The underground walkway to the station was long and tiled. Every sound echoed. My man wore shoes with metal tips. A blind person could have followed him. But the workday was not yet finished, and there were few people traveling. He was heading for a labyrinth of tunnels on the way to the platforms, and I had to stay close to see which he took. At each level and with each turn he could be there waiting for me. I was close enough to see him hand his 70 centimes to the kiosk cashier and receive his ticket. He showed it to the guard when he passed the gate.

I had neither ticket nor coins, but I had an ethnic brotherhood. The cashier was dark as cocoa, possibly Moroccan. I hoped he might have attended the colonial exhibition. I stood in front of him with the hangdog expression I used to get extensions on my essays.

“I have no money, brother,” I said.

He could have told me to go jump in the Seine, but he cocked his head to one side, smiled a splendid set of teeth minus one at the front, and tore me off a ticket from the roll.

“Your lucky day,” he said, “but don’t try this shit again when I’m on duty. I got to cover shortcomings.”

I could hear the metallic rattle of an East-West line train in the distance, but I couldn’t tell in which direction it was headed. I ran past the guard and stood considering the options. There were two staircases. I chose west because my own instinct would have been to double back across the city. The stairwell seemed to go all the way down to Hades. I hit the empty platform after the passengers had boarded. The station assistant normally closed the metal gate when a train arrived, but it was open. Someone had failed to shut a door correctly, and the assistant was running along the platform blowing his whistle. It gave me time to look at the faces through the smoky glass of the windows. I reached the third carriage, and there I saw my man. He looked at me directly but with no sign of recognition or interest.

I walked to the fourth carriage, where the assistant was having trouble with the door. One of the hinges had dropped, and it took two people to lift it back onto its frame: the man outside, the train guard inside. We left the station seven minutes late.