ByDeH

Bus stop 3. The same old lady go in. She seemed specially slow today, though her sympathetic smile was the same. She took the front seat, as always, and got her headphones on. I wondered what she listened to, it is not everyday that you see a elderly person on new technologies as computers, digital cameras - or i-Pods.
I mean, I saw her everyday, taking the same bus at the same stop. I wondered, while she waved her head to the right and to the left according to her songs' rhythm, where did she go everyday. Rather, each day. On Mondays she would take off at the Stop 5; Tuesdays, stop 9; Wednesdays, 7; Thursdays, stop 5 again; Fridays and Sundays, stop 11. I never took the bus on Saturdays, and I am sure she didn't either, so I wondered what did she do. Maybe she had 4 boyfriends, all of them of different ages, each of them with a special feature, something the others didn't have and thus she had to date all of them.
Monday and Thursday's guy I imagined as old as herself, much taller than she was - nothing really difficult, in fact -, gray hair carefully combed backwards for her, a quiet smile and a flower in his hands; he was kind to her and really loved her, so they talked about lots of stuff, watched the sunset together and had tea and listened to the evening radio news program, old-fashion way; and around eight he would drive her home - for she never took the bus back on Mondays and Thursdays.
Tuesday's guy was a bit younger than she, his hair still carrying a bit of the earlier days' black, his face just starting to get old, his body not so strong as it used to be; he would kiss her warmly in the mouth as soon as he opened the door, tell her how much he had missed her and offer her some pancakes - 'cause I imagined him a newly-retired man, lazy and whose only pleasures were cooking, watching sports and having sex. After breakfast at 10.30 they would get in bed together, then have lunch with a drink afterwards, watch the 2 o'clock sports' news program, get in bed again, have a cigarette and a drink, dinner and dessert and then she would take the bus back home with a big, satisfied smile on her face - which is why I thought she had eaten loads od good stuff and had had sex a couple times.
Wednesday's guy was the youngest, probably in his middle thirties, rich, workaholic, but very romantic; his days off were always Wednesdays, so he would take her to a nice breakfast buffet, than to a expensive, tag shop, a nice restaurant followed by a movie, make love at his place, the she would cook for him, a coffee after dinner while they talked about silly day-by-day stuff and then she would take the bus home - I like to think he would offer to drive her home every time they met, but she wouldn't accept it because, she would say, she liked to feel the night breeze coming in through the bus window, and because, she would think, she didn't want the lovely Mondays and Thursdays guy to see her with someone else. I think she loved this guy, though he was much younger than her, 'cause she seemed peaceful and complete on Wednesdays' evenings.
Fridays and Sundays I believe she went to girlfriends' places to play poker, gossip and have a few drinks, 'cause she always came earlier (and so did I, for the café closed at 6pm on those days) and she always looked a bit tipsy and had a far-away look, almost as if she was - in her head - not at all in a bus, going home to her lovely dog.
She never missed the stop, and as soon as she stepped off the bus the little poodle would start barking. She would walk slowly to the gate, unlock it, get in and lock it again, fix the frontyard flowers at some point of the narrow path to the door, and again unlock it, get in, and lock it from the inside. All this, of course, I could only imagine, for she walked so slowly to the gate that the bus would be far away by the time she had locked it back.
On Saturdays I figured she stayed in bed until noon, waked up lazily and had a cup of tea with fine cookies while she waited for the cleaner to clap hands on the front door. She would let her in, give her a nice smile, ask about her kids and husband and than take off to the backyard, where under a huge oak tree she would read a book - with her i-Pod then playing some classical music -, and stay there till the sun started to go down. At this point, she knew the cleaner was almost done, so she would go back inside, take a few bills from a Greek vase she kept on the bureau opposite to her bed, give the money to the woman with a second smile, ask her if she could come again next Saturday (though she knew the answer for the question, she thought it was polite to always ask) and with a third smile wish her a good week. Once inside again she would order Italian food, have it with a glass of wine and go to bed early. I liked to think she didn't go out on Saturdays, because it's exactly the opposite of what younger people do - though I knew (or assumed) she had a young soul and enough disposition to have sex twice a week.
I think she was quite beautiful, mainly for her age. Fit, her blue eyes either matching a blue cashmere scarf or contrasting with a pure-wool, fashion cardigan. She didn't wear glasses, but I believed, since she had an i-Pod, she preferred contact lenses. She looked really fine, and I assumed her favorite scarf was the pale-green one, given to her by the young, rich economist, and which looked good with pretty much anything she decided to wear. The way she crossed her legs on the bus was very discrete, and when - every once in a while - she waved to someone on the street or getting on the bus, she also did it in a very composed way. She was a lady.
I wanted to sit next to her and ask a few questions, whether she had even been married, if she had kids, if she was always a housewife or had had a job before, what age were her parents when they died, what was her favorite color, if she preferred modern, wool blankets or those old one made of geese feather. But she always sat on the front seat, the "preferentially elderly" one, and I had plenty of other seats to take, thus having no excuse to be there when she got it (I caught the bus at stop 2). Besides, I already knew (or fancied) the answers for all my questions.
She was from a big city, middle-class family, well-educated. Her mom was a housewife and died right after she finished teaching school, which is why she never got to be a real teacher, and instead had to run her father's house. She was the youngest of three daughters, and though she was the prettiest one, for a tradition matter she was the last to get married, only a few months after her mom died. She never loved her husband, but she took her father's will. He, on his turn, got sick right after his wife died, quit working and moved to her youngest, newly-married daughter's house for almost a year, before his own death - he couldn't live without his wife. (I never got to know the name of this lady, so in my head I always called her "The Lady". Will the Lady miss the bus today?, I asked myself, right before the bus turned right and I could see her waving for it to stop. Will she stop by her preferred one today, instead of talking to her retired, old mariner?, I wondered; but she never did.) The Lady's father was a military himself, and he was about to retire when his wife died and he got sick. During the 11 months he lived in The Lady's place they talked a lot, and he told her a lot of stories of his time as a sailor, stories of the First World War and how the German went down, stories of how he dealt with the post-war technologies. She loved his stories and, since she didn't love her husband, she would spend her evenings, after she did the wash up, with her father in the Library, talking to him. When, on the last month of his life, he became delirious and then too weak to get off bed, she spent most of her days making him company, reading mariner's stories to him and, though he could not understand those things anymore, updating him about was going on in the world, things she had read on the papers or listened on the radio during dinner with her husband - a business man who grew in walth but never in soul. When The Times released a collection of miniature 1st W. War submarines and ships, she bought them all, built them and put them all over his side bed chest. When he died, she kept the miniatures in a shoes box and took them off only when her husband died, for he never liker the sea or anything related to it. One day he came home earlier, poured a dose of whiskey on a glass with ice and stared out the front window. She called him for dinner and he didn't come, so she sat next to him on her father's former chair and waited. He poured another drink, and another, and another. When he was too drunk to stand up and make his drink himself, he told her to do so. She did and he yield back at her. She expressed no reaction. He had three other drinks, the last one double, and fell asleep, never waking up again. The doctor said he had a heart attack so fulminating he didn't even wake up. She sold the house and moved near downtown, to the house right across bus stop 3.
The Lady had three kids, the youngest being about 40 and they all lived away from her. They haven't been over a long while - and I knew that by the quite bitter look in her eyes when she wore those cheap scarfs I sure were birthday gifts from her children. They were 3 daughters, and they all gave her scarfs, for she always wore scarfs, in the Summer and in the Winer. She loved them, but never missed them; she had been a good mother and was sure it was not her fault if they had decided not ever to visit her again. Her birthday was somewhere in the middle of March - 17th was my guess - and she only wore those scarfs for 2 weeks (though her kids would never know if she threw them away, she thought it was polite to wear something you were given as a gift, and so she did). After that time, she carefully folded them and placed them in the bottom drawer of her wardrobe, piling them every year. And then she would go back to her nice line or satin or cashmere scarfs, the blue ones her preferred boyfriend had given to her. Blue. Blue was The Lady's favorite colour - not because it matched her eyes, as I had first imagined, but because it was the Ocean's colour, I later figured. She loved the Sea, and I believe she would like to be cremated when she died and have her ashes thrown to the Sea - which is something I imagined her old mariner would have done with contained tears (for men don't cry) in his eyes, while giving her a pray and assuring his sad self she was going to heaven.
One day she missed the bus. It was Sunday. The next day, she missed it again. I worried about her, I thought she was sick and considered dropping by with some pie. Then I thought that she might have gotten married to her beloved one and been spending a week of honey-moon in a shore-city of Southern Italy - she always wanted to go to Italy, and her rich workaholic would surely be able to afford that. On Thursday I saw an old guy with a gray hair carefully combed backwards standing on the frontyard of a light-green house, just a bit past stop 5, and I assumed it was her old-talker missing her. Poor man, he ought never to know she wouldn't ever come back to him. Friday, Sunday, Monday and there he was again. The Thursday of the second week she was not taking the bus (and I now realized how long it took from stop 2 to stop 12, where I took off), I saw a dark-green ca parked in front of her house. Sure it's him, I thought, though I couldn't see him anywhere and couldn't explain how he would have gotten in since she was not home, being either in an Italian beach or in her now king-size bed in her new husband's place nearer downtown.
On Friday, I saw a "On Sale" sign on her yard. I was happy for her when, a week later, the sign was replaced by a "Sold" one - she now would probably go to Australia and marvel herself with the huge waves they had there, and that I saw once in the cover of a magazine; maybe she would go to France and buy thousands of blue-cashmere scarfs on a fine shop, after a coffee in some nice place.
I never saw her again, but years after that I saw a man in his late forties wearing a black suit on ad with a grave expression, looking without seeing, and I knew he was The Lady's second husband and she was dead. I took a train to the shore and dropped a lily for her on the Sea. I also dropped a tear and a pray and I assured my sad self she was in heaven - in some blue place of heaven above the Ocean, sat on a comfortable chair with her father next to her, pointing her beloved one and saying good things about him, with her father nodding gently, with a smile on the corner of his mouth.
On my way back home I bought myself a blue, cashmere scarf and never thought of her again.

Feb.13th.2007

ByDeH

14.2.07

Traveling with Bus

13.2.07

There already

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