Seated at the terrace of a bar I tend to frequent most evenings, I linger awhile to eavesdrop on the group of women who were sitting at the next table when I arrived. This is by no means difficult, since they all but bellow at one another and act as if they were completely alone. The women are pushing fifty. Though a couple of them are a few years younger, their ugliness evens things out somewhat, otherwise they would have no right, or indeed any great desire, to be there. Most of them are wearing burgundy-colored tights, as if they had arranged it beforehand — out of a group of seven, four are sporting identical pairs. Others, the more daring members of this almost kamikaze commando unit, have opted for a leopard-skin design, their unruly thighs bulging out over the top of knee-high boots, the unmistakable, albeit unofficial, uniform of the divorcée venturing out on a Saturday night this Autumn/Winter season, broadcasting her right to revelry and proclaiming that she is still good enough to eat. They are waiting for the tardiest of their number to arrive. Typical, they say, who else? They criticize the woman with a certain amount of affection. They’re on edge. For a moment they fear that she will ruin everything, and it would not, by all accounts, be the first time. They have a dinner date with “men,” and this means that they are all aflutter, taking little mirrors out of their handbags every other minute, smoothing their eyebrows with their pinkies, or painstakingly touching up their eye shadow. They may well be cutthroat rivals a few minutes from now, but for the time being they still come to one another’s aid, fussing with bangs and constantly telling one another how pretty they look. When they spy the group of men approaching from a distance, they rush to gather up their cosmetics cases, leaving only their cell phones, dry martinis, mojitos, and packs of Winstons on the table. It’s been a long time since they last spoke of boys, and the very word men carries with it a vague hint of seriousness, dirtiness, and menace that attracts and repels them in equal measure. Men. Men always pick up the tab, they undress you with their eyes and see a body free of flab or scars, they drop you off at home in a car with white upholstered seats. By the looks of things, these guys are executives, men of a certain standing, not like the last night out. Much as the women have put their efforts into looking ravishing, the men strive to look sporty and laidback; ties are out this evening, they throttle the men quite enough as it is Monday through Friday. The most seasoned and forward of the women seize the opportunity to mark out their territory just seconds before the game gets underway for real. They let it be known at the last minute, leaving no time for any replies, for the men are now too close, that they have set their sights on this one or that one, on the tall, balding one, on the one in the deck shoes, though later — they know the drill — it will all depend on how things play out and any on-the-spot changes of plan will have to be duly relayed in front of the restroom mirror, where, as the dinner nears its end, when dessert is just about to be served, they will form a line and touch up their makeup. Another one, meanwhile, announces that she is here to eat dinner and that’s that. She wants to make this quite clear, she insists, and she won’t be dragged into anything this time. She knows full well what they’re like, and, until she says otherwise, she’s having none of it. She’ll let them know if she has a change of heart; until then she’ll hold firm to her intention of going home just as she came, all by her lonesome. Before you know it, another woman has allied herself with this wary stance — she’s here for a fun evening out, end of story. That’s the plan. Even so, just in case, they have each carefully picked out their underwear, they’re freshly waxed, and they’re even carrying little tubes of vaginal lubricant tucked away in their handbags. The scent of the heady mix of colognes with which they have daubed their wrists, necks, asses, groins, and even every last fleshy fold of what was once their waistline drifts over to my table. I feel the urge to make a quick getaway, for the whole thing is starting to make me feel a little queasy. I’m not sure quite why, but the scene also makes my heart sink. I think of the hours they’ve each spent at the hairdresser’s that very morning, wearing a blue gown of the sort handed out in hospitals, seated beneath the hairdryer, their hair covered in pins, clips, and rollers. I picture them counting out the money left in their purses after settling the bill for it all — shampoo and set, eyebrows, highlights, fingernails and toenails — and I find the image oddly touching. I imagine them returning home in the early hours of morning, their feet aching, tired of forced grins. Their heads are swimming, and they’ve missed their favorite TV show. They have a run in their panty hose and a longing to break down in a flood of tears that, in the end, will not come, for the lure of tiredness is stronger still, and they fall asleep on the couch without fully removing their makeup, a bottle of fresh water and the ibuprofen within reach. That or worse stilclass="underline" waking up pinned under the weight of a hairy leg, sensing ragged breathing on the napes of their necks, and spotting on the bedside table, inches from their noses, a glass containing the false teeth of a stranger who a few short hours ago was dancing salsa like a maniac in the middle of the dance floor, his shirt unbuttoned at the neck, and telling an endless stream of jokes about black people and whores.
In a nearby park, I pause awhile to watch the old men who play boules every evening. I don’t know if it’s me or them, but it strikes me that they are bent double under the weight of a grief that should perhaps no longer be theirs to bear. As a general rule, a person now lives such a long time that he ends up shouldering much more than his fair share of sorrow, and this ends up taking its toll on his face. One consequence of the increased life span of those who live in the developed world, and one, moreover, to which little thought is given, is that unlike what tended to happen just decades ago, today’s elderly are still around to witness the devastation wrought on the lives of their offspring, watching as they practically grow old, as they fail, as they lose the will to fight. Before, when death took these men, their sons were still strong, they had plans, beautiful wives, and a seemingly sunny future. These days, it is not uncommon for a grandfather to contemplate, before dying, the divorce of his grandson (he watches as the man pulls up a chair at the dining table in the family home on Sunday, penniless, his shirt wrinkled), whereas in times gone by that same grandson, for reasons of time, would never grow beyond the child who had to be picked up from school occasionally, his hand held on the way home, and who needed help with searching the street markets to find the soccer stickers missing from his collection. Nowadays, dying old men do not leave behind a world in motion brimming with plans and promise, as was once the case, but rather, more than ever, a valley of tears. That said, there is nevertheless a happy upside to this pitiful state of affairs: it is never so hard to turn your back on a desolate landscape as it is on one filled with the birds that Juan Ramón Jimenez claimed would stay, singing. What now lies ahead, more than the earth covering the coffin, is an endless Sunday evening, a haze of tedium and defeat. And it’s easier to take your leave like that, for nothing lulls you to sleep quite like tiredness. It’s no great sacrifice to leave the party when girls, drink, music, and strength are all long-gone.