Suddenly, an impulse. I was going to smile, to make that face, half you make when the sun bothers you, half you make when you see someone has hurt themselves, but I don't. I stop. The girl was speaking to me hurriedly, quickly, with a singsong voice I've sometimes heard in the supermarket queue when they ask me about rounding up and the answer is no.
"Okay," I say. "Yes, I have ten minutes. The train I have to catch leaves at fifty-eight, so you should wait for me at the bar making a coffee. Yes, ten minutes." She looks at me in astonishment. She still doesn't believe me, or not entirely. "Ah!" she exclaims. It's an "ah" of critical surprise. That "Ah" you make when, for example, someone was supposed to do something they haven't done. Like taking out the trash. Did you take it out? No. Ah. An "Ah" that screams for a queue, like "look" with ellipses. Ah, look...
"Where do we do it? Right here?" I ask. "Or maybe you were planning to go to the hotel?" Sometimes these pollsters have an operations room, and right across the street, there's a hotel one. "I don't know..." he stammers. "It's just that..." He breaks off and looks at his colleagues, who are trying to stop the people coming and going without any luck. The people coming and going, and this is amazing, walk heavily and slowly until they see them. Seeing them and starting a brisk walk is one and the same. They drop their canes and walkers and fly. I smile. "So? You want to do it here? I only have ten minutes, I have to catch the train," I remind him. With sparkling eyes, as if he'd drunk sparkling water, he huffs and says to me, "It's just that this has never happened to me before. Never, ever, has anyone stopped when I've asked them if they had a minute. You're the first."
