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Seen from a bus

I sit in a motionless bus near the Sugar Loaf, at Rio de Janeiro, at a place where a small park runs down to the sea. There are military offices nearby, and in constant twos and threes colonels and captains walk by carrying briefcases. My eye is captured, though, by a solitary middle-aged man hanging about at the edge of the park. He bears himself elegantly, slim and erect in a well-cut grey suit, but there is something wrong with him. It seems to be partly physical, partly mental and partly, perhaps, too much coffee. He can never get comfortable. If he sits on a bench, after a moment he gets up again. If he takes a turn around the grass, he abruptly stops. Sometimes he looks up at the hill above, but it only seems to disappoint him, as if he cannot see what he is looking for up there. He inspects the passing officers keenly (was he once a colonel or captain himself?) but he recognizes none. He gazes longingly out to sea, but the sun gets in his eyes. When my bus starts, and we move away from the park, I wave at him through the window, he waves abstractly back — but not at me, I think, not at me.