Broadway's neon spreads layer by layer into the night. The crowd carries me along until the slightly old-fashioned entrance of the Richard Rodgers Theatre appears ahead.
When the door closes, Manhattan's traffic and voices fall away. The theatre is smaller than I imagined. Dim corridors, tightly arranged seats, and the mingled smell of old wood and velvet make time slow.
As the house lights disappear, warmth rises unexpectedly behind my eyes. Before the stage is illuminated, another theatre appears in the darkness: Shanghai Culture Square many years ago, then still new and bright, even the air seeming newly opened.
That night we saw Cats. Afterward, memory retained only the hem of a dress moving in the Shanghai wind. We walked until we found a bar. Streetlight shone on a glass between us, and across it two pairs of eyes met quietly.
I can no longer remember what we said. Time has taken the bar's name, the conversation, and the colour of the dress. It left only a little light in the glass and a sentence suspended above the table: one day, we would go to New York and see a real Broadway musical.
A spotlight appears and Shanghai fades. Hamilton's first beat lands; the revolving stage becomes a disturbed clock. One person retreats into shadow while another enters light. History, footsteps, song, and applause pursue one another until time no longer moves straight but folds across the stage.
In the spaces between light and dark, Shanghai returns to New York. A drumbeat becomes the sound of glasses meeting. A passing spotlight lifts the remembered hem. The glass shines once more, like an unfinished sentence crossing two cities to rest beside my seat.
Perhaps the Broadway promise began casually, spoken over wine about a place very far away. Neither of us could have known that the sentence would travel alone and, years later, arrive at the city it named.
I finally sit inside a Broadway theatre. The figure from memory does not walk out beneath the spotlight.
The performance continues. For several moments I cannot tell whether I am in New York or still walking after Cats in Shanghai. The remembered figure seems half a step ahead; then the stage turns and the outline disappears into the set.
When the curtain falls, I rise with the audience. Applause continues. I stay a little longer and watch the lights go out one by one.
The doors reopen and Manhattan's night returns. I expected a clear sadness, perhaps the relief of farewell. Neither arrives. In the wind, the two nights seem briefly close and then withdraw to their separate places.
Perhaps parallel time is only this: two periods that can no longer meet are briefly allowed to illuminate each other through a beam of light or a passage of music. When the light dims and the music stops, each life continues on its quiet course.
At the corner, the light turns green and I cross with the crowd. Halfway over, I look back. The theatre entrance has disappeared into layers of light, and the glow on the pavement opens beneath passing feet like the dress in my memory.
Its colour still will not return.