He was a little embarrassed, but now it felt all the more urgent to him that he check every toilet. Yet he had already checked every one of them, hadn't he?
On impulse, he asked the flight attendant, "How many lavatories are there back here?"
"Just here in the back?" she asked. "Six."
"That's funny," said Ivan. "I only counted five."
"You only need one at a time, anyway," she said with a smile.
"Really? Six?"
Humoring him, she pointed to them all in turn. "One, two, three, four, five. See?"
"OK," he said. It was clear she had no idea what she had just said.
He needed to get her out of the way. "Do I have time to use one?" he asked.
"If you're quick." She smiled her official smile - the one that said "You're an idiot but I'm paid to be nice to you" - and went back up the aisle, helping people settle in.
Ivan thought about what had just happened. Or tried to. His brain was a muddle, suddenly. She had said there were six bathrooms, hadn't she? He tried to count them. He placed a hand on each door and said the number. And he got to six, all right. But had he counted one of them twice? Had he touched every door?
And then he realized. It didn't matter where the missing bathroom was, or even if there was a bathroom missing. The flight attendant had said six and then counted five. He himself was confused about what was before his eyes. Maybe it was just nerves or carelessness. But maybe it wasn't. And Ivan wasn't taking any chances.
He walked briskly to the front of the plane. The flight attendant was about to close the door. "Wait," he said to her. "We're getting off."
"What? Why?" she demanded.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "We've decided not to go."
"You're going to delay the whole flight," she said. "We can't take off until we've found your luggage underneath and removed it."
"It doesn't matter. We're getting off."
He took a step toward first class to get Katerina, but out of the corner of his eye he saw the flight attendant resume closing the door. He whirled around. "If you close that door I'll sue the airline and you for kidnapping!"
"What are you talking about?" she said.
"I asked you not to close the door."
"I have to close the door. We can't take off unless we close the door."
Another flight attendant came up to him. "Sir, please take your seat now."
"I'm not flying on this plane! I'm getting off! I told her not to close the door, I have to get my wife. She doesn't speak English. We're not taking this flight."
"Of course, sir. Even though that will be an inconvenience to everyone else, since we have to wait while your luggage is unloaded, and - "
"The other flight attendant already explained that," said Ivan.
"Honestly," the first one said, "he never said a word about it to me."
To Ivan, the confusion, the forgetfulness - they were proof that he was absolutely right. There was magic on this plane, and he was not going to be in it when it took off. He couldn't walk away from the door of the plane or they would forget that he was leaving and close it - and he knew that once it closed, they would cite FAA regulations or some such nonsense and refuse to open it again. Yet he also was quite sure that if he sent one of them to get Katerina, she'd forget what she was doing before she got to Katerina's seat, or screw it up in some other way.
So he called out. Not Katerina's name, because there was a chance Baba Yaga, who was almost certainly hiding in a bathroom stall, could hear him. So he called, "Ruthie!" And again. And a third time, until finally Katerina turned around. He beckoned to her. She unfastened her seatbelt and came toward him. "Bring your things," he said, when she was close enough to hear a whisper. "Hurry."
She rushed back to their places, pulled everything out from under the seats, and came back. The whole time, Ivan had to keep saying, "My wife is coming, she's getting our things, please be patient, don't close the door." As long as he kept talking, they remembered that he was leaving. If he left a pause, they forgot everything and he had to start all over.
Only when they were physically off the plane, standing at the entrance, did