Wednesday

 

 

I was walking down a street on the outskirts of the city. My eyes were burning from the smog and the noise made me dizzy, but not knowing how to fly that was the best I could do. Behind me, from out of the bustling traffic and gray smoke, I heard a firm, somewhat shrill voice: ‘Hey, young man!’

Whoever it was had to speak up to be heard over the honking, the screeching of tires, the sirens, the trucks, and the incessant rumble of civilization. I have the habit of turning around when someone calls out to me from behind. I don’t know why I do it: hardly anything good comes of it (no one runs after me to give me a letter, tell me I’ve won the lottery, hand me the deed to an island in the Pacific, or even invite me for a cup of coffee). Maybe I do it because I’m afraid of being hit or shot from behind: I am a product of this century. So I turned around. On one side of the street, one of those depressing apartment towers that vulgar urban life peddles to naive and prolific families wedded to the dream of being homeowners was going up. Those buildings are grimy even before people move into them, the doors don’t close properly, the moisture seeps through the walls, and the pipes leak; a lot of people jump out of the windows, which face other identical buildings, and commit suicide. Across from the soot-covered building there was a limestone wall, which was also dirty, and two old ladies were sitting on it talking. (Land has gotten so expensive in our city that there aren’t any squares or parks left.)

‘Hey, young man!’ one of them repeated when I turned around.

Bits of plastic plants lined the wall (today’s city planners place them on the pavement to satisfy people’s love of nature).

It seemed like a unique scene, something you’d take a picture of: the two gray-haired old ladies sitting on a limestone wall surrounded by cars and traffic lights, trying their best - despite the noise, the floating gas molecules, and the smell of exhaust and chemical contaminants - to hold a conversation. They were poor but they were tidily dressed, and each had a purse at her side.

‘Could you tell me if today is Wednesday or Thursday?’ one of them, the one who had called out to me, asked as I walked over to them.

It was the most unusual question anyone had ever asked me.

At first I was flustered: simplicity is a lost art.

‘I think it’s Wednesday,’ I stammered.

‘What did I tell you?’ the woman who hadn’t yet said anything decreed sternly. She immediately became tender. A semi rumbled by and the pavement seemed to shake. An ambulance was transporting someone, dead or alive, somewhere.

‘We were arguing about whether today is Wednesday or Thursday,’ the old lady explained. ‘She was sure it was Thursday, and I told her it was Wednesday.’

‘I was confused,’ the other one conceded meekly. Her sparse, long, gray hair was curled at the ends. I don’t know why, but a retired B-movie actress came to mind. It must be the influence of television. She had applied her lipstick carefully, and you could imagine that once upon a time she’d had thicker lips. She smiled in an innocent, humble way, like a woman long humiliated by life.

‘You’re always getting confused,’ the first one complained, though not meanly. Despite her hard shell, I think she protected the other one a little, maybe because there was something vulnerable about her.

‘Would you like to sit down?’ the first one asked me, and she quickly moved to the side, freeing a portion of wall. She took the trouble of brushing it off first, as if it were a chair. I accepted. Even though I had a hole in my socks, it seemed like a good idea to roll up my pants.

‘We spend the mornings here,’ the first woman reported, making me think of a picnic in the countryside. A big bus was occupying a portion of the sidewalk near us and belched a thick cloud of smoke. The bus came to a raucous halt. Men, women, and children got off. For some strange reason there was a pocket of wind in the subway entrance that made leaves, newspapers, and trash fly around. The newsstand was full of magazines; next to it, someone was selling candy and hot peanuts. The rest of the block was taken up by a gargantuan supermarket, like some antediluvian animal.

‘That’s right,’ the other one added, ‘we’re here every morning, except on Fridays. On Fridays we go to church.’

Friday struck me as being as good a day as any other to go church.

‘Would you like a sandwich?’ the first woman asked, fishing out a white package from her nylon purse. ‘We always get a little hungry at this time. Which reminds me, do you know what time it is?’

I don’t have a watch, but I figured it was about 11:00 a.m. I was hungry, so I accepted the sandwich. It was ham and cheese. I ate fast. They ate more slowly; their teeth might have been giving them trouble. But watching me eat made them happy.

‘You have to eat!’ the first one proclaimed. ‘That’s what I always tell my children, “You have to eat!” ’ A truck carrying oxygen tanks rumbled by. Someone’s dying, I thought.

‘But you never see your children,’ the other one pointed out, and then immediately regretted what she’d said.

‘I do too,’ said the first one, without conviction. ‘They visit me twice a year, at Christmas and on my birthday. Do you like the sandwich?’

I said I did and was sorry I hadn’t said so earlier.

‘I don’t have any children,’ the other woman reported. ‘And I ran away from the old people’s home,’ she confessed with mischievous glee.

‘It’s true,’ the first woman corroborated. ‘She ran away over a month ago. No one knows where she is.’

‘No one knows where I am,’ the second woman repeated, grinning. ‘But they won’t look for me. Who would look for me?’

‘No one cares about old people,’ said the woman who had spoken first.

I agreed. ‘Or about young people,’ I added.

They looked at me, curious and attentive.

‘It’s true,’ said the first woman. ‘I have a little water in my bottle. Do you want some?’

I said I did and she handed me the bottle and an unused paper cup. I was thirsty. A hundred and fifty people - if not more - started walking at the same time when the red Cyclops changed colors. I was afraid there would be a stampede. Just in case, I clung to the wall.

‘But I like young people a lot,’ added the first woman, the one who looked like a retired actress. ‘They’re full of good feelings, even though you wouldn’t know it,’ she observed.

‘As if you’d know!’ grumbled the other one at the exact moment when eighty-three cars set off, speeding down the road. In the distance I saw the smoke rising from a laboratory on the hill, as if from a volcano.

I returned the bottle to the first woman.

‘Old people have to look out for themselves,’ she mumbled.

‘We do too,’ I added.

‘See what I mean?’ said the woman who’d spoken second. ‘Didn’t I tell you this world is no good for young people? They have to run away too.’

‘I ran away from home a few years ago,’ I said, ‘and no one looked for me.’

‘But you’re probably more suited to it,’ replied the second woman, flirtatiously. ‘When I had to climb over a wall I got a run in my stockings. In my only pair.’

‘Don’t worry; I’ll get you another pair,’ the first woman offered tenderly. ‘I’ll steal some from my stingy daughter-in-law, she has a lot of them.’

Hundreds of children on their way home from school wearing brown uniforms and gray socks were looking eager to cross the street, like restless, fearful little animals in the jungle getting ready to step, jump, or fly for the first time.

‘But it was fun,’ said the woman. ‘They probably think I got lost or that I died.’

‘This world is no good for anyone,’ I thought out loud.

‘Luckily, she has me. I bring her sandwiches every day,’ the first one pointed out, speaking to me. ‘People have to help one another.’

‘That’s right, people have to help each other,’ I said.

‘It’s no problem for me to share my food with you,’ the second one said.

Now the traffic was all backed up, and exasperated drivers leaned on their horns. The blasts, long and persistent or else short and compulsive, were deafening. Some drivers got out of their vehicles, looked behind them, looked ahead, and got back in. Oblivious to the commotion, the traffic signals continued working, the eyes changing from one color to another.

‘If you want, I can give you some chocolate,’ the first woman told me. ‘It’s good against the cold, it’s full of calories.’

I accepted.

‘Young people have big appetites,’ said the second woman. ‘Especially on Wednesdays,’ I added, just to say something. They seemed to find that very convincing.

‘She gets the days mixed up because her memory is no good,’ the second one explained to me.

‘That’s not true, Clara,’ the first one protested. ‘I’ve only forgotten a few years of my life, not all of them. Anyway, anyone can confuse one day with another.’

‘It happens to me all the time,’ I said in her defense.

‘A little order is important,’ the other one said. ‘Monday is Monday, Tuesday is Tuesday, and Wednesday is Wednesday. Even though the world is falling apart and no one looks after old people or young people, you have to keep track of what’s going on.’ That seemed reasonable enough to me. And once in a while it’s good to listen to reasonable things.

‘Where do you sleep, young man?’ the second woman asked me in a very friendly voice.

‘Here and there,’ I answered vaguely. ‘One day in one place, the next somewhere else.’

‘They don’t let you sleep on the station platforms anymore,’ said the second woman, sadly.

‘Now that’s a shame,’ said Clara, indignant.

‘Terrible,’ I said.

The retired actress had opened her purse and was now holding a small map in her hand, one of those maps they give you for free in the subway. She put her finger on a certain spot.

‘Since I ran away, I’ve been sleeping there, at an abandoned train station. There’s a watchman, a very kind and caring man. He’s afraid of losing his job because he’s old and no one loves him. He lets me sleep on a bench, and he even lends me blankets. I don’t think he’d mind if you want to sleep there once in a while.’

I thanked her sincerely.

‘Well, I have to go now,’ said the first woman. ‘If it were Thursday, I could stay a little longer, but it’s Wednesday.

‘You’ve already said that more than once, Clara,’ said the second woman.

The traffic was still backed up and I didn’t see a single bird in the sky.