Commonplaces

Graffiti on the walls of the dreary tunnel. I hold on to the metal pole. Others grab it with one hand while clutching a book or a newspaper in the other. We cluster around the bar. The train stumbles. Our bodies collide. We look at each other for the briefest instant, then their eyes return to the page. I didn't pay close attention to the signs. I could have taken the wrong train. It stops. I read the station's name. Are we going up or downtown?

I remember the madam's instructions: "When you go, you're going up, when you return you're going down." I walked down to the platform. The train was just coming in. Its name to my left. My intuition got the upper hand in the few seconds I had to decide whether to take it or leisurely wait for the next one and decipher each sign, leisurely corroborating with some questions. I got on. Brain at low tide . . . This could be the wrong train. I wait for a pair of eyes to unglue themselves from the newspaper to ask about the train's destination. Across from me, sitting very near me, there's a lady with light streaks in her hair. Her eyes are closed. Her impeccability literally sets her apart.

A man looks at me for an instant. My lips begin to part. He gives me no time to ask, his eyes return to the newspaper. I will look at the map when I can let go of the pole without risk. This station, did I see it yesterday? Yesterday I trusted to the madam's wisdom: "Look at the names. Stay alert. Start getting ready to get off at the station before yours. If you miss your station, cross over to the other side and make your way back." There's no conductor at the doors, which open and close automatically. The thought of placing such trust in a machine. A signal could go wrong, a bolt or heaven-knows-what could slip as I go past, just at the very moment, and I would be trapped. My body in its grip. The train would take off. The coldness of the tunnel, the darkness in which you can still see the graffiti, and I, dead or crushed in the midst of a crowd that can only spare me its curiosity on-the-go. The Mormons sensitize the crowd so it succors me with a human glance, saving me from perishing like a rat. A rat. It was drizzling outside. I am rather wet. Maybe that's why my brain went on the defensive, egging me onto the first train in sight.

"What train is this?" I have asked a black woman whose skin bears a tropical imprint. She must be from one of the islands. She laughs as she answers: "The Y train." There's no Y train in the map. "This is not the A train?" I ask her, remembering clearly that I had seen the first vowel of the alphabet, in capitals, flowing by on the moving ribbon of bright white light on the side of the train. But the A was made of little squares. Maybe it wasn't a letter at all. Maybe it was a drawing that I interpreted conveniently in my rush. The train stops. The woman gets off, but smiles at me once again before exiting.

(She must be experiencing vertigo, dizziness. As if she had fallen asleep under the bewitching smell of saltpeter, under the shadow of a palm tree, and had awakened in a daze inside a moving grave.)

I take the map out of my purse. I spread it out between my forearm and the metal bar. The corner grazes a face. The eyes turn towards me. Now they know I'm lost. But not even that's enough to prick their interest. They quickly return to their books and newspapers. I analyze the marks I had made the day...