The rain was falling but it almost felt like snow that was landing on my nose. It was a little cold, but strangely in a comforting way. Maybe it was the sound of rain that was comforting and yet I felt like I was in a blanket somewhere in a snowy country, safe in the warmth of some bed, or my jacket surrounded by the silence of the snowy landscape.
As in most rainy scenes, the surrounding was nearly black and white, as if I was living inside a Doisneau photograph. There's a lot of reflection but all pixelated because of the rain drops. Still, in this black and white world devoid of nearly all hues I felt a comfort.
An elderly man sits next to me. I couldn't tell him that the space was reserved. And why not? It seemed a little preposterous, a reserved seat on a public bench. Besides, he seemed interesting. He was wearing a funny hat, resembling what you find on old Germans or Swiss at least in pictures. His eyes were deep, and it was like the cover of a book detailing his thoughts and experience through his long and undoubtedly rich life. I couldn't tell if he was really native born American or immigrated from somewhere a long time ago, but he wasn't a tourist. He didn't have an umbrella, and only his hat protected his head from the rain. It wasn't a storm, just light drizzles, and he seemed to enjoy it. The little droplets that landed or formed on his face accentuated the experience and thoughts he must have accumulated under those wrinkles.
He sat down without really noticing me. That's New York for you. He didn't do much. I wondered why he chose to sit here. Because of the drizzle most benches were empty. But he picked this empty spot on a bench already occupied. He looked into the distance, where there were a lot of people, as usual, even on a rainy day, walking fast everywhere. This was Union Square, where traffic and people converge doing shopping and a lot of nothing. But he was looking in to the distance without really noticing the crowd.
She would be here soon. She with her wavy auburn hair with golden highlights, under one of her cute umbrellas, the kind that looked like a hemisphere, and transparent, with some cute designs. I would probably get up and we would go sit somewhere else. So it wasn't a problem that the elderly man was sitting here. She would be smiling. We did it. We have come so far with so much bravery and so little care about the world. I imagined her red rose lips parting a little, showing the ivory white and perfect teeth. And her voice, more enchanting anything I could see from her, would go so well to the soothing rhythm of the rain. And we would embrace, maybe even kiss in public. Both so sweet, both so missed.
"You really like her, I can see," said the old man. I looked at him and then looked away in astonishment.
The rose bush, the botanical garden. The one in Broolyn. The one where I used to go every year, at least once. The last time was last week. That was the last time I saw her. The roses were nearing their peak; there were a lot of tourists and local visitors. There was a marble bench. Amazingly, none of the tired visitors was sitting there. So we took advantage of this narrow window of opportunity and both sat there. It was a chilly, stony bench, but we giggled instantly.
Yes, at some point, I remembered now, I saw him, an old man, without a hat that day, glancing at us for a moment. Maybe he watched us some other time but we were not really paying attention. Or maybe I was just making this up. He said he saw us there, so in my head I started putting the puzzle together. Was there such a man? And what was he doing here? For a moment, I was frightened. A stalker of some twisted way. My mind raced through all the scenarios.
Throughout this brief conversation he never once looked at me, kept his gaze mostly at the distant Toys R Us. He continued, his lips barely moving, his throat giving slight hints of the breath that was generating the story he was telling me, a short story, a story about me, and I couldn't at the moment tell what was the story doing to me, to my psyche. My heart traveled to strange distances in those ten minutes listening to him, to his voice. That voice. It was a powerful voice even though we were in a relatively noisy place and he was not shouting. There was strength in the softness of his voice. He bore no accent, and the subtle emotion that accompanied his words reverberated like the occasional gusts of winds that moved the roses that day last week. It was a sunny day, it was a slightly windy day, but it was a beautiful, at least in my eyes. For him, it was a different day, watching us, from a distance, without needing to hide or make himself look awkward.
His name was Antonio Caglieri, but he bore no accent that would have matched his very Italian name. That was the only piece of information I gather about his overall life. Then onward to the story.
(To be continued)
