What is that bumbling old man up to? He has been mooning around like some schoolboy for days now. The first instinctive anwer any woman would give is : another woman. Bouncing around with eagerness like a puppy waiting for a bit of tasty treat. I wonder what little hussy has put him into such a state. Disappearing for a few hours every Thursday at some annonymous hotel, on some bed-bugs infested bed, probably. Who knows what is in the head of these men. It is as if years grow skins around their ears which harden year after year, until they grow deaf to us. He thinks me naggy, tiresome, a bitch at home he can't wait to rid off for a few hours of happiness and freedom. BUt then, who can blame him. He is silent and withdrawn all the time, watching TV, going for ridiculously senseless strolls, taking random trains. Men, their silence, their weapon. Words are ours. It is like they build this wall around their ears and their hearts when they want to shut you out. And we try, God knows we try, repeating the same old words again and again like some old chant. Then increasing our volume trying to find a way to get in. Screaming even. Then they just retreat further, or leave altogether.

What Thursday rendevous is he having? For sex, no doubt. We stopped having that for almost a year now. I know he masturbates to the teen magazines my daughters subscribe to, secretly in the toilet. BUt what secrets does he have from me, or I from him? I am not the type to follow my own husband. What for? To find what out? For what purpose? To make myself more miserable and rip the surface peace into painful little pieces? When they say trust is the biggest ingredient in a marriage, what they really meant is this conditional trust, this blissful ignorance we all force upon ourselves. It is good not to find out. It is safe not to know. Truth is only looked upon with regard by the young, the young are not afraid of truth. Not women who have turned 50.

After all these years, what men really want is still adventure. Something new. And we women, still want that same elusive thing. "What women want?" that philosophical question still unanswered. We still want the same thing--to be understood. But men won't understand. NOt that they don't want to, perhaps they don't know how to, and we still haven't found a way to make them. But ask any women, and they won't tell you. They can't. Telling you is to betray their secret. This understanding cannot be given, men have to search for it. Dig for it in the depths like some treasure. Then after some time, finding that they are never going to get the answer from women, they just shut off altogether and go off every Thursday to have some fun.

He came back from his usual Thursday rendezvous, all upset and grey. What did the little hussy do? It is hard to think that his heart can still be broken at this age. I thought it had ben thickened by years of experience to be quite numb. BUt he was silent all throughout dinner. And at night, in bed, he cried. It scared me. I was afraid for him, and myself. Sad for him, and myself. I took his hand, like I used to when we first got together, when we were first in love. This man I loved, love. I didn't ask him what's wrong, or what happened. Just held it for as long as he needed. Then silence fell between us.

After the longest time he said "I am young no longer. I am old." "I am old too." I said without thinking. I wish I can say we then have ravenous sex, the best sex we ever had in our life, like when we were hotly in love. But he drifted into sleep, and I heard him snore. HE was still clutching my hand in his sleep. Then I closed my eyes too and waited for peaceful sleep to descend.