ncertainty. He hides from people he knows and he hides from people who want to know him. When he hears his name in the passenger terminal, he holds back, not coming forward until the last minute when he has to do so or be left behind. He is a man who resists the forward movement that is forced upon him by his job--for most of the novel he is traveling from one place to another, and yet his attitude toward travel is clear as he resists answering his name:
I don't really know why I was hiding. I was ashamed of myself; I'm not generally the last. I stayed in my hiding place at least ten minutes after the loudspeaker had given me up. I simply didn't feel like flying any further (10).
Here Faber is also resisting the technology of the airplane and of the loudspeaker--Faber is surrounded by machines and yet resists their allure again and again. His life is governed by timetables and the ticking of the clock, and yet he is a victim of time rather than a man in control of it. He is constantly in motion, and yet he seems never to be getting anywhere and also see
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