Felicia

Felicia works the night shift now, on her feet while the city sleeps. Years ago, younger, she spent a few years on the civilian side of the police: a desk, a phone, and a long parade of other people's worst nights. It taught her to read a face in a second and to keep her own quiet.

She is not Jewish, and she has no part in the story the students are telling. That is exactly why she matters. On a granite ledge at the edge of Times Square she hears a song she does not know, in a language she cannot place, and it stops her cold. The music reaches her before she has any idea whose it is.

Her part is small and it carries a lot. She is the one who turns and says the line the whole film is built around: "That was beautiful. What language was that?" One tired, kind stranger with a coffee going cold in her hands, hearing something true before anyone has explained it to her.