window could look, however, I doubted I’d be doing it again soon.
Deceleration tugged at me as my thoughts wandered all around the girl in this fashion. The train was slowing for the next stop. I looked intently at the girl—whose face I had not seen well from the platform—wondering what she would do now, if this was perhaps her stop, and would I learn any more about her.
But as the train ground with screeches and shivers to a halt she remained immobile, a martyred saint out of some medieval triptych, still glued to the wall.
The doors rumbled open, and I waited for fellow passengers to stream in, since this was usually a busy stop.
But no one else got into my car.
By the time the doors closed and we got under way again, I had decided. I couldn’t just sit there and not ask if the girl was okay. Her whole posture bespoke some tremendous agony or anxiety, which was obviously communicating itself to everyone on the platform and keeping them out of this particular car. (Everyone except me, of course. And why was that? Some special affinity for the girl, since I had so often been in her position? I found it hard to say.)
I stood up in the swaying car, clutching my briefcase in one hand and a strap in the other. (What an anachronism, to call these metal, shovel-grip arms “straps”—but the city is made up of many such layers of new reality over old terms.)
I moved awkwardly down toward the front of the car.
The girl didn’t turn until I was right behind her.
Then she swung around stiffly, as if she had to fight to make her muscles obey her.
I saw her face.
Maybe it could have been beautiful under different circumstances. Now it was distorted by a mixture of emotions: fear, rage, terror, grief, uncertainty.
Her skin was blotchy from crying. Her lips were tightly compressed, her chin dimpled with the effort. A lot of my uncertainty about her looks stemmed from the sunglasses she wore. (Yes, now I remembered her visage striped with blackness through the window.) Darker than an abandoned station, hugging her pronounced cheekbones, they concealed her eyes entirely, making her face largely a mystery.
“Leave me alone,” she said grimly, barely moving her lips to utter the warning.
“Listen, miss,” I said. “I don’t normally bug people on the subway— no sense pushing the wrong button and getting shot. But you look like you could use some help.”
She barked, a noise I hesitate to call a laugh. It was more like a hysterical, indrawn sob.
“You can’t help me. I’m dead.”
Her words hit me like a runaway train. The fetid underground air seemed to thicken as she spoke, until I felt I was going to choke. The train passed over a gap in the power rail and the overhead lights went out for a second, like a candle in the wind, leaving the wan glow of the emergency bulbs to fill the car with a sickly orange hue. The noise of the train’s enormous passage suddenly changed to a sitarlike whine, and I heard in my head, of all things, the Beatles singing: She said, she said, I know what it’s like to be dead.
The memory of the familiar song restored me a little to myself, serving as a reassuringly mundane touchstone. What kind of person would say such a thing? She didn’t look crazy, so she had to be really distraught.
“Don’t talk like that,” I said, “even as a joke. It’s wrong. You’re no more dead than I am.”
Again, she barked, a sound too harsh for such a young throat. When she’d turned, she had dropped her arms to her sides, and now one hand wrung the other, as if it were a washcloth that had to be squeezed dry.
“All right,” she said bitterly. “If it makes you feel better, I’m not dead. Maybe I was just never born. That would explain it. I feel like part of this train anyway. I’ve been riding it since I was a kid, going one place or another. Sometimes it seems I’m down here more often than I’m not. Do you know how that can be, mister? Is time different down here, maybe?
Deceleration tugged at me as my thoughts wandered all around the girl in this fashion. The train was slowing for the next stop. I looked intently at the girl—whose face I had not seen well from the platform—wondering what she would do now, if this was perhaps her stop, and would I learn any more about her.
But as the train ground with screeches and shivers to a halt she remained immobile, a martyred saint out of some medieval triptych, still glued to the wall.
The doors rumbled open, and I waited for fellow passengers to stream in, since this was usually a busy stop.
But no one else got into my car.
By the time the doors closed and we got under way again, I had decided. I couldn’t just sit there and not ask if the girl was okay. Her whole posture bespoke some tremendous agony or anxiety, which was obviously communicating itself to everyone on the platform and keeping them out of this particular car. (Everyone except me, of course. And why was that? Some special affinity for the girl, since I had so often been in her position? I found it hard to say.)
I stood up in the swaying car, clutching my briefcase in one hand and a strap in the other. (What an anachronism, to call these metal, shovel-grip arms “straps”—but the city is made up of many such layers of new reality over old terms.)
I moved awkwardly down toward the front of the car.
The girl didn’t turn until I was right behind her.
Then she swung around stiffly, as if she had to fight to make her muscles obey her.
I saw her face.
Maybe it could have been beautiful under different circumstances. Now it was distorted by a mixture of emotions: fear, rage, terror, grief, uncertainty.
Her skin was blotchy from crying. Her lips were tightly compressed, her chin dimpled with the effort. A lot of my uncertainty about her looks stemmed from the sunglasses she wore. (Yes, now I remembered her visage striped with blackness through the window.) Darker than an abandoned station, hugging her pronounced cheekbones, they concealed her eyes entirely, making her face largely a mystery.
“Leave me alone,” she said grimly, barely moving her lips to utter the warning.
“Listen, miss,” I said. “I don’t normally bug people on the subway— no sense pushing the wrong button and getting shot. But you look like you could use some help.”
She barked, a noise I hesitate to call a laugh. It was more like a hysterical, indrawn sob.
“You can’t help me. I’m dead.”
Her words hit me like a runaway train. The fetid underground air seemed to thicken as she spoke, until I felt I was going to choke. The train passed over a gap in the power rail and the overhead lights went out for a second, like a candle in the wind, leaving the wan glow of the emergency bulbs to fill the car with a sickly orange hue. The noise of the train’s enormous passage suddenly changed to a sitarlike whine, and I heard in my head, of all things, the Beatles singing: She said, she said, I know what it’s like to be dead.
The memory of the familiar song restored me a little to myself, serving as a reassuringly mundane touchstone. What kind of person would say such a thing? She didn’t look crazy, so she had to be really distraught.
“Don’t talk like that,” I said, “even as a joke. It’s wrong. You’re no more dead than I am.”
Again, she barked, a sound too harsh for such a young throat. When she’d turned, she had dropped her arms to her sides, and now one hand wrung the other, as if it were a washcloth that had to be squeezed dry.
“All right,” she said bitterly. “If it makes you feel better, I’m not dead. Maybe I was just never born. That would explain it. I feel like part of this train anyway. I’ve been riding it since I was a kid, going one place or another. Sometimes it seems I’m down here more often than I’m not. Do you know how that can be, mister? Is time different down here, maybe?
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