Aeroplane

Luca. In Italy, it is a name. In Croatia, it is a seaport. Outside Mexico City, it is a small private airport. The pilot boy gave some pass, and a barrier was lifted to allow us in. "The tank is full, sir," chirped the man who had brought the plane out of the garage and readied it for a sprightly frolic, then drove off to park the car.

I had fantasized and wanted the Mexican to come rescue me from the prison of Monterrey with this plane, picking me up preferably in flight, using a rope or harness to which I would have thrown myself from the roof of the building.

Only the English are that romantic, I have since realized, and actually, I was nonetheless excited about going to pilot a plane for the first time in the company of an extraordinarily handsome pilot. The French-Mexican had received specific instructions to look after me during my stay from his cousin and my friend in Rome. He had done his best, lifting my spirits with playful correspondence throughout the tribulations of the Monterrey exhibition, and now that I was back in Mexico City, the only thing standing in our way to the sky was his fear that I would be frightened.

Since Mother had bought me the first toy plane and Father took me for his coffees at the airport when I was a child, I had always wanted to fly a plane and just waited for the right moment for it to happen, and there eventually it had. I was stranded with the most handsome man who was set on teaching me to fly.

We reported our flight, drove the little 1945 design Polish warplane onto the piste, and took off into the sky.

Pilot boy used French and Spanish to show me what the different controls do and what the buttons mean, making it all sound so dream-like, and once we were in the sky, he handed me the joystick.

Flying a plane is a bit like driving a Game Boy tractor and being a bird at the same time. There was the sky everywhere, the hammering of the engine in the eardrums and vibrating through me, his perfect white smile and fat pink lips floated in the cockpit like a Dali sculpture, and a soothing female voice from air traffic control took us through the air pockets. It was an adrenaline-filled reverie, for as the plane dove or span, I would for seconds lose consciousness, he would take the reins again, my tummy would turn, and the G-force was stronger than anything I had encountered before. Pilot boy kept pushing me to soar and dive until I gained confidence and could coordinate the flight and simultaneously monitor the instruments.

We flew over the Teotihuacan pyramids, over forests and prairies. I saw that Mexico City lies on a hill above long stretches of flatlands, which explained the clouds on it and afternoon storms. In fact, had it not been for the storm, we were going to fly to the beach and above a ranch of zebras as he had originally proposed.

I would love his mother, he promised. His French mother lives in Guatemala half the year, and when she becomes bored, she gets out her helicopter and flies it above the ocean close to the waves, loving the thrill of her life in danger, as the waves could at any point bring her down or salt could rust the engine and make her crash. Pilot boy also was a pilot out of love; he did something much more boring for his day job, like building cities.

I loved flying, and there is something irresistible about a man who teaches a girl new skills. Are men as attracted to the girl eager to learn the skills he wants to teach? Two hours flew by like seconds. Pilot boy landed the plane back in Luca. Unnoticed, he filched my Mexican visa card because of a photograph without which I got stuck in the airport for a day and almost ended up not returning to Europe. Had I not planned an exhibition in Venice the following month, I would not have used tears at the customs to get on a now less satisfying commercial plane.

But the exhibition thing was stronger than me, I embarked on a plane, got out back in Rome where Fiumicino was the name of the airport and Luca was the name connected to another series of events.