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…”
“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
©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013
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