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Scorn and derision never come in tears

I have to admit that I am not always as sociable in a Food Court as many of my essays suggest. There are times when I feel like wrapping myself in my thoughts -or, more productively perhaps- in the thoughts of those who are able to string ideas into a readable form. I was tempted to specify only the ones written on paper, but I often travel light, and besides, it’s hard to keep a book both propped up on the table in front of me and opened to the right page. A Kindle (sorry) solves the latter issue, and a well-placed hat the former. I am, then, bibliophilic when I am not absorbed in eavesdropping, or eaves-watching (I’m not sure what polite term applies to the furtive, yet unbeknownst examination of those who sit within the focal length of my newly cataractless eyes).

Anyway, one day I found myself alone at a small table in the oversized Court, sufficiently detached from the madding crowd to concentrate on a gripping story unrolling for me on the screen of my old, digitally inept Kindle. Briefly, I became aware that in my semi-isolated section, I was perhaps almost the only living hominid not glued to the screen of a phone. Well, almost, because on one occasion, in an attempt to stretch my eyes, I felt another set grappling with the quietly chatting crowd at the tables around her.

I didn’t notice her at first -the elderly tend to fade into backgrounds; I understand this, of course: I myself am often equally faded… At any rate, only her eyes seemed alive: searching, probing, still alert to what was left in their increasingly clouded world. I sympathized with her, though; she is, perhaps, what I will be in a few short years: a still curious bundle of hope wrapped in wrinkled skin and fragile bones, yet filled with a life that chooses not to die…

But the Kindled story quickly drew me back to what I’d been reading. Isn’t it interesting that some authors are so able to absorb you into their realities that your own disappears; you walk with the character down the street, absorbing everything she does, noticing without effort the world through her eyes as if you were her. In the penultimate chapter in which I found myself clothed, things were happening that I had not anticipated and, like her, I was devastated. She began to cry and, with the news she had received, I could feel a tear rolling down my own cheek.

I quickly concentrated on my coffee and tore a piece off my bagel hoping my doing something would help the character forget her sadness. Embarrassed at the feel of the tear on my cheek, though, I quickly wiped it off and reached for my coffee, as if the steam rising from its surface, and not the story, were the cause. And in the maelstrom of Food Court activity, no one noticed; no one cared.

But, as the chapter progressed and I continued to share the grief of the character, I could feel my lips quiver and my face pucker as if I were about to cry. I’ve never been a quiet crier; once an emotion is unleashed it takes over my face and my whole body gasps as if it were on the verge of drowning, so I knew it was important to nip it in the early stages of its bud, as a counsellor once suggested. Unfortunately, that which accompanies old Age seems to have weakened my defences, and all those things which should accompany it like honour, love, obedience and troops of friends I must not pretend to have… Sorry Macbeth…

Anyway, I decided to turn the Kindle off for a while and despite my grief-constricted throat, concentrate on breaking my bagel into little pieces. It’s a trick I think I harvested from the writings of the developmental psychologist Jean Piaget: a child can be fooled into thinking he is getting more by the number of trips to his mouth, than from the quantity consumed each time… or is it the other way around? Anyway, it works for me: breaking apart a single dry, ungarnished bagel into little shreds completely satisfies my hunger -and it kills a little time as well.

I was half way through the bagel crumbs and my now lukewarm coffee when I decided I could brave a glance at the room again. She was still there, the elderly lady, and her rheumy eyes kept dividing their time between an empty plate, cold coffee dregs, and my face. I wasn’t sure if I should smile and alert her to my fascination with her interest in me, or continue my ocular sweep of the room as if I were waiting for a friend who may not have seen me from the lineup at the counter.

She wasn’t fooled though; I could tell. And when our eyes finally met, they were no longer just ships passing in the night, but semaphore signals sending a message across the distance. A smile briefly flickered on her lips.

She began gathering her paper dinnerware into a little pile, being careful not to spill any residual contents onto the table -she must have been a fastidious housekeeper- and then worked her way into a long purple woolen coat that buttoned up its front, and pushed her chair away from the table. I could see that the effort was difficult for her; frailty was written across her wrinkled face, and age upon her bony hands as she struggled to encompass the detritus into a carriable bundle for the garbage bin only a few feet away.

But, once she had binned her paper dinner utensils, she hobbled towards my table on the way to the exit from the Court. I tried not to follow her with my eyes, and concentrated on the crumbs that still remained on my napkin as she passed. And yet, she still lingered for the briefest of moments beside my table.

“It’ll be alright, I’m sure,” she whispered as she slowed at my table. “Books allow us to assign our emotions vicariously, don’t they…?” Then she quickened her hobble and without a backward glance, stole quietly from the room and my sight.

The wisdom a strangers…? I suppose it’s why I come here.

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