Under One Umbrella

It was one of our last days in New York, when we had already got used to the rats presiding in their subway empire. In fact, you can recognize a new-comer by a genuine look of horror and disbelief upon the encounter with the infamous rodents in such a public and widely-used place as the subway. At first you're shocked, the words "plague," "epidemic," and "black death" blur your vision, and you wonder (with a sort of an arrogant disgust) how on earth New Yorkers can share their daily space with these pests. Then you just accept it, like everybody else. You even begin to observe the little buggers with a certain curiosity as you wait for the train -- how unafraid they are, how they sniff at everything, how they sometimes look up at the platform as if they were contemplating a high jump without a pole. And you inevitably wonder at their skill to sense the approach of a bright metalic train early enough to scamper away into the safer, wider areas of the tracks.

We were waiting a little longer than usual, and a sizeable bunch of people had accumulated. To the left, a kid of about 10 or 11 was waiting with his father and sister. He was mildly restless from the wait (and perhaps that sweet pit-of-the-stomach feeling of anticipation before going into town), but then he noticed a small family of rats which made a slow entrance from the darkness of the tunnel, and he grew positively hyper. "Dad, dad, look at those rats, look at them!" he was yelling, pulling at his father's sleeve, and jumping up and down. A middle-aged man in a suit to our right began politely saying something about the phenomenon of rats in the subway, to everyone in general, by way of a little divertimento as we all waited. The rats were gingerly investigating the scattered pieces of trash, completely ignoring the humans towering above, with an air of a serious survival mission about them. The hyper-kid on the left was running short distances left and right, getting more and more excited, "When is the train coming? Dad, I wanna see one squashed!" (He got half of his wish the following day, although I don't know if he saw what I happened to see: the rat had been dead for a while -- it was dusty and really pancaked to the track, some of its blood having dried and crusted over the remnants of the fur). I half-turned around to take in the entire scene, and my glance met the smiling good-natured eyes of an elderly woman. There was something in her face, a half-apologetic, half-forgiving glitter in her look, that enveloped us all -- the moment, the rats, the waiters -- and for a second, as finally the screeching and clanging of the bustling train invaded the station from the other end, sending the rats scurrying in the opposite direction, we were all strangely and briefly connected, like dots strung into a drawing with a line, parts of the same nameless pantomime.

My other New York moment of the similar magnitude was premeditated. I constructed it successfully a few days before the trip, while we were getting ready -- which, among other things, meant borrowing seven different kinds of guides and travel books from the library, and following meticulously the weather forecast. So, knowing that the Friday after our arrival would be a torrentially wet day, I packed my mother's small, flower-patterned, folding umbrella (probably bought in one of those new Chinese shops that sprang like mushrooms after the rain in our neighboorhood). When, after a relaxed concert at the Small's club, we emerged onto the wet rain-beaten streets of Greenwich, I pulled the umbrella out triumphantly and excitedly. Huddled under its protective arch resonating with raindrops, we spent a few wonderful, rain-scented minutes walking with my mother, free and light as the rain, defying and neglecting all laws of physics.

I have always known that a simple thought, or an even simpler object can connect or conjure people up, even when it seems impossible. And I am glad for it.