THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

1 2 6 Y T H E K I N D N E S S O F S T R A N G E R S S H E I L A K O H L E R They are not really late. Well, surely no one actually arrives at airports two hours early, as they tell you to do? Still, Therèse can see immediately that something has gone wrong. An endless line of people waiting patiently to go through security snakes its way ominously down the long corridors of the vast halls. There has been a bomb scare, they are told, or something of that sort, earlier this morning, and the whole airport has been evacuated for a while, so they will have to join the queue and wait. Therèse exclaims, ‘‘Just our luck! Of all the days for something like this to happen!’’ looking into Michel’s brown eyes, but thinking of Peter waiting for her at the airport in New York. ‘‘It will be all right, Mum,’’ he says, looking at her and around the airport nervously. An only child who learned early what to say to comfort his mother is what she thinks sadly, and joins the line. She watches the Air France ground personnel in blue jackets running around confusedly issuing contradictory orders and calling out various numbers of flights about to leave, including her own, leading flustered people forward and then back in packs, people who press hard on one another’s heels. Can she possibly 1 2 7 R leave the boy in such pandemonium? She looks at her watch. She will miss her own flight to New York if she does not leave now. ‘‘Just go, I’ll be fine,’’ Michel says obligingly, though she can see he is sweating slightly with anxiety, his cheeks flushed and his dark curls sticking to his brow; but he knows what she is thinking, she is sure. She often feels that her child understands her better than anyone else in the world. Which is when she looks up and sees the well-dressed elderly couple, both of them white-haired, standing just in front of them in the line, with their boarding passes in hand. Therèse can tell immediately, just from their faces – amazing how much one can tell from a face – from the way they speak quietly and considerately to one another, from the way the husband carries all the luggage for his wife (two rather heavy-looking carry-ons), and the wife a fat book, that these are good people. She imagines that they look like her grandparents, though she has never seen her grandparents , deported and killed in the concentration camps during the war. And they look competent, too, particularly the husband, who has the slightly sharper, narrower face. A well-organized, capable man, probably a doctor, she decides. Most probably they are French, Jewish intellectuals of German origin, she thinks, like her. She moves closer to them and asks if they, too, are on the Air France flight 845 to Marseille. They nod and smile back benevolently . The woman, she notices, is wearing a large emerald ring in an old-fashioned setting, a family heirloom, no doubt, and round her neck what looks like a new Hermès scarf with an interesting geometrical design – perhaps a Christmas present from a daughter , who might be a painter? Therèse likes them both immediately. ‘‘Would you keep an eye on him for me?’’ she asks, putting her hand on Michel’s skinny shoulder. Twice a year without fail, she does this, finds someone suitable to take him in tow, to calm her anxiety, to make sure he is safe, and also to save her paying any extra fees. He has his cellphone and his boarding pass in hand. What could happen to him? ‘‘Of course, we will,’’ they both say at once, almost too eagerly, as though she is doing them a favor, and smile such kind, warm smiles, she does not hesitate for a minute. She swiftly tucks a few 1 2 8 K O H L E R Y extra hundred-euro bills into the side pocket of...