Moments: Honey, Let’s Go Home

A middle-aged Italian man sits in a Chinese bakery on 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst. Customers coming into the bakery take a quick glance at him as if he is a special guest who is not supposed to be there. It is a typical Chinese bakery — — sausage buns, egg tarts, and pork buns sit in several display cases and there are tables for friends to have a chat while having some pastries and coffee in the afternoon.

The Italian man, wearing a red shirt and blue jeans, sits at the end of a long table holding a cup of coffee. A Chinese woman who looks to be about 30 years old sits across the table facing him. For much of the time, they do not talk. He frequently turns back and looks at the window behind him. Posters of moon cakes advertising the coming of the Mid-Autumn Festival cover the entire window. The silence between them stands out in this noisy and crowded bakery. The staff call out orders. Three Chinese men talk loudly about their business and children.

The woman tries to break the silence. She taps his arm to get his attention first, and then talks to him, but she apparently is not able to express her words clearly in English. She uses her body language to be more easily understood. She opens her arms sometimes as if she is talking about something big and sometimes points outside. The man simply nods his head and then turns back to the window.

After another silence, she says in broken English, “Let’s go and buy chicken, and I, cook at home.”

The man nods his head again, stands up, grabs her hand and walks out of the bakery.

Once he steps onto 18th Avenue, he easily blends into the crowd and is not treated like an outsider on this street where a Chinese furniture store sits next to an Italian record store and a Vietnamese restaurant competes with, a Middle Eastern deli.

The woman follows him, free from the obligation of keeping up the conversation between them.