There is hell, and there is an absurdist play written by the devil

Having not slept at all the night before my big, anxious return to the United States of America, I wake up to find us still on the runway in Moscow some hours after our plane was supposed to take off. The disorientation normally felt by such an awakening, coming after a completely blank, indefinite period of unconsciousness and right next to a large Russian woman whose chubby hands are suddenly, inexplicably handing over a pillow, urging a pillow, is doubled by the loud voice over the loudspeaker. It’s intoned by a man who can only be the captain, in one of those slow, delicate, meticulous cadences that can only mean there is a problem. “It appears…” some words about the work of technicians and the time and the safety precautions, and two minutes later, “…there is a problem with the fuel pump in one of the main fuel tanks.” It occurs to me that this is one of those things one would much rather hear while sitting on the ground rather than floating or falling in the air.

But then the periphery becomes less foggy: toddlers are everywhere, new adoptees crying for their about to be lost country, maybe for the parents they don’t even know they have, for their yogurt, for anything that might save them from this mess of being on an airplane for the first time. Helpless, that is how a child feels. Maybe this is the source of so much crying for them as much as it is for us: being stuck in a situation about which one is unable to do anything. That might mean simple communicating in Russian, or figuring out what’s wrong, or how to survive a horrible crash with unluckiness. We are told we are returning to the gate. And just as I’m about to semi-voluntarily pass out again, I notice Steve Martin’s comforting face on the television screen, which I must crane my neck to see. The movie “Plane, Trains and Automobiles” might be a sort of last measure stewardesses whip out in desperate moments like sudden flight-stopping weather, runway traffic, fiery engines, or being stuck in an immobile airplane with 30 small children. Here’s Steve Martin having a hell of a time getting to the airport, almost getting stranded, sitting next to John Candy on his flight, an obnoxious shower curtain ring salesman who earlier stole his cab, before actually getting stranded at his connecting airport. They end up sleeping in the same bed at some dingy motel. Something about it seemed like a premonition of what was to come. I turned my eyes ever so slightly and cringed at the large Russian babushka sitting next to me, fearing the worst. But no, of course we wouldn’t end up stranded, in some dingy motel.

In Russia however things are both never as they seem and always as they seem; never predictable and yet, curiously enough, always predictable in that unpredictable way. Four hours and a exhaust-filled, stuffy busride later, one of the more desperate sounding fathers whined to one of the brusque receptionists at some anonymous Soviet hotel, “I am not sharing a room with a complete stranger!” Sorry sir there is nothing to be done about it, or some such response in weak English fluttered back to him. Peering around the lobby like a madman, he caught my eye, moaned in my direction, and before I knew it we were checking into the same room. Of course, no more than two minutes had passed before the same receptionist explained that we would be in different rooms altogether. If it isn’t already taken—I think it is—“Expect the unexpected” would be a good, neutral slogan for Russia’s tourist bureau, sort of like India's "Incredible" India tagline. Or maybe, "Russia may never leave you--and you may never leave Russia."