Cruising through the sky at 35,000 feet, my stewardess approached me and asked whether I would prefer white wine, red wine, juice, or water. But I couldn't understand her because she was speaking in Russian. Like all of the Aeroflot flight attendants, she was very pretty and wearing a red uniform bordered with white lapel and cuffs, a red hat, and red high heels. Quite an improvement on the American Airlines staff, I thought. "I don't understand. English?" I asked. Her face showed her annoyance with me as she repeated the options in a language I could comprehend. "I'll take the white wine." She poured some into a little paper cup and handed it to me. I'll admit that I really don't know much about wine other than I like it dry. This wine seemed at least as good as any $10 bottle I've ever bought stateside. She and the the attendant on the opposite end of the cart moved on down the aisle and I returned to reading Bukowski.
I hit the little power button on the screen located in front of me and saw that we still had 8 hours until we were to arrive in Moscow. I was still hoping I would be able to get some sleep at some point before the end of the flight. I shuffled through the options on the screen and found the flight path. We were headed up the eastern Canadian coast and would soon be crossing over the Labrador Sea on our way to the southern tip of Greenland. The stewardess came back briefly to retrieve and dispose of my empty paper cup. "I should have asked her how these damn seats recline", I thought. "How do these damn seats recline?" I snuck a peak at the gentleman to my left to see if he had figured it out. We were each on opposite ends of a row of four seats with no one occupying the middle two. The man was dressed in a navy blue suit with no tie and he looked very much like Willem DaFoe. For all I know, it was Willem DaFoe. His seat wasn't reclined and he didn't wear the face expression of someone who valued strangers pestering him. "I shouldn't bother Willem Dafoe", I decided.
It wasn't long before the stewardess was back with her cart. This time she wanted to know whether I wanted fish or pork. But I didn't know that. Once again she had asked me in Russian. Once again I politely asked that she repeat it in English. This would be a theme throughout the flight. They would insist on speaking Russian to me and I would insist that they repeat themselves in my native tongue so that I might understand. I placed my book in the empty seat beside me and chose the fish. A platter was placed on my fold-down tray. There was the fish, a rye roll, a salad, and a little dessert cake of some sort. But no drink. "That's strange", I thought. "I wonder why they gave me my drink so much earlier than my meal." I decided to eat the salad first. It had a little tomato and a thin slice of meat in it. Was this also fish? I was never sure, but I ate it anyway. Not bad, whatever it was. I peeled the tin foil top off of the entree and took the rye roll out of its package. It was surprisingly difficult to take a bite of the roll. It required a good amount of effort. I decided to dip it in whatever sauce they had covered the fish with. Again, not bad. Quite good, actually. The fish itself was also good. I looked back over at Willem Dafoe. He was eating, but he didn't look particularly happy about it. After that was all gone, I moved on to the little cake. It was something with cinnamon. I liked it. But I did wish that I had a beverage to help wash it down.
I had already finished the cake and had gone back to reading my book as I waited for my trash to be collected, when the stewardess returned again and asked if I wanted "чай или кофе" (tea or coffee). I chose tea and she poured the hot liquid into the little plastic mug that had been delivered with my meal. "What the hell?" I wondered. They would repeat this pattern when they served the second meal of the flight. Drink, meal, and then tea or coffee. "Strange customs in a strange land", I mused. I was ready for it by the time I was on my return flight to JFK. But the tea was good.
After I had finished and all the trash had been collected, I began to once again try and figure out how the damn seats reclined. "How do these damn seats recline?" I thought. I could see that other passengers were reclined. Why couldn't I? I could find no lever on the side or underneath. There was a little button on the arm of the seat. I wondered if it was a call button. "I'll press it", I decided. "The worst that can happen is that it will call the stewardess and then I can ask her how these damn seats recline." I pressed the button and leaned back. Nothing. And it didn't seem to alert any of the flight staff either. I began to resign myself to sleeping upright. I was happy that I at least had a flight pillow. "It won't be so bad", I thought. Somewhere past Iceland I finally did stop a stewardess and ask if she knew the secret to make those frustrating seats recline. It was the same woman who had poured my wine and she wore the same expression of contempt as she pushed the same little button on the arm of my seat that I had pressed. This time the seat reclined. "I'm an idiot", I thought. "I'll never make it out of Moscow alive. I can't even figure out an airplane seat."
But I did make it out of Moscow alive. By the time I was on my return flight, I could recline seats and chew rye rolls with the best of them. The new staff could look right at my American face and immediately know that I was a man who needed to be spoken to in English. There was no need for sleep. It was not an overnight flight. And the man seated beside me was an architecture student from central Russia who in no way resembled Willem DaFoe. No tea for me, thanks. I'll have a coffee.
