In the Night of Time

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SURROUNDED BY the confusion in Pennsylvania Station, Ignacio Abel stopped when he heard someone call his name. I see him first at a distance in the rush-hour crowd, a male figure identical to all the others, as in a photograph of the time, dwarfed by the immense scale of the architecture: light topcoats, raincoats, hats; women’s hats, the brims at a slant and small feathers on the sides; the red visored caps of porters and railroad employees; faces blurred in the distance; coats open, the coattails flying backward because of an energetic pace; human currents that intersect but never collide, each man and woman a figure similar to the rest and yet endowed with an identity as undeniable as the unique trajectory each follows to a specific destination — directional arrows, blackboards displaying the names of places and the hours of departure and arrival, metal stairs that resound and tremble beneath a gallop of footsteps, clocks hanging from iron arches or crowning the large vertical calendars that are visible from across the station. It was necessary to know it all precisely: the letters and numbers bright red like the caps of station porters that day in late October 1936. On the illuminated sphere of each of the clocks, hanging like captive globes high above the heads of the crowd, it is ten minutes to four. At that moment Ignacio Abel moves through the lobby of the station, through the great expanse of marble, high iron arches, and dirty glass vaults filtering a golden light where all the dust floats alongside the clamor of voices and footsteps.

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