Although my windows are closed, I can still hear the Indian children playing in the street. Their games don't seem organized; I've yet to see stickball or street football through the glass. They are a mob of indecipherable shrieks and yells, pushing their way down the half mile of Second Avenue and then back up. Occasionally, I hear a tennis ball bounce off my wall, sometimes even my window, but I know the toss is unmalicious as the crowd slowly moves
on.
The same children called in every night by their mothers, as I was by my own. These calls are different, however; the names have changed. These women, sticking only a head out the door, call out sounds I have never heard to bring their children home. Instantly forgettable names-I have the same trouble with the Chinese but they live unnoticed, four blocks south.
Night after night after night, same women, different sounds.