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who would now miss a reading of his play in Baltimore, and no better for Jane, who had had enough of travel complications and was worried about missing any more school; we had already extended the Christmas break by a couple of days.
    We tried to settle in at the airport café, but it was very hot and uncomfortable and there was no wireless. All my ailments—stomach, eye, hip, leg—were acting up. Several hours in, I sprang for admission to the Karibuni Club, a special waiting room for rich people and frequent flier, offering AC, upholstered furniture, free drinks, and snacks. Entertainment included both the sunset and nighttime call to prayer, which drew Muslim men of all ages, who suddenly materialized and formed a line as if about to take an exercise class or do a country-western dance.
    2:30 a.m., January 6: Addis Airport
    After disembarking, all the people who had missed connections lined up to learn their fate. The ensuing scene was “It’s a Small World” run riot: a scrum of saris, djellabas, kaftans, many types of headgear, babies tied to fronts and backs, one man who had fashioned the Ethiopian Airlines blanket into a kind of ceremonial drape, a mélange of international body odors and tongues. We recognized some of our companions from earlier portions of the journey—the long-haired Italian who looked like Yanni, a pair of squat, swarthy brothers, a truly maddened person who elbowed his way through the line screaming, “Do you know how much money I make in Laos?,” after which he proceeded to lay his infant on the ticket counter saying, “Is this her bed?”
    As usual, the sufferings of transit along with its leveling powerlessness proved a crucible of character. Everyone who was not losing it shared surreptitious sighs and glances.
    Unbelievably and luckily, I had remembered I had a friend in Addis Ababa—Justine, the daughter of my former literary agent, now married to a U.N. diplomat. The clerk pushed an old dial phone through the ticket window, and people watched suspiciously, sure I was getting away with something, as I called her to say we were in town.
    The next morning: Addis Ababa
    Justine explained that due to the extreme peculiarities of the Ethiopian calendar, it was Christmas Eve. Seriously. In fact, the actual date in Ethiopia was not January 6 but December 28, Christmas was the 29th, and New Year’s had been celebrated back in September. At this point, it all seemed about par for the course.
    Justine was less sanguine about the recreational opportunities of Addis than was our old pal Tesfaye, but we spent a fine day in her care. A driver took us around to look at a few hotels and construction sites, then dropped us off at the Greek Club, a VFW sort of place with dark paneling, pictures of Athens, and outdoor tables on a patio overlooking a basketball court. We ordered spanakopita and souvlaki, probably the traditional Ethiopian foods of Christmas.
    Justine and her husband were confident that our flight would go off as scheduled, since flights to destinations outside Africa tend to run more reliably, and they were right. A 15-hour trip with a brief layover in Rome returned us to the year 2014 and subzero wind chill at Dulles. Would our luggage be lost? Would our car battery be dead? Would we freeze to death on the terminal sidewalk before the parking lot shuttle ever arrived?
    No. My little car was waiting where I had left it, iced over but ready to go, and our native country welcomed us with exquisitely paved roads and surprisingly little traffic.
    I wish I could have called my mother to give her the report; I can just imagine her cursing sympathetically between puffs on the other end of the line. How proud she would be of our tenacity and resourcefulness, how she would exclaim over her granddaughter’s conduct under duress. Though doubtless she would easily trump our ordeal with details of her delays and missed connections on her way