Free An American Brat by Bapsi Sidhwa

finding herself suddenly confronted by a moving staircase, she came to a dead stop.
    A few people pushed past her to step on the escalator.
    An elderly American couple, their cameras and reading glasses dangling from their creased necks, appeared to understand her predicament. They had square jaws and gentle, undefined lips with faint lines running up from them, and, as married couples often do, they looked alike. They smiled, sympathetic and tentative, and asked Feroza if she understood English.
    At her nod and her diffident answering smile, the man took the duty-free packages from her hand and stepped onto the escalator. The woman took hold of Feroza’s arm and, telling her to mind the cracks before the steps fell away, escorted her down theescalator. “Now get ready to get off,” she said and held Feroza firmly round the waist. Taken unawares by the continuing momentum, Feroza all but tumbled when they got off.
    Feroza laughed, apologetic, embarrassed, delighted by the unexpected adventure. And, after her chilling reception by the passport officer, deeply touched by the kindness. The woman gave her arm a squeeze, and, infected by the spirit of Feroza’s wonder as her eyes again locked on the descending human cargo, the woman and her husband turned also to gaze upon the marvelously plunging staircase.
    â€œWill someone be there to meet you, hon?” the woman asked as they neared the crush of passengers waiting by the conveyor belt.
    â€œOh, yes. My uncle,” Feroza said confidently.
    The husband spotted their luggage and pushed through the crowd.
    â€œYou sure, hon?” The woman was concerned, but anxious also to help her husband.
    Feroza nodded quickly, gratefully.
    â€œNow, you take care, honey,” the woman said and, giving Feroza a quick hug, barreled into the thicket.
    Feroza found her path to the conveyor belt blocked. Every time she tried to push through, someone or some piece of luggage intruded into the space, and she felt obliged to step back. She hovered on the fringe of the press, looking out for her luggage.
    The crowd thinned as more people wheeled away their belongings. Feroza once again saw her gentle elderly friends. They were pushing their carts past parallel rows of ribbonlike customs counters. She followed their awkward, chunky figures with misting eyes and, in her heightened state of excitement and nervousness, an aching sense of loss.
    Feroza’s eye caught the stately progression of her outsize suitcases on the conveyor belt. Afraid they might disappear, Feroza quickly slipped through the crowd that had by now thinned and hauled them off. She was staggered by their weight.It was the first time she had needed to handle her suitcases. She wondered what her mother had stuffed into them to make them so heavy. She remembered the books and magazines Manek had asked for, and the heavy onyx gifts Zareen had wrapped in newspaper and carefully inserted among her clothes to prevent them from breaking.
    After some moments of confusion, Feroza timidly approached an immensely tall black porter with a large cart, explaining, “My bags are very heavy … Can you …?”
    The porter barely deigned to flicker his lids. Gazing over her head, he trundled his cart to an elegant set of matching luggage spread before a woman in a discreetly gleaming white mink.
    Feroza wondered if he had heard her.
    She finally gathered the courage to ask another gray-haired woman, who appeared to bear a resemblance to the couple who had befriended her, where she had gotten her cart. The woman hastily pointed out a shining caterpillar of stacked carts.
    Feroza was struggling to extract one when a breezy young man inserted a dollar bill in a slot and calmly walked away with the cart. Feroza stared at the slot-box in bewilderment. When another young man in patched jeans hustled up with the same intent, Feroza stepped right in front of the box, barring access:
    â€œIt’s my