Natasha

Passengers waited for a flight from Amsterdam to Casablanca on September 2nd, 2001.

Your Self, originally from Fez and now San Francisco was going home to see his family after years away. He was a wise man bearing gifts.

There was a woman from the Ukraine with her five-year-old son. Natasha was tall, slim, beautiful and married to a Moroccan. They’d met at the university in Kiev where she gave birth and he lived in Amsterdam. She hadn’t seen him forever.

He didn’t 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 Morocco but had never seen it. She was taking her son to Casablanca to live with her husband’s family. She didn’t speak French or Arabic.

Her cheap red, white and blue plastic baggage split at the seams. Her son pissed his pants leaving a trail of urine in the departure lounge. Natasha was beside herself with a double identity theory.

Everyone spoke the same language as night fell with the roar of planes taking people somewhere left gravity. We were buried at gate 54D, miles from duty free shops, perfume, electronics, banks, toy and clothing stores, restaurants, diamond rings and watches.

Fliers carried yellow plastic “Buy and Fly,” shopping bags.  

It was midnight when we landed in Casablanca. We walked through a towering hall with a waterfall and intricate mosaic tiles. A gigantic framed image of a benevolent aristocratic king watched passengers.

Customs was a formality. 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 strangers, friends and relatives.

I helped Natasha load her bags on a cart and she disappeared into humanity with her son. Her husband’s father, mother and grandmother in jellabas approached her. They hugged her speaking words Natasha did not understand. The old woman scooped up the boy. I knew they’d take him forever, this progeny of theirs and connection to their son.

Natasha, an aberration in their world would be relegated to a new life. She moved into their culture with a Ukrainian passport, sensing unknown languages where she would be welcomed yet relegated to serving her new family.

They would project their unconscious loss on her.

She’d carry their water and gather their wood. She’d shoulder their fading light, hopes, and dreams. Their grandson would realize everything. They disappeared into a city of five million.

Being a grand man in their hearts, their son in Holland could do no wrong. Many women came and went in his life. It was his dark-eyed nomadic destiny. When his wife was trapped in the airport he was with a prostitute. He wasn’t lying when he said his family would take care of her.

Natasha heard this story at 54D but didn’t believe it.

ART - Adventure, Risk & Transformation - A Memoir