The accordion player on the subway platform played the same waltz every day for twenty years. The waltz was from a country that no longer existed. The country had changed its name and the waltz had not. The waltz still played as if the country was still there and the man still played as if anybody cared which country the waltz came from. Nobody cared. The commuters walked past the accordion player the way water walks past a rock. The rock does not move. The water does not stop. The waltz fills the space between them.

The accordion was the saddest instrument on the Lower East Side and the competition was fierce. The violin was sad. The harmonica was sad. The saxophone at two in the morning was sad. But the accordion was the saddest because the accordion breathed. The bellows opened and the accordion inhaled and the bellows closed and the accordion exhaled and the breathing of the accordion was the breathing of a man who was tired but could not stop because stopping meant silence and silence on a subway platform at rush hour was louder than any waltz from any country that no longer existed.

The man was old. The accordion was older. The case was open at his feet and the case had coins in it and the coins were not enough and the coins were never enough and the man knew the coins were not enough and he played anyway. The playing was not about the coins. The playing was about the playing. The man played because the alternative to playing was not playing and not playing was not an option the man had considered since he arrived in this country from the country that no longer existed.

I played guitar on the street and the accordion player played the accordion underground and we never met because I did not go underground and he did not come up. We were two musicians separated by a staircase. I played in the sun and the rain and the snow. He played in the fluorescent light and the stale air and the rumble of the trains that interrupted his waltz every four minutes and he played through the interruption the way a river plays through a rock. The train came and the waltz continued and the train left and the waltz was still there. The waltz had been there before the train and the waltz would be there after the train and the man would be there until the man was not there and then the platform would be quiet and the commuters would notice the quiet and they would miss the waltz from the country that no longer existed and they would not know why.