New York City was a place I feared even before terrorists attacked. On past visits, the city that never sleeps seemed a maze of dark concrete canyons with a deep, pulsing din I could not mute. People on the streets were hurried and brusque, too busy to bother with a lost visitor in a swarm of strangers. No one made eye contact or even nodded toward me in passing. I felt like an abandoned child.
I was more than a little distressed when I was sent to the city on a job assignment in the months following Sept. 11, 2001.
Arriving at my hotel in Times Square, the first thing I noticed was an unsettling, eerie quiet. Taxi cabs no longer honked their horns or jockeyed for position. Christmas was 60 days away but no festive, colored lights twinkled in shop windows. No street corner Santas invited passersby to toss coins in charity’s kettle. The few people passing on the streets appeared weighted down with worry. All I wanted to do was go back home.
As I walked about the city over the next few days, oddly enough, the neighborhood fire stations were the bright spots in the gloom. Strangers heaped flowers, candles and cards in front of the stations to honor the more than 300 firefighters who had died in the Sept. 11 catastrophe. Letters of condolence and schoolchildren’s drawings, sent from far-away places, were taped to the brick walls. These spontaneous expressions of grief and support rendered a human touch in a haunted city. I longed for more of this human connection.
On the way to a meeting one blustery morning, I walked from Federal Plaza up Mulberry Street into the Chinatown section of Manhattan. The only people on the street were a few delivery men unloading crates of fresh vegetables outside small restaurants. One shopkeeper swept dust and dirt into the street, but most stores were still locked tight. I peeked down each alleyway hoping no one was loitering around the corner.
In front of a little shop with a window full of tea pots, an elderly Chinese man perched on a low stool. He looked like so many old men I had seen in the neighborhood: wispy thin with translucent, oiled-parchment skin. It was his musical instrument that caught my eye. I walked past him, then backtracked to stand a few feet away. He appeared not to notice me as I leaned forward to inspect the instrument he played. The wooden base looked like a soup can lying on its side. A long, thin neck extended to the man’s shoulder. With deliberate movements he stroked the reed of a polished bow between two strings, creating sweet, discordant tones.
I was mesmerized by the intricate sounds this old man produced from just two strings. As I stood on the sidewalk clutching my coat and watching him play, the tune began to sound oddly familiar. For the first time, I looked at the old man’s face and found him peering sideways at me with a cat-who-ate-the-canary expression. I broke into a delighted grin when I realized his sleight-of-bow. While I was looking him over, he had transitioned his traditional Chinese melody into a slow rendition of “Oh Susanna.” He played it just for me! I bent my head toward him and said, “Thank you.” He solemnly returned my nod, then slipped back into his own music.
It was such a simple encounter. In that city gripped by a pall, one man bridged barriers of language and culture to offer me a glimmer of human warmth. In a brief moment, we acknowledged each other – two strangers alive in the aftermath of tragedy.
I walked on toward my meeting. I made eye contact and nodded to a homeless man seated on a ragged blanket. He nodded back. Stepping into an elevator, I offered a smile to two little old ladies who clutched their purses with both hands. I said “Good morning” to the janitor who was sweeping the floor as I passed down the hall to the conference room. He returned my greeting, although in a language I did not recognize.
The city no longer seemed hostile and the day appeared brighter.
Cynthia Becker is a 2002 Colorado Voices writer living in Pueblo.
