Croatian (I assumed) and started walking toward the sausage kiosk.

As I was looking at him leave me behind, he stopped, turned around, and in perfect English almost shouted “I am happy you like folk songs, friend. Very happy. And Merry Christmas to you.”

And he walked away.

December 10, 2011

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Choya and Personal Space

The 21 hours of flight to Taipei were boring.  I was next to a woman who slept most of the way.  She woke up only to ask me give way for a toilet trip.

So, I sat by the window on my way back. As I was organizing my reading materials, a well dressed Asian lady checked her boarding pass that indeed, her seat was next to mine.

I was pleased that it was a woman, my return trip companion.  And if she had a weak bladder, then I now was in the window seat, and “she can go to the toilet as often as she needs” I consoled myself.

She was very methodical.  She took her high heeled boots off along with her “nylons”, and put on the ugly flight slippers immediately.  Then, in Mandarin, asked the flight attendant for magazines.

I have never been good at telling the age of Asian women.  I am usually about 20 years off.  But when she needed something from her bag and she took her right slipper off to step on her seat and reach the bag, I saw a noticeable bunion.  So, perhaps my age, I thought.

I was preparing myself to doze off.  The flight attendant came by with the useless, wasteful and ineffective hot towels.  I declined, but my companion asked for two of them!  By now, I had no interest in sleeping.  Two!  I had never seen anyone do so.  As if she wanted to eradicate leprosy.

What she did next was pure fiction.  She wiped off the retractable lap-table, her seat belts, her seat’s arm rests and controls for volume and channels.  Then, with the meticulousness of a pathologist, she folded the hot towels into triangles and placed them, one atop the other, at the edge of her left arm rest.

All this, and she did not even acknowledge my presence!

“Perhaps I am too sloppy for her,” I rationalized.

The flight attendant came by offering drinks.  She ordered something in Mandarin and I asked for whisky.

When the drinks arrived I saw that hers was an aperitif of sorts, made of plum, I think.  A small, barrel shaped green bottle with a dried fruit in it.  She stabbed the fruit with a toothpick a few times and took her first sip.

Then, as if she suddenly noticed me, she raised her glass “Cheers! My name is Ma.”

So, was I supposed to forego sleep?

“We should not be silent for 16 hours,” she suggested.

The woman knows what she wants, I convinced myself.

I looked at her hands.  Like her bunion, her thumbnail showed a certain age given the texture and lines it had.  Her face was ageless though, and I could not have given her more than 30 years of age if looking at her face alone.

But she had the hands of an artisan.  Well defined muscles, veins, and rounded finger tops.  She moved them like a potter would around wet clay.

“So, the usual first question,” she asked with the ample smile taught to all Asians.  “First time in Taiwan?”

It was going to be boring, I knew it.

“Oh, for 15 years now?  You should know every corner of that little island!”

(“Choya” the little bottle read.  The one with a dry plum in it she was mercilessly stabbing while talking to me.)

“Ok, then the next question…”

I stopped her short.  I was feeling like a 4th grader answering questions from my friends’ moms.

“My turn: what do you do?”

She smiled of that smile that says “Ok, so you want to be the smart one, eh?”

“I am a pianist.”

Aha! I knew her hands were those of an artisan.

“Piano.  I have to admit I am more of a string instruments guy, although one always knows about piano.”  I was hoping that the conversation would end on that note.

“So, people who do not like piano still know Chopin, yes?  Every teenager boy likes Chopin.  You were a teenager once, no?”

True.  I once was and once did.

“Sure, his Nocturnes were among my favorites.  I played them on badly scratched records.”

“Ok, let’s see: do you remember which ones were your favorites?”

It had easily been 30 years since I last was a teenager.  I did not remember how many there were.  But for some strange reason two of them had stayed in my mind.

“Nocturnes No. 7 and 20,” I said, proud of my pedantism.

“Oh, I do have a C-man next to me!” she exclaimed in pleasure.  “Are you an artist?”

I never know how to answer that question.

“I try to do literary work.”

“Try?  Either you are very lucky or you have another job!  Trying does not pay for business class around the globe.”

“I am a public health researcher with a keen interest in the arts—is that better?”

“Yes! “ And she pricked and stabbed the dry plum with her toothpick.  In a flash, scenes from “The Marathon Man” haunted me.

“So, why the 7^th and 20^th?  Obviously there is a reason since you remember the specific Nocturnes.”

Took me a while trying to replay the feeling of these two Nocturnes – impossible!  I had a general sensation as to what they were, but nothing more.  However, to my scare and surprise, I could articulate a few feelings.

“The 20^th reminds me of the people I met over the past decades.  There is revolt, fear, determination, passion, pursuit and calm about their existence.”

“Hmm… Interesting recollection – go on.”

“The 7^th, if I remember correctly, is simple.  It is introspective but simple.  It is more black and white.  It is perhaps like the people I would like to meet at this stage in my life.”

I wanted to ask her useless questions like “where do you play?” or “tell me more about you”, but resisted.  These questions have no usefulness on flights, when people meet and depart like frothy waves upon vast beaches.  Without consequence.

“You seem to know who you want to meet.”

“Well, in some way.  We learn what makes us comfortable with age, no?”

“I suppose.  Although we do revert to old loves even if now they erupt in your inner spaces differently.  Look at you – you remember the Nocturnes after all these years!  But if you listen to them again, you may decide that the 7^th is more complicated than you once thought.  Or that the No 20…”

“Sure.  But why did you disinfect your whole sitting area with hot towel???  I have never seen anyone do that!”

She smiled, as if she had anticipated that obvious question.

“It makes this inherently impersonal space a bit more personal for 16 hours.  I know it is a strange thing to do, but I like to have a space, a person, a note, a heartbeat in a very intimate way for the space of a moment.  That is how an artist interprets things – by making them her own, fully, unequivocally her own for a short while.  Do you do that?”

I had not thought about it that way.  I took another sip on my 21 year old Royal Salute, the only whisky on board, and wondered if indeed, I do build time cocoons around spaces, people, or a heartbeat.  And if I make them mine, as if the photography of the experience, framed in some wood or metal, or just the feeling of the moment.

“Maybe.  Although I would like to make people be unequivocally mine for longer, if they accept.”

“It does not matter as long as you know that you have to let them go one day.  Or that you have to leave them to someone else; or for someone else.”

I was very happy.  Finally got a travel companion who could fill these hours with meaningful insights.

Then she decided to watch a movie, and I thanked her for the fun ideas and that I would now sleep, and perhaps listen to Chopin in my dreams.

“You better dream of the next exciting people you plan to meet!” she said with a smile that was now tired. 

I thought the two bottles of “Choya” were having an effect -- or was it the revenge of the plum she stabbed without mercy?

The sleeping cover given by EVA Airlines was as thick and comfortable as the one we have at home, so once my body was pretzeled just right, the comfort of sleeping a few hours was delightful.  And I did so without regret.

…. I woke up a few hours later and she was still watching movies.

“Any Chopin?”

We landed in Los Angeles uneventfully.

“I enjoyed the conversation.  Thanks for making me think about Nocturnes and C-sharp.”

“I hope public health and the arts always mix well for you. After all, health is more than just the absence of disease, yes?” And as she was leaving, turned back and whispered “The 20 is really not a Nocturne, but don’t worry about it…”

November 7, 2010

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013