Shelly Oria - New York 1, Tel Aviv 0

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When I say that for the life of me I couldn’t guess what Ludvig and Henrietta have in common, please understand — I am not saying anything about them as people. I have absolutely nothing against them. They are both lovely. I’m making a statement about their relationship, is how you could put it. Although, well, that’s not right either. What do I know about their relationship? Only what I see. And they seem happy, I suppose, when one looks at them. The issue has to do with compatibility . I think the young generation pays little attention to the concept of compatibility. And that isn’t to say that they are young, Ludvig and Henrietta. They are not young. Ludvig went to medical school with my Saul, which means he’s more or less as old as I am. That is not young. I do not enjoy discussing it, but it is the truth. I refuse to be one of those old ladies who holds a shaking spoon over her soup and says “I am not old” or “I feel young.” Feelings don’t matter, behaviors do. People who don’t understand this simple fact are unemployed or incarcerated.

In plain English, it is a lie; when you hold a spoon over a bowl of soup and your hand is shaking, you do not feel young. You feel old. So I am old, and Ludvig is old, too. Henrietta is a little younger, but that doesn’t make her young. She is old. Henrietta might think she’s young. Her grandchildren come to visit and she tells them stories about the things she used to do when she was younger, but it is all one big exaggeration — she did not “run the union,” and people never “quivered at the sight of her”; she just answered the phone. Or she might have done a little more than answering the phone, and her boss certainly liked her — I will not go into the rumors about her and Mr. Burt, whether or not it was truly for him that she left Saul Keningstein and their children; perhaps it was only coincidence that they both disappeared at the same time — but that does not mean that she “ran the union.” She did not run the union. That is preposterous.

And who does something like that, anyway, leave? I don’t mean to be judgmental — Saul always used to say, Don’t be so judgmental, Yoli — but I never could understand it, to be honest. Leaving a man is one thing, though back then it was quite unheard of. But a mother leaving her own children for a whole year? I am not a judgmental woman, but that’s quite something. And when she came back, it was only to take the children away. Poor Saul Keningstein. He had his money and his ladies, but he was a different man after that, a pale man. If you marry a man, you’re not supposed to do anything that would change the color of his skin. That much I know. I never left Saul — forty-two years we were together, and not all of them easy. Don’t get me wrong — we were the best of friends, but forty-two years is a lifetime, and in any lifetime there’s hardship. But leaving? Never crossed my mind. And if we had children, well, I can only imagine. No doubt leaving would have been even further from my mind.

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So Henrietta is a bit younger, yes, but she is old; they are both old. And people who are old should be wise, because if not that, what is the point? Nothing works like it used to. The body, I mean — it does not operate as it once did. Everything takes a long time — you want to make an omelet, you’d better have a couple of free hours. And the people who used to ask you about your day— How was your day, my sweet Yoli? — and the people you used to invite over when you threw parties, and the people who’d pick up the phone to call you when the Laundromat lost their favorite jacket — they’re all gone. So if you don’t have some wisdom to show, then I honestly don’t understand what the point of it all might be.

I don’t mean to sound suicidal. I am not suicidal. And I certainly do have my wisdom, thank God, even though that’s not a thing one is supposed to say about oneself. But it is true nonetheless; I am a wise woman, and when I have to go to the bathroom four minutes after I went to the bathroom the last time — at least I can tell myself, Yolanda, you are a wise woman, and you are wiser today than ever before thanks to all the years you’ve been on this earth. You know that expression “none the wiser”? That does not apply to me.

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Part of being wise when you are old is detecting what stupidity younger people are up to, and making sure to avoid it. This isn’t hard to do. And yet so many old people embrace the stupidities of the younger generation because they think this will make them younger. How silly. Nothing makes you younger, nothing at all. But that is what they think — they will behave like their grandchildren and use the funny words that they are using and learn how to operate the computer and they will be younger, or appear younger, which they believe is the same. It is not the same.

What I’m trying to say is that younger people nowadays pay no attention to this important thing called compatibility , and that Ludvig and Henrietta, because they are the kind of people who are always trying to be younger, are doing the same thing. How else would you explain this haste? Judith was gone, and whoosh, right away, a new couple was born, Ludvig and Henrietta. I don’t mean to criticize him — Ludvig took care of Judith for many years. She was never a healthy woman, always some issue, even when we were all young. And the last few years — better not to think about it. I always knew he was a special one, but the way he took care of her — that was something you don’t see every day. But what does his dedication have to do with Henrietta, with being compatible or not? Nothing. When you move so fast, you don’t have time to think, look into things, other possibilities. Because for example, there might be plenty of women more suitable for Ludvig. Women who adore seashells. Women who don’t abandon men. That is all I’m trying to say. These women might be out there, waiting for him.

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When you walk on the beach in the early-morning hours, your eyes are scouting the sand and your feet are waiting for the smoothness of that tiny piece of marble. When you stop to pick one up, the wind slows down. I am not a sentimental woman; this is a fact — the wind slows down. My years on this earth have taught me to notice the small ways in which people and nature collaborate. The wind slows down, and while you are almost eighty years old, you are also a newborn. This is a fact. You put the seashell to your ear, this telephone of the ocean. You listen to the sound of something both beyond and within your reach. And you hope. Because after a certain point, what’s between you and a casket except hope? So you hope.

* * *

What a silly invitation it was that I got from Henrietta. Some nonsense about an organization that sends knitted socks to children with bare feet in cold climates. She was apparently volunteering there now, and was hosting an event for them. Nonsense. I knew right away something was up — Henrietta never threw parties. And this whole sock business didn’t sound right. But I didn’t think it had anything to do with Ludvig — why would I? I didn’t even know they’d met. And for all I knew he was in mourning. I had reached out, of course, after I heard of Judith’s passing. I said Anything you need, Ludvig, you just let me know, anything at all.

I was thinking I would give him some time and then call again. He deserves all the support he can get, I thought. And he was always a good friend to my Saul, referring patients any chance he got. I imagined he’d be the kind of widower who’d hide in a dark room for a long time, perhaps until a woman came and showed him how to be outside again, taught him that you still breathe after something like that — just a little different, a little lower is all.