The Lady Behind the Glass

• A melancholic portrait of age and solitude, shadowed by a silent feline presence.

There was an old, decaying apartment building on the street where I grew up, and in it lived an old lady. Well, truth be told, several old ladies lived there, but this particular one had a way of lingering in one’s memory more than the others. And that was saying something, considering that among them was a cranky widow who made it a habit to yell at dog owners passing by, scolding them to keep their four-legged companions from urinating on the flowers growing along the sidewalk. There was also a very elderly woman who, every morning around eight o’clock, regardless of the weather, ventured outside with her walking sticks, determined to slowly circle the building. She would hum melodies from songs by The Ink Spots, though no one ever recognized them as such—not due to the quality of her rendition, but rather because of the simple fact that no one who passed her by knew those songs in the first place. She walked so slowly that she had enough time to go through several melodies in one single round.

The lady I mentioned at the beginning never went for walks. In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing her on the street. Whenever I think of her, I immediately picture the third window from the right, second floor, sheer curtains, and her somber face behind the fogged-up glass. On the inner windowsill, she kept clay pots with succulents. The paint on the wooden window frame had been peeling for some time, forming flakes of various sizes, stretching as if toward the sun—much like the sunflowers in the fields nearby. In the evenings, a warm, golden light shone from the window, and anyone passing by could catch a glimpse of the floral-patterned wallpaper inside and, from the right angle, even the old, meticulously lacquered furniture made of dark wood. In a glass cabinet, one could spot carefully arranged blue-and-white porcelain. I passed by that window almost every day, and so I had every detail committed to memory.

I never saw her anywhere but at the window. She spent long hours watching the street, and she was remembered not only by the other residents but also by the garbage collectors, the postmen, and many of the children from the neighborhood who walked past on outings with caretakers from the nearby kindergarten. I wondered if she had a television, if she read books, or if she knitted with wool yarn, because my grandmother used to knit a lot, and I assumed that all grandmothers did. And who knew—was she even a grandmother in the true sense of the word? Did she have grandchildren, or was she simply an old lady? When I thought about it, I remembered the blue-and-white porcelain in her cabinet. Grandmothers always seemed to like giving such things to their descendants. Perhaps she truly had no one to pass them on to. Meals were delivered to her regularly by the home care service—just as they were for most of the residents in that building. Except for one man in his forties, who had lived there with his parents until they passed away, and then stayed on alone, the building was home exclusively to the elderly. The apartments aged and withered along with their owners, and those that had been left abandoned simply continued to age on their own.

One day, in another street, at another window, I saw a cat sitting on the inner windowsill, absentmindedly watching the world outside. And it struck me—perhaps the old lady in that old building was living a life much like that cat’s. Like a feline soul trapped in a human body. It was just a fleeting thought, but from that moment on, every time I saw her in the window, a cat came to mind. Any ordinary house cat, content with its limited world, lacking any desire to wander. If a crime were ever committed in our street, the police would surely do well to question her first. After all, curious cats miss nothing, and the old lady—like a cat with the power of speech—would have made the perfect witness. A motionless face behind the glass, a person on the fringes of existence, as if plucked from a story where it always rains, and all important things happen at night.

A noise outside—a sharp sound, perhaps breaking glass—loud enough to catch her attention, but not loud enough to wake those already asleep. The old lady instinctively turned off the light in her room. And she watched. She watched and saw what was not meant to be seen. A person on the edge of existence, a character who, in such stories, only begins to exist once they witness something.

But nothing so dramatic happened. Instead, the same thing happened that had already happened in other apartments in that building. The old lady, after some time, passed away. I don’t know if she died unexpectedly, as people often say, because who was there to expect anything from her life or death? Let’s not romanticize it—she died alone, and in silence. She left behind an empty window, where her succulents slowly withered away. And on the day she died, an unusually large number of cats roamed our street.

Most likely, it meant nothing. But who knows? No one can see inside a cat’s mind.