Chapter XIX. The pretext of Admiration

The plane landed at Logan Airport, at 7:30 am local time, passengers stopped to gather their belongings and prepare to leave the plane, and he remained seated in his seat waiting for exits, waiting for her to pass next to him, and at quick moments the flow of passengers stopped! Everyone got off the plane?

He looked back! No one.

-Impossible! Not everyone on the plane went out! Where’s the rest of them?

-The attendant turned to him, sir, is there anything wrong?

-No, but where are the rest of the passengers? Didn’t everyone leave?

-Excuse me, sir. The captain has stopped at a parking lot far from the building. The airport buses will take you to the entrance gates. The rest of the passengers got off the bus through the back door.

-Oh! Well, where do I get off?

-From the front door, sir, the back door bus has already left.

A stroke of bad luck, due to just one lack of information, if he paid little attention to the post-landing announcement, he noticed that the plane was stopping away from the building, and this would obviously mean bussing passengers, so the back door would be opened.

He has a prior knowledge that she is seated closer to the back of the plane, and will get out of the back door and take the second bus. Not bad luck, but lack of information, which meant that he lost his chance to mend the situation between them.

Where will I find it now?! He picked up his backpack and got off the plane in a hurry, got on the bus, and the rest of the passengers looked at him angrily, as he caused them to be late.

-Excuse me, I lost something under the seat and was looking for it.

He has one chance left, they have delivered their bags in Tel Aviv, and the airline is delivering them to them at the final destination, she must have bags, they may meet in the luggage delivery area.

He entered the airport building in a hurry, they had already finished the passports procedures at the Newark airport, and all they had to do was pick up baggage.

He took his black bag off the delivery line, stood away, and watched, all the passengers left, no sign of her, only one black bag, the size of his bag, kept rolling on the delivery line until it stopped completely.

He went to it, carried it and placed it on the ground, read the flight information and the passenger’s name on the bag sticker, at the top the passenger’s name appeared in bold black, Natasha Ivanenko.

The suffix “enko” is mostly considered to be the unique brand of Ukrainian families, with many family name entries in Slavic peoples, and in Ukraine, but the presence of” enko “at the last name often means that the owner is Ukrainian. The family name of Ivanenko, pronounced in Russia as Ivanov, Ivanovich, and Robert knows this, he had heard in a lecture that Christine invited him to, on the origin of languages, in which the speaker touched on the Slavic peoples.

He looked at the bottom of the label, a lot of symbols that did not make any sense of, numbers and codes. What matters which traveler is, his name, and the final destination of the bags. Since they went from the same airport to the same final destination, the airport information on their poster must match. Natasha’s label is different from his poster! The flight code does not match!

Departure airport: EWR Final destination: BOS

Returned to his bag, and checked its label

Departure Airport: TLV Final destination: BOS

Which airport has the code EWR? He grabbed his phone and looked up the airport code. Result: Newark Liberty International Airport. What? This bag came with the passenger from Newark Airport, not Ben Gurion! Back in her bag again, checked again, EWR, the take-off airport code, slipped the label off his hand and returned to the seat and the physicist began to analyze the situation.

He forgot himself, thinking out loud, ” This bag of hers is probably Natasha herself, let’s admit, it came from Newark Airport with a passenger named Natasha Ivanenko, and Natasha was on a plane with me from Tel Aviv to Newark. What are my assumptions?”

label error? It is unlikely, very unlikely. she did not come from Tel Aviv? It is not possible she sat next to me on the plane, there is no hypothesis except that she came from Tel Aviv without a suitcase, and maybe someone gave her the suitcase at Newark Airport or a suitcase she left there in the airport security.

He heard a voice behind him, talking annoyed, he did not turn, he just closed his eyes embarrassed, just listening.

– What if I took it from Tel Aviv and asked them to pick it up at the Newark airport, from where I removed the label and then delivered them back to be shipped? Why would I do that? What if I put something in it that I need in your Newark? What if it was something I cannot carry in a handbag? What if it was oil in a package over 100 milliliters that was not allowed to be carried on the plane? Why have not I received it yet? What if I had my period and I was in the bathroom all this time?

-He bit his lip, what an idiot, got up, turned to her: Madam, I apologize…

He stammered, not knowing what to say, with his head on the ground, raised it, and looked aside… A voice in his head: “Damn you embarrassed yourself for the second time, how will you get out of this predicament!”

He looked at it, after the trouble of speaking: Madam, my only consolation for intruding on your privacy is because I am interested in you, forgive me.

-He was about to leave, her voice irritated: Interested in me?

-He turned to her: I apologize, I don’t mean…

-she interrupted him: Why? What made you say you are interested in me?

– Madam, please I did not mean.

-She interrupted him again: yes, you did not mean, you wanted to say anything to get yourself out of this awkward situation, but why did you find no other reason than that you cared about me?

-She looked at his black bag as well: You could have said, madam, I thought it was my bag, I saw the name, it was not mine, I saw your name, I worried about you, departure airport, I was confused, I sat waiting for you to check if you needed any help. Isn’t that better than playing with a girl’s feelings and saying you are interested in her?

Turning her back, she walked over to her bag and pulled it behind her, turned back towards him, and stood beside him, her face toward the exit, his face toward the baggage-delivery line.

She said in a faint voice: Or does the word “I am interested in you” require less effort from your mind than your love and creating a convincing story, sir.

She completed her way, he was frozen in his place, not saying a word