The Other Hand

on the holiday of a lifetime. Waste, really, isn’t it? I bet you’re more employable than I am. You should be escorting me, really, shouldn’t you? Back to this place we’re going, whatever the name of it is again.”
    “Nigeria.”
    “Yeah, that was it. Hot there, is it?”
    “Hotter than England.”
    “Thought so. These places usually are, where you people come from.”
    He went back to his magazine and he turned a few pages. Each time he turned the page, he licked his finger to make it stick. There were tattoos on the knuckles of his fingers, small blue dots. His watch was big and gold but the gold was wearing off. It looked like one of the watches from the aeroplane magazine. He turned a few more pages and then he looked up at me again.
    “Don’t say much, do you?”
    I shrugged.
    “That’s all right,” he said. “I don’t mind. Rather that than the waterworks.”
    “The waterworks?”
    “Some of them cry. Some of the people I escort back. The women aren’t the worst, believe it or not. I had this bloke once, Zimbabwe we were going to, sobbed away for six hours straight. Tears and snot everywhere, like a baby, I kid you not. It got embarrassing after a while. Some of the other passengers, you know? Giving it the looks, and all of that. I was like, cheer up mate, it might never happen, but it wasn’t no good. He just kept crying and talking to himself in foreign. Some of you people, I’m sorry to see you go, but this one, I tell you, I couldn’t wait to sign him over. Good money though, that job was. There was no flight out for three days, so they put me up at the Sheraton. Watched Sky Sports for three days, scratched my arse, got paid time and a half. Course the people who really make the money are the big contractors. The ones I’m working for now, Dutch firm, they run the whole show. They run the detention centers and they run the repatriations. So they’re earning either way, whether we lock you up or whether we send you back. Nice, eh?”
    “Nice,” I said.
    The man tapped his finger against the side of his head.
    “But that’s how you’ve got to think, these days, isn’t it? It’s the global economy.”
    The plane began to roll backward on the tarmac and some television screens came down from the ceiling. They started to show us a safety film. They said what we should do if the cabin filled with smoke, and they also said where our life jackets were kept in case we landed on water. I saw that they did not show us the position to adopt in case we were deported to a country where it was likely that we would be killed because of events we had witnessed. They said there was more information on the safety card in the seat pocket in front of us.
    There was a huge and terrifying roar, so loud that I thought, They have tricked us. I thought we were going on a journey, but actually we are being destroyed. But then there was a great acceleration, and everything started shaking and rising up to a terrifying angle, and suddenly all the vibration was gone and the sound died down and my stomach went crazy. The man beside me, my guard, he looked at me and laughed.
    “Relax, love, we’re in the air.”
    After the takeoff, the captain came on the intercom. He said it was a fine, sunny day in Abuja.
    I understood that for a few hours I was not in anyone’s country. I said to myself, Look here, Little Bee—finally, you are flying. Buzz, buzz. I pressed my nose against the aeroplane window. I watched the forests and the fields and the roads with their tiny cars, all those tiny precious lives. Me, I felt that my own life was already over. From very high up in the sky, all alone, I could see the curve of the world.
    And then I heard a voice, a kind and gentle voice that was familiar.
    “Bee?” said the voice.
    I turned from the window and saw Sarah. She was standing in the aisle and she was smiling. Charlie was holding her hand and he was smiling too. He was wearing his Batman outfit and he was grinning as if he had just killed all the baddies.
    “We is in the sky, isn’t we?” he said.
    “No darling,” said Sarah. “We are in the sky, aren’t we.”
    I did not understand what I was seeing. Sarah reached over the guard and she put her hand on my hand.
    “Lawrence found out what flight they were putting you on,” she said. “He’s not entirely bad, at the end of the day. We couldn’t let you go back alone, Bee. Could we Batman?”
    Charlie shook his head. Now he looked very