After the teargas drove us down into the station, I was surprised to hear from the opposite platform a violinist and accordionist playing melodies I half-recognized from before. The crowd shuffled, anxious for the outbound train, and ignored the musicians until an old woman emerged from the stairway and began to dance beside them. A balding fur stole trimmed her worn dress and a beret perched over her straight-cut bangs. Her irises rolled between wide-open eyelids as her hands fluttered, startled birds almost alighting on her shoulders, cheeks, and hips. A few tossed coins bounced at her shuffling feet, but she just cast the same salacious glance not at but over the audience on my platform and added a sharp sideways hip thrust to her dance. I dug in my pocket but could find nothing small enough to throw away. When had any of us last seen birds take wing with such ease to enliven a tree’s boughs? As a child I had watched robins even in winter crowd the crabapple tree outside my window to swallow its shrunken berries whole. When a half dollar struck her over one eye and drew blood, the dancer blinked as if awakening. The mound of copper already had immobilized her feet. Rather than struggle, though, she simply rolled her eyes again and fluttered her hands as the hard rain fell upon her face. When she dropped to her knees the buskers slipped into another, faster tune. The laughter and the rattle of handfuls of change all but drowned the sound. I fought my way onto the train when it at last arrived; there might not be another for hours. Through the window as we rolled away I saw the mound of coins twitch as the musicians swayed into another song, the copper and silver falling across the gap that opened after us.