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By the time I returned to Mrs Xú’s the sun was already losing its daytime lustre. Her shop was closed for business and I wondered if she’d opened up at all. I let myself in through the residential door and made my way up the darkly carpeted stairs. Turning left towards my room at the top of the staircase, I saw a whisper of light fall from the open door. My pulse quickened as I moved nearer. I threw my handbag and jacket on the floor ready for confrontation, anticipating a burglar, a madman off the streets of London.
I nudged the door with the tip of my finger. A sound came from the direction of the bathroom, and I steadied my pulse with long breaths and moved towards the direction of the noise. The bathroom door was half open; I pushed it further with a shoeless foot and entered.
An ebony black cat slithered between my legs, out of the bathroom and ran from my room. Exactly three minutes later I began to sneeze. I was allergic to cats, a fact that had made Joe, who loved them, sad. I now realised why my nose had been constantly running since coming to Mrs Xú’s.
I wedged open the bathroom door, hoping that whatever cats gave off to make me sneeze would eventually disappear.
Suddenly I had an overwhelming desire to talk to someone. I made my way back downstairs to find Mrs Xú and knocked on her door. No answer. The door next to her rooms opened directly into the shop, and was open. The shop was closed but Mrs Xú was busy. Smells permeated the small space. The cat sat on the wooden table where she worked. Mrs Xú chopped and cut. Several jars of powdered something sat on the table, and a few more were lined up on the floor. The cat moved its head, looking up to watch me, as did Mrs Xú.
‘Don’t like people here when working.’ She said it not unkindly but forcefully. The cat meowed, jumped from the table and slunk itself around its mistresses ankles. Mrs Xú stopped chopping, took a deep breath and sighed. ‘But do not mind you being here.’
And that was when I saw the grief, in its complete unprocessed form, the sadness I’d seen when I’d first met her.
‘I do not know what you doing but should stop.’ She bent down and stroked the cat. ‘I had son. Gen was name. Was in South Tower.’
South tower, what was she talking about?
Then it hit me. 9/11.
‘You’re American?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she watched me closely.
‘What happened ... to your son?’
‘The day of disaster was his birthday. My husband gone to New York to be with him. Thirtieth, very important birthday. Husband went office to see Gen, early morning ... on ninety-sixth floor, have look Gen’s new place of work ... Was new job.’
‘And your husband was there ... with your son?’
‘He was.’
Instinctively I moved closer and put my arm around a tiny shoulder.
‘I know grief,’ she said. ‘Hatred ...’ she watched me. ‘Desolation. No matter what do, problem always there.’
‘You don’t know anything about me.’
‘Know too much, always known too much. Knew bad thing going to happen to Gen, knew from day was born, but could do nothing. That is not way of nature, could not interfere.’ She leant against the table.
Fatigue folded over me. ‘Mrs Xú, I’m so sorry about your husband and son, I truly am. I understand ...’ I tried to find the right phrase. ‘I understand your gift, but with all respect you know nothing about me.’
I thought she would question me but didn’t. Did she hope that she could help me by sharing her own heartache? Her story was no less sad than my own. She slumped onto a stool and I saw Mrs Xú move to another place inside her mind; and I could see it; a familiar place that I understood.
For what seemed like an eternity we were silent. Then she rose from the stool and reached underneath the table, pulling out a jar of herbs. ‘Boil these up ... I think know how,’ her expressionless face broke into a smile, ‘make you less sensitive to Mr Cat.’
I took them. ‘Thank you.’