Free The Outsider(S) by Caroline Adhiambo Jakob Page A

smile that I always flashed whenever I felt anxious.
    “Ma’am, you are in business class. Let me show you your seat,” she said smoothly.
    “Thank you,” I responded sweetly and followed her into the cabin. I was trying to act as carefree as possible.
    The business-class cabin was surprisingly spacious and clean. Compared to many of my previous European flights, the cabin looked very nice. I noted that the plane was fairly new. It was a Boeing 777-200 ER.
    I looked around the cabin to check out who my neighbors were. There were around ten people in the business class. Two white nuns sat directly in front of me. I wondered where they got the money to book themselves into business class from. I had always thought anyone who chose to live as a nun had no appreciation for material things. Wasn’t the criterion for admission into nun-hood a love for poverty? I mused.
    A black man who had been busy stuffing his luggage in the overhead compartments came and sat next to me. I couldn’t guess his age. He was very skinny; in fact, one could have easily mistaken him for a kid were it not for the small moustache that he wore. He was dressed in a green Nike track suite with Kenya written boldly on it.
    “Hello,” he said to me.
    “Hello,” I responded a bit too enthusiastically. The lone memory of my train ride to Hamburg flooded back. “Are you going home?” I asked, feigning cheerfulness.
    “Home?” he asked, smiling widely. “I am Qatari,” he said, looking very pleased with himself.
    “I am Irmtraut,” I told him and stretched my hand to greet him. I was following what I had once learned. You don’t fight fear by walking away. You face it.
    He looked confused but shook my hand. “I am Mohammed al Safal, and I come from Qatar.”
    “Is that a place in Kenya?” I asked, completely overdoing it in the friendliness front.
    “No, Qatar is near Dubai,” he responded and studied me in a way one does a person who isn’t very intelligent.
    There were a lot of questions in my mind, but I didn’t dare ask. I was too scared of saying the wrong thing and offending him. Was he referring to Qatar in the Middle East? Why was he wearing a T-shirt with Kenya on it? I wondered silently.
    I wanted to be on good terms with my seatmate. Nothing would be as catastrophic as an annoyed seatmate hiding my oxygen mask, I thought with a shudder.
    Directly in front of us was a tall, slender woman. I remember first seeing her legs. They seemed to be endless. She had dark, supple skin and very subtle makeup. When she stood up to get something from the overhead compartment, I noted that her suit was Chanel.
    I was still studying her when a plump, elderly woman brushed past me and went directly to her. I wondered if it was her mother and felt envy engulfing me.
    She hugged her, but the tall, slender woman didn’t reciprocate. She just stood there with an awkward expression on her face.
    “I am praying for you,” the elderly woman said in a tone that didn’t sound very friendly. She handed the woman a Bible and turned to go back to her seat at the right-hand corner. On the way back, she stopped to tie her scarf that seemed to have become a bit loose.
    The slender woman didn’t seem the least bit surprised. I wondered if it was normal to get Bibles as presents in Africa.
    The rest of the passengers in business class were the usual professional manager types. I could smell them from a thousand miles away. They all had an air of importance and urgency around them. Pretty much all of them were buried in some expensive electronic gadget. I also knew from experience that they would, in their real lives, never buy a business-class ticket. They were all there because someone else was footing the bill. I should know; I was one of them.
    “Ladies and gentlemen welcome aboard KQ flight 802 to Nairobi. I am your captain, Thomas Maurer, and my first officer is…” I listened to the announcements carefully. Despite my being a frequent flyer, I was