Natasha from Kiev

At the beginning of September 2001, passengers at the Amsterdam airport waited for their flight to Casablanca. There was Youseif, a Moroccan man from Fez living in San Francisco going home to see his family after many years. He would stay three months.

There was a woman from Kiev with her 5 year old son. Her name was Natasha and she was tall, slim and beautiful. She was married to a Moroccan man. They’d met at the university in Kiev and he lived in Amsterdam. She had not seen him for three years and he didn’t know his son.

He did not come to the airport to see her because he didn’t have the correct papers nor was she able to leave the airport and see him because she lacked the correct papers so she waited for her flight to her new home.

Natasha had heard about her new home but had never seen it. She was taking her son to Morocco where they would meet her husband’s family for the first time and live their life.

She did not speak Arabic. Her cheap red, white and blue Russian plastic baggage was falling apart at the seams. Her son was a terror and pissed his pants leaving a trail of urine in the departure lounge. Natasha was beside herself.

With them was an American writer going to Morocco for six months. He had finished a book in the summer about a woman who spoke every language and he was jumping through a window into new adventures.

We all spoke the same language as night fell around the roar of planes leaving gravity taking people somewhere.

We were buried at gate 54D, miles from bright gleaming duty free shops full of perfume, electronics, banks, casinos, toy stores, restaurants, gleaming diamond rings and watches, customs, clothing stores and business.

Passengers carried plastic bags saying, “Buy and Fly.”

It was midnight when we landed in Casablanca and walked through a towering hall full of intricate inlaid mosaic tiles and a waterfall. Framed images of smiling kings watched us. Customs was a formality and the baggage conveyer belt broke down as frustrated passengers waited.

Small wheels on useless baggage trolleys were bent and stuck. They careened left and right as people wrestled impossible loads through green ‘nothing to declare’ zones toward friends and relatives.

I helped Natasha load her life on a cart and she disappeared into the throng with her son. I watched her husband’s family approach her. It was his father, mother, brother-in-law and an older woman dressed in traditional jellabas. They welcomed her with a hug, speaking words Natasha did not understand. They scooped up the boy.

I focused on the old couple as they slowly walked away and imagined they would take him forever, this progeny of theirs, their connection to their son.

Natasha, an alien in their world, an aberration, would be relegated to a new life. She moved into their world with a Ukranian passport, speaking unknown languages where she would be welcomed on one hand and relegated to a life in a new reality serving her new family.

She was going to be many things to them and they would manifest their loss on her. She would carry the water and gather wood. She would carry their fading light, hopes, dreams and connections. Their grandson would realize everything. They disappeared into a polluted city of 5 million.

They were descended from Berbers. Their culture had a passion to touch a world outside their ability to perceive the reality.

Their son in Holland relied on his mobile. He could do no wrong. He was a grand man in their eyes and hearts. Many women came and went in his life. It was his dark eyed nomadic destiny.

While his wife was trapped in the airport he was with his girlfriend and he didn’t have the correct papers anyway. He wasn’t lying when he said his family would take care of her.

I whispered this story to Natasha but she found it hard to believe.