The Sunset Gang

by Warren Adler

  "Not now, Bill," she said after a while. He wondered what "now" really meant, thinking this thought in Yiddish.

  But what the socializing had done was to trigger an awareness in Velvil and Genendel that both of them finally admitted to themselves.

  "Seeing you two together only emphasized her grossness," Velvil said after the Yiddish Club had adjourned one evening. They had decided to take a walk in the hushed stillness of the tranquil night. The air seemed light with a touch of tropical scent. The path brought them to one of Sunset Village's manmade ponds which reflected a half-moon in the clear sky.

  "I think you're exaggerating," Genendel responded after a long pause. She dared not comment what she truly felt, the sense of his entrapment, the frustration of his wife's overbearing inanity.

  "Actually..." He sighed. "Your husband seems like a sweet guy."

  That he was, she thought, sweet, with a disposition that never registered below sunny. She had long ceased to wonder where the fire had gone, knowing in her heart that it was never there. They had simply lived together, occasionally copulated, passing the time. She shivered in the warm night, aware of Velvil's closeness and the sound of his breathing.

  "You are the person..." Velvil began, stumbling, feeling the power of the compulsion to say it.

  "Me?" she questioned, knowing what was coming next, yearning for it, conscious that her shivering was not from the cold.

  "I feel closer to you than to anyone I have ever known in my life," he said swiftly, the Yiddish floating in the air like a musical phrase. He looked at her but did not touch her. She seemed to move away from him as they walked.

  "I know," she said, feeling her knees weaken.

  "And you?" he asked after they had not talked for a while.

  "I confess it," she said. It was such an appropriately Yiddish remark, as if a sense of guilt were necessary to embellish the mystery.

  His heart pounded, the revelation of the shared feeling a caress in itself. He wondered if he should stop and reach out for her, but he held off, as if the spiritual kinship might be lost in the physical touching. Or perhaps he was simply shy, like an adolescent. He suddenly remembered the discomfort and frustration of his first stirrings in the presence of a female.

  I am a grown man, he thought, wanting to express it some way, boiling down the essence into Yiddish elixir. "You are a flower to my soul," he said, the Yiddish translatable only in the heart.

  "You are embarrassing me, Velvil," Genendel said. A sliver of cloud passed over the moon, emphasizing the darkness. "We have no right," she protested, but he had caught the collective pronoun. It assured him, affirming that, whatever it was, they were in it together.

  When he said good-by at her car, he felt the courage to touch her, squeezed her hand briefly but she quickly withdrew it.

  I love her, he decided as he walked home, feeling a new sense of strength, the infusion of youth. He was surprised there was no guilt in the declaration and when he slipped in between the sheets, next to his wife, he reveled in his private thoughts, wondering who the stranger was who snored beside him.

  She stirred briefly. "I won twenty dollars in canasta tonight," she croaked hoarsely.

  He hummed a response without interest, thinking of Genendel. That night he hardly slept, knowing it was impossible to wade through another two days without seeing her.

  In the morning he feigned sleep while Mimi rattled in the kitchen.

  "If you didn't come in so late, you wouldn't be so tired," she cried when he did not respond to the breakfast call.

  "Make your own breakfast," she said finally as she finished dressing and slammed the door behind her.

  Jumping out of bed he reached for the telephone book, found Genendel's number, and called her.

  "I must see you," he said.

  "I'm afraid," she said.

  "So am I."

  "We could have breakfast."

  He mentioned a fast-food place on Lake View Drive to which he could walk. He knew she had the car since her husband rarely used it.

  They met an hour later, feeling awkward, hardly speaking until the coffee was served. He watched her as she peered into her cup. What was she looking at? he wondered.

  "I want to see you every day," he said, feeling the power of his newly found courage. He had never thought himself capable of exercising it. People at the next booth looked his way. He noted their reddish goyishe faces and knew that their curiosity was aroused by the strange language.

  "I want to see you every day," he said again proudly.

  "People would talk, Velvil. They would notice."

  Suddenly a crowd of people came into the restaurant, Sunset Village types in well-filled Bermuda shorts. Outside he could see the parked tricycles of the Sunset Village Cycling Club, the high pennants limp on their antennae.

  "We could join the Cycling Club," he decided, watching the group come in. "They meet every day. Besides, it will be healthy. Plenty of fresh air and exercise."

  "They look so foolish," Genendel said, smiling.

  "Who cares?"

  She knew that he was responding to another question. She wondered about her own caring, thinking only of her husband, of the hurt, the wound that knowledge of them would inflict on him.

  "All right," she said, lowering her eyes. She knew she had taken another step in the journey and felt the mystery of it, the joy.

  In the Cycling Club they practiced discretion, talking to the others as they pedaled en masse through the crowded roads, making a mess out of the traffic, prompting occasional catcalls and anti-Semitic epithets, which they ignored, laughed about. They did not have much time to themselves, but it seemed enough that they were together. Even in the silence their intimacy grew. When they exchanged information, it was always in Yiddish.

  "Don't you people speak English?" one of the club members asked as he pedaled close by.

  "Not very well," Velvil said slyly, hearing Genendel's giggle begin beside him.

  The idea had been growing within each of them for some time, but it wasn't until they had been in the Cycling Club for several months that it became clear, hitting them both with the force of a hurricane.

  They were having breakfast, the entire cycling group, chattering like children, making the waitresses in the restaurant move more swiftly than they were accustomed to. Another couple sat down beside them, a large freckle-faced woman with wispy gray hair curling from under her blue baseball cap. Her husband was tanned almost black by the sun, his bald head shining like some African wood sculpture.

  "We're the Berlins," the woman said.

  They knew instantly that she would dominate the conversation with her rapid-fire questions, a dyed-in-the-wool yenta.

  "I've been watching you," the woman said. "I even remarked to Harry. Didn't I, Harry?"

  Harry nodded, his dark face breaking, the neat line of false teeth flashing in the brightness.

  "I have a sixth sense about devoted couples. Tell me, how long have you been married?"

  Velvil had wanted to respond immediately, but shrugged instead, watching Genendel's discomfort.

  "Forty-five years at least, right?"

  Genendel lowered her eyes, which the woman must have taken for affirmation.

  "See, I was right," she said, turning to Harry. "They are a truly devoted couple. How many children have you got?"

  Velvil looked at Genendel, wondering if she could see beyond her anxiety the humor of the situation. He decided to be playful and held up four fingers.

  "Canahurra," the woman said.

  "She wanted to have more," Velvil said, "but she got a special dispensation from the Pope."

  "You had a hysterectomy?" the woman pursued. "I had one ten years ago."

  "They took the baby carriage out and left the playpen in," Harry said suddenly.

  "It's not often that you meet such a devoted couple. I can tell. I've got a sixth sense about it, haven't I, Harry?"

  Velvil felt the idea explode in his head, but da
red not entertain it and worried that once broached it would affect his relationship with Genendel.

  After the Yiddish Club meeting that night, they sat on chairs near the pool.

  "Is it possible that we look like a married couple?" Velvil said, noting his own caution as he watched her face in the glow of the clubhouse lights.

  "I'm afraid so," she said. "You can't fool an old yenta."

  "I hadn't realized."

  "I have."

  "You?"

  "How long do you think we can get away with it?" She sighed.

  "What have we done? Have I once?..."

  She put a finger over his lips, a gesture to induce silence. Instead he kissed her finger, their first kiss. He grasped her wrist and showered kisses on the back of her hand. She let her hand linger, closing her eyes, tilting her head. He could see a tear slip out of the corner of her eye and roll down her cheek, catching the brief glow of the lights.

  "I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Genendel," he said, a lump growing in his throat, his heart pounding. "I want to marry you."

  "This is madness. This is crazy," she cried. "I don't want to hear it ever again, not ever." He had never seen her so upset. "Not ever again." But she did not take her hand out of his. "If you dare mention such a thing again, I promise you I will never see you again. You must promise me, Velvil."

  He clutched her hand, feeling the full impact of the emptiness of his future without her, not daring to precipitate her anger further. But he did not promise.

  "You must promise," she persisted.

  "I cannot promise," he said, after a long silence, still holding her hand. He lifted it again to his lips. "I love you," he said. "And that is the only thing I can promise."

  She withdrew her hand, stood up, cleared her throat, and wiped her tears.

  "I think we better not see each other any more." What angered her particularly was that she was actually thinking the unthinkable. How would David react? Her children? The cruelty of it. She had no right. She strode forward and he rose to follow her.

  "Leave me alone," she said. "I am going home now."

  "Will I see you again?" he cried after her, afraid to follow, knowing his voice was carrying too far in the quiet night. He stood rooted to the spot, watching her depart.

  The next morning Genendel did not join the morning activities of the Cycling Club. Instead of going with the group, he rode to her condominium and watched it for a long time without gathering the courage to press the buzzer and confront her. The blinds were drawn. Later he stopped at a pay phone and dialed her number. There was no answer.

  A heavy depression washed over him as he moped around his condominium thinking that he had lost her, letting self-pity clutch at him. Mimi made his lunch, not noticing his strange behavior. He did not listen as she chirped away about her friends, her card games. The incessant patter of her voice with its empty gossip increased the blackness of his mood. Feeling his hatred, he hacked away at the sandwich with his teeth.

  "Stop eating so fast," Mimi said.

  He chewed the food, aware of its tastelessness and heaviness as it moved down his gullet. Without Genendel, he told himself, life would be empty--the future just a long wait for them to carry him out and put him in the box.

  After Mimi had gone to her afternoon game, he made an effort to calm himself, to rationalize his position, to go over his options. He was, after all, a lawyer. But contemplation of what a divorce might entail boggled his mind, made him tired. His wife's harangues would be hysterical. The children would think he was a monster. Would he hate himself later?

  He did consider having a clandestine affair, but it was so foreign to his nature and his morality that he could not bring himself to accept such a possibility. What he concluded was that he could accept any pain--from Mimi, from his children, from anyone, pay any price--for the privilege of spending the rest of his life with Genendel. Anything was worth that.

  He was again tempted to call her on the telephone, but lost his courage, deciding instead to suffer through the long night and day until the meeting of the Yiddish Club. It was not an easy assignment.

  Feigning a slight cold, he was able to escape from Mimi's patter by squirreling himself in bed for most of the next day.

  "You're going to the Yiddish Club?" Mimi asked as he dressed.

  "I feel better."

  "You're acting strangely, Bill."

  "I know," he mumbled, wanting to shout out at her, to tell her what was happening inside of him. Instead he walked out into the warm night, hoping that in a few minutes he would be once again in the presence of the woman he loved. But the slight optimism that he felt as he walked quickly dissipated when he arrived and it became apparent that she was not coming. He listened listlessly to the speakers, walked out early, and roamed through the clubhouse.

  In the long cardroom, he saw David playing gin. He moved toward the table and watched the game for a while, waiting for the moment to ask him news of his wife.

  "Where's Jennie?" he asked casually. "Missed her at the meeting."

  "Said she missed the kids. Went up north to visit for a few weeks." He poked Velvil in the stomach. "Look at this," he said, holding up the score. "I got him on a triple schneid."

  Her absence made his longing more intense and he spent his time in long solitary walks around Sunset Village. You must come back to me, he begged her in his mind.

  "What's wrong with you, Bill?" his wife asked with casual but persistent interest.

  "I am sad and lonely," he said in Yiddish.

  "That again."

  "You give me no pleasure," he said, again in Yiddish.

  "This is ridiculous."

  "You are ridiculous," he said in Yiddish.

  "The hell with you," Mimi responded with anger, slamming the door behind her as she rushed off to the clubhouse. He savored his cruelty, yet knew that it was wrong.

  After the first shock of Genendel's departure wore off, leaving him only with a gnawing emptiness, he still participated in the morning cycling and the Yiddish Club. He went through the mechanical process of the activities in the hope that when she returned, she too would fall into the same old patterns. What was her life with David like? he wondered. Was she prepared to compromise her remaining years? For that?

  When she finally returned to the Yiddish Club two weeks later he felt that the curtain had been raised on his life again, and he could barely sit through the meeting waiting for a few private words with her. By then he had convinced himself that he would take half a loaf, to leave it as it had been. Even a few moments of her time were better than to endure the suffering of her absence.

  When the meeting was over, he dashed over to her, stumbling over a chair. "Did you enjoy your trip?" he asked, stammering, unable to control the frantic beat of his heart.

  "It was all right," she responded.

  He imagined that he could detect sadness in her eyes. "Would you like to take a walk?"

  She nodded. He had gone over and over this request in his mind and could hardly believe that he had made it.

  They walked along the familiar path in silence.

  "I promise," he finally said.

  "Promise?" She paused and turned to look at him.

  "I promise I won't bring up that subject again." He wondered if she understood.

  "You think it's that simple?" she said, looking at him.

  She had touched his arm and he felt his flesh respond with goose pimples. He was confused.

  "How many more years do you think we have, Velvil?"

  Her question left him speechless as his mind groped for some kind of logic.

  "I try not to think about it," he said at last.

  "I have been thinking about it for the last two weeks."

  "You have?"

  "I spent the time with my daughter. I felt like a picture on the wall."

  He knew instantly what she meant and she sensed his understanding. She, too, had dreamed and longed for this moment, when she would
reveal to him that she was, indeed, willing to pay the price.

  "We are in the elephant burial ground, Velvil," she said. "We know the end is coming fast. We have to seize the present."

  In Yiddish, the words came to him as poetry and he felt the power of himself. His energy surged as he gripped her shoulders and gathered her in his arms.

  "It will not be easy," she said firmly, relieved at last, unburdened. "And, frankly, I don't know if I'll be able to go through with it."

  "We'll give each other courage," he said.

  They resumed their walk, arms locked around each other like young lovers.

  "They'll think we're crazy," Genendel said suddenly. "And they might be right."

  "Between us, Genendel," Velvil said, "we've been married nearly a century."

  "Eighty-nine years," she said. "See? I've been thinking about it. I even thought of ways that I might get David interested in your wife. It would make matters so much simpler."

  "I wouldn't wish it on him," Velvil said.

  On the way back to her car, he pondered the legal problems. Although he was a lawyer, he had never paid much attention to divorce laws. He was annoyed with himself for allowing practicalities to intrude. What did that matter? Somehow they would survive it.

  But it was not that easy to break the news to Mimi and he agonized over it, sleepless, tossing and turning, unable to shut off his mind. In the darkness he felt the terror of guilt, knowing what Genendel must be going through. He felt his courage ebb and only when the light filtered through the drawn blinds did his resolve return.

  Following Mimi into the kitchen, he sat down at the little table and watched her as he gathered his thoughts. It was not that he despised her. Hardly that, although he knew he had lost all feeling for her except compassion. He did feel compassion, he told himself. Only because he knew that she would never understand.