“You’re not a fan?” he asked, as if the word itself was amusing.

“Never,” she found herself saying. “I’m distrustful of teams.”

“I understand,” he said, which caught her off guard. She smiled.

Why was she chatting like this? She had never spoken to a stranger on a train. Once, on the F, many years before, a Chinese woman had reached into a cloudy glass container, pulled out a hard-boiled egg, and handed it to Sarah’s toddler. Sarah was both disgusted and touched and had let her child accept it. She thanked the woman, who didn’t speak English, so they’d just smiled at each other periodically for several stops until the woman got off at East Broadway.

“Are you a professor?” the man asked.

“I told you I’m not an intellectual.”

“And not all professors are, I am afraid to say.”

“Mmn.”

“Are you … an actress?”

“An actress?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Professor to actress? Funny jump. Never mind—I’m neither. How about you? Are you a professor?”

He laughed and then started coughing.

“I’ll take that as a no?”

“Are you a doctor?” he countered, his cough petering out.

“I guess I’m a filmmaker.” Immediately she wished she’d lied. “Although I haven’t made a film in years.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “And why is that?”

“Not telling.”

“I see.” He raised his eyebrows; she felt a fresh wave of shame.

The Q train shot across the Manhattan Bridge. Orange-pink light and the old man’s face. The sun was far from setting; his jaw was strong beneath sagging skin. As he’d shifted his body to listen to her, there’d been a whiff of something. If he’d been younger, she might have registered this smell as unhealthy and antiseptic, but because he was old, because he was wearing a worn tweed jacket, her brain came up with camphor, moors, a splash of wet wool.

“So,” he persisted, “your films; are they documentaries? Sagas?” He smiled.

“No, I made two feature films. The first one I wrote and directed. The second one I was hired to direct.”

“How wonderful. And were these films shown in theaters?”

“Yes”—she blushed—“but it was a long time ago.”

“This is wonderful,” he repeated with such delight it was as if he’d made a bet with someone that very morning that he could find, while riding public transportation, an acclaimed filmmaker.

“My first film did well, actually,” she felt compelled to add, though for whose benefit she wasn’t sure.

He clasped his hands together and nodded. “This must have been very exciting.”

“I guess it was.” It was hard not to feel touched by his seemingly genuine interest. “I mean—it was. But I was so young and I really had no idea how unusual it was for a first feature to make a profit, or to get into the good festivals, be reviewed—all of it.”