Oliver Benjamin
greeted with brown irises, luminous and bright. And somewhere
behind the weariness of an intercontinental flight, behind the span of
time that had separated us, behind the frustration over trying to find
each other, I saw it. I saw that lake of endless adoration. In her eyes
I saw the pacific generosity of her inner space. I saw my cosmology.
I saw my love.
“Strong stuff that Guinness!” she said, laughing.
The security guard shook his head and walked away.
“Charly,” I sighed, and we kissed.
“Oh, Jake. It’s so good to see you.”
“Geez you’re tan,” I said.
“I’ve been in Africa for a year. What did you expect?”
“A bone in your nose.”
“Do I have to listen to this, or are you going to hold me?”
“Sorry. I just can’t believe it’s really you.” I said and as I held
her, everything else around us disappeared along with my carry-on
luggage.
“It’s really me,” she said softly. We kissed again and held each
other, swaying in the same manner that we did on her bed, in her
room that March evening a year before. We had come full circle, and
the circle seemed to have emerged unbroken.
On the bus to the bed and breakfast, an elderly Irish woman across
the aisle tapped me on my shoulder and offered me a scone. Unable
to refuse her generosity and insistent smile, I accepted and began
nibbling at the hard, dry puck. She nodded as I ate and pointed to the
shiny Irish Airlines pin on my bag. She then tried to tell me
something very important, but I couldn’t make out what she was
saying. Her son, sitting next to her came to her aid.
“She’s a little senile and only speaks Gaelic now. She’s askin’ if
you were on the flight where they found the nuclear bombs.”
“Yeah, but they were just detonators,” I said.
“Oh, good,” he said. “That’s good.”
“Sure.”
“We were on the same flight,” he said, “Someone told me that
they were smuggled in by some fringe radicals.”
After a moment, the elderly woman said something to the man
and he translated for me:
“She said: ‘Men join together and divide the world between
them.’”
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