Emma-Jade hopscotched from one time zone to another. She flew over them without keeping track. She often lived thirty-hour days when she made leaps in time, her watch indicating the same hour more than once. Such flights enabled her to marvel at magnolias in flower several times in the same year. In a single autumn she gathered up and compared maple leaves fallen in Bremen, Kyoto, and Minneapolis.
She was one of those types of traveller who prompted airports to transform themselves into living environments. It was not unusual to find a grand piano and a pianist playing, with the same world-weariness, Beethoven and Céline Dion, thus ennobling to some degree the burgers and sushi served on plastic trays. Some airports featured libraries bathed in warm light and peaceful prayer rooms where believers could converse with the gods before placing themselves in the hands of technology once embarked. Some terminals positioned chaise longues in front of outsized windows flooded with sun, or massage chairs facing luxuriant plants from five continents, the roots of some entwining the young shoots of others. Ferns from Asia, begonias from South America, African violets, grew side by side cheerfully and abundantly, reassuring travellers who wanted to maintain contact with the outside world. The length of endless corridors, restaurant islands surged into view like oases. No menu adhered to culinary geography. Marinated olives were a stone’s throw from Nordic salmon, while pad Thai faced off against fish and chips and jambon-beurre. The truly chic offered caviar and champagne, so you could celebrate your solitary birthday with bubbles and passing travellers.
You needed a trained eye to pick out Emma-Jade from the crowd. She always wore the same sweater in grey cashmere, a wool both light and warm. In her drawer, three identical pullovers lay in wait to replace the one whose stitches were being worn away by the friction from her shoulder straps and the weight of accumulated kilometres. The sweater protected her from the seats imprinted by the bodies of travellers who had preceded her. It was her refuge, her home away from home.
As usual, she had a snack before embarking, to help her fall asleep as soon as she settled into her seat, before takeoff, and before being assaulted by the scent of the lady who had tried out too many perfumes in the duty-free boutique, and that of the gentleman who had raced between two terminals in his overly heavy coat.