And so it was. We had clearance at last, and the big jet roared down the runway and took off. I sat back in my seat while Minna pressed her face to the window, watching the ground fall away from us.

Once it was off the ground, the plane behaved superbly. I had a drink and Minna had a glass of milk, and by the time we were finished the pilot was once again on the intercom, mumbling something about fastening our seat belts for the descent to Duval Airport. Since we hadn’t unfastened them, this was no problem. The landing was smooth. The plane taxied to a stop and we left it.

We followed the crowd into the airport and queued up for the luggage. The bags came spilling down a ramp onto a circular baggage rack that rotated. I missed our suitcase the first time around and waited until it made its way to us a second time. We got into another line that led past a desk where an attendant with a French accent sent Canadians to the left and Americans to the right. We went to the right. There were three lines, and we picked the shortest one.

I had our passports in my jacket pocket. You do not need a passport to get into Canada or back into the States, but the airlines clerk had recommended carrying proof of citizenship, and anyway I like to have my passport with me when I travel.

My passport was a forgery, but it had passed muster so many times I was no longer nervous about it. A gentle old Armenian man had made it for me some time ago in Athens, after the Czech Government had confiscated my real passport. The forgery had all the proper information on it, including the original passport number, so I wasn’t worried about it. Minna’s passport, on the other hand, was genuine government issue. All we had needed to obtain it was a New York City birth certificate, and a Croat Nationalist on Norfolk Street had made that up for me in fifteen minutes, no charge. I had done him a favor once.