That day, Louis was the first passenger to rise and present himself at the open boarding gate. He had the standard look of a professional traveller: a steel-grey suitcase, charcoal pants, a lightweight black jacket, stretchy and close-fitting. Everything dark, discreet, almost invisible. In an instant, Emma-Jade knew that Louis would greet his neighbours with courtesy in order to keep them at bay and avoid any possible conversation. Like her, he slept as often above the clouds as he did on earth. Like her, he slept as comfortably sitting in the cramped space of numbered seats as bedded down in rooms with numbered doors.
She hurried to position herself second in line, behind him. She saw his passport already open at the proper page, which indicated that he knew how to insert his suitcase correctly in the luggage compartment without unduly blocking the aisle.
Emma-Jade felt a certain pride at being dressed like a professional traveller, like Louis. She gripped the handle of her suitcase with her left hand, ready to move at the first crackling from the loudspeakers. Whatever the country or the airport, the voice announcing the flights always had the same intonation, the same rhythm, the same pace. She felt impatient to hear the beginning of the recording the agents used to announce the start of the flight. She was eager to sit back in her seat and fall asleep before takeoff. She couldn’t wait to find herself in that constricted universe where she felt she was in her own little world, while at her side her neighbour’s sigh would stir the air, an elbow on the armrest would inevitably be grazing hers, and she would recognize the film he’d chosen to view. But her seatmate would surely hear the tears inside her throat while she slept. The smell of the plane, the confinement of the passengers, and the constant noise of the engines each time induced a dull trembling in her stomach and an irresistible desire to sleep deeply, almost as if she were fainting.
At the signal, Louis and Emma-Jade stepped forward in unison, she behind him. They walked with the same rhythm, in sync with the steady noise of their wheeled luggage. They moved with assurance, obeying the rules, like soldiers on a military parade in the narrow corridors that rule out any discourtesy. They followed each other closely, keeping a polite distance, according to the unwritten laws of seasoned travellers.
Emma-Jade’s life had always resembled these pass age-ways that allowed you to move ahead without calling anything into question. On this day, though, Louis abruptly turned around at a display rack at a bend in the corridor. Just as he was avoiding a collision between his suitcase and Emma-Jade’s foot, their eyes met, thereby putting a mark on this anonymous space. They might perhaps have stopped in their tracks, but the crowd behind them didn’t allow it. They moved forward again, Emma-Jade three steps behind Louis.
Inside the plane, by the purest and happiest coincidence, only one seat separated them. Louis smiled at the flight attendant, talked to a passenger overloaded with bags, and greeted his neighbour. Emma-Jade retrieved the scarf that had fallen from its owner’s shoulders, rounded by the passing of time. She handed their mutual neighbour her seat belt. They did not exchange words. But they looked at each other often, and at length.
For the first time in her life, Emma-Jade stayed awake, fascinated by the perfectly erect posture adopted by Louis during his sleep, despite his relaxed muscles.
On arrival, as Louis found himself behind Emma-Jade in the line for passport control, she approached and offered him the photo she’d taken of him.