Only in New York

by Lily Brett

  Yakub works in a small space that has the smell and thickened air of shoe parts and glue and grinders and polishers. He grew up in Uzbekistan, trained as a shoemaker and ran his own business making custom-made shoes and boots.

  For years the first thing Yakub would say when he saw me was ‘How is your husband?’ When I replied that my husband was fine, Yakub would nod at me. The nod was an indication that I should show him whatever footwear I had brought in.

  Yakub is a man of few words. He is almost gruff. And very serious about shoes. He is also always working. While I am trying to explain what is wrong with my shoes or boots, Yakub is prising off a sole or hammering back on the heel of another customer’s shoes.

  Yakub is not a smiler. He didn’t respond with even a small smile when I once said his son was a beautiful young man. The only times I have seen him smile is when he sees my husband. After a few years, Yakub stopped referring to my husband as my husband. He started calling him his brother. ‘How is my brother?’ he would ask me.

  A lot of people like my husband. He exudes warmth and a cheerfulness. To everyone. This bothers me quite a bit. I think my husband should be more sparing with his warmth and cheerfulness. I, myself, rarely look cheerful with people I don’t know well. And I never hug relative strangers. Still, my husband and I have been together a long time and I have resigned myself to his overly sunny disposition.

  Yakub has never called me his sister. His first response to any shoe-repair request of mine is to shrug, shake his head vehemently and tell me that he is not sure it can be done. He has this response regardless of whether I have asked him to stretch, dye, re-heel or re-sole my shoes. Then he lets out a huge and very loud sigh.

  A few weeks ago, I showed him a pair of shoes that I wanted stretched. He shook his head and looked grim. As though another Tartar Occupation or the re-appearance of Ivan the Terrible was imminent. ‘I cannot stretch this shoe,’ he said. I pointed out that he had stretched an identical pair about a month ago. The shoes were made by an English company called Fly London. They specialise in comfortable but stylish walking shoes. I walk a lot. New York is a walking city. Everyone walks. I regularly walk twenty to thirty blocks at a time. As soon as I experienced how comfortable the Fly London shoes are, I bought another pair.

  ‘The other pair was exactly the same,’ I said to Yakub.

  ‘Each shoe is different,’ he said. ‘If I can’t stretch this pair you take them back and get another pair.’

  He did a test with his shoe stretcher. The shoes passed the stretch test. I then asked if he could dye the white rim of the shoes black. He examined the shoes again. ‘Ring me on Friday morning and remind me about the dye,’ he said. ‘Two hours after you ring me, you can pick up the shoes.’

  I assumed that the shoes would also be stretched, but thought I should check. ‘So, will they be stretched and dyed?’ I said.

  Yakub rolled his eyes and looked at me as though I was the village idiot. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he said.

  I’ve had this sort of interaction with Yakub before. I once had the sort of wrangle you’d have with your mother or father or your aunt, if you had one, over a pair of boots. I have large calves, something I am not keen to write about or dwell on. I asked Yakub if he could add an extra piece of suede into the legs of my boots. He sighed deeply several times and insisted that inserting the suede would make the boots split. I argued that it was worth the risk as I found it so hard to find boots that fit. Yakub added the suede. I wore the boots for years. They didn’t split.

  I never see Yakub treat anyone else like this. He has a hugely varied clientele, including a lot of models with six- and seven-inch stiletto heels. People come from other parts of the city to have their shoes repaired by Yakub. Yakub is curt but polite. He doesn’t roll his eyes or sigh or shake his head at them.

  I always used to leave Yakub’s feeling guilty. As though I had taken years off his life or contributed to his increasingly grey hair. Until one day I realised that although Yakub doesn’t call me his sister, he treats me in a very familial manner. Like family.

  New York may not be a city where many people have their parents or children or aunts, uncles or cousins nearby, but it is definitely a city in which you feel part of a family. A city where the sort of semi-irritable, itchy intimacy you can have with the man who repairs your shoes is part of what makes you feel part of a family.

  There are so many psychics in New York. There seems to be a psychic on every block. It strikes me as strange that psychics would flourish in a city full of very ambitious, driven, decisive and focused people.

  There is a certainty about New Yorkers that you don’t see in the population of too many other cities. New Yorkers generally know what they want to achieve, where they are going and how to get there. Why would they need the nebulous advice of a psychic? Maybe in this ruthlessly competitive city, you could feel sometimes that you need all the help you can get.

  There are psychics in New York who charge thousands of dollars for an initial consultation and there are psychics who will read your palm or your astrological chart for twenty dollars.

  I have always been scared of psychics. I don’t know why. I don’t really believe in anything paranormal. So why am I scared? I think I don’t like the thought of the unknown, let alone the thought that someone might have access to it.

  For years I have wanted to thread a theme of someone searching for a lost soul through a novel. They would be searching for someone who is unlikely to be alive. In order to write this character I would have had to do some research. That research would involve going to see a psychic. And I just couldn’t do it.

  But one morning I woke up feeling that I could do it. That I could, as research, visit a psychic. I had a choice of about thirty psychics within walking distance of my home.

  I chose Zena the Clairvoyant. I had often walked past Zena’s premises, a store on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Bleecker Street in the West Village. I had sometimes peered inside. The chandelier-filled decor had a sort of plush, tacky opulence. An opulence meant to suggest faraway, exotic Middle Eastern or North African locations and an air of mystery and possibilities.

  In the window was a sign that told you that Zena was A world-famous psychic who is especially professional in tarot card reading. She has over 25 years experience and has practiced her art all over the world. Zena has been a personal advisor to thousands of people from all walks of life including actors, politicians, professional career women and corporate businessmen.

  Today Zena includes in her psychic ability all the techniques used by the ancient prophets. With the advent of the laser beam she has perfected her craft by discovering a new, exciting and more concise way of palm reading. Each session lasts anywhere from 15 minutes to ½ hour and may require more than one reading.

  This was followed by a list of prices. Forty dollars for a tarot-card reading, twenty dollars for a palm reading, twenty-five dollars for a laser reading, sixty dollars for a psychic reading and a hundred dollars for a horoscope reading. No appointment necessary, the sign said. Hours are 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. 7 days a week. Find out what the stars have in store for you. Come in. A smaller sign said Hours 9 a.m. to midnight.

  I took a deep breath and pressed the buzzer on the door and waited. Nothing happened. I looked at my watch. It was 11.35 a.m. Depending on which sign you were looking at, Zena’s hours were from nine a.m. to midnight or from eleven a.m to two a.m. Either way, I was definitely here at the right time.

  I tried not to be disturbed by the discrepancy in Zena’s listed business hours. I was already feeling nervous. I had prepared myself carefully, not wishing to give anything away. I had taken off my wedding ring and was wearing a relatively innocuous dress. My hair was tidier than it usually is. I saw my reflection in the window – I looked distressed. I thought that was probably not a bad thing. I was sure that most of Zena’s clients didn’t arrive with big grins on their faces.

  I rang the buzzer again. And again. Finally, an African
-looking woman wearing a long, flowing robe and bedecked with an array of multi-coloured necklaces and rings and an ornately tied turban came to the door.

  She didn’t open it. I smiled at her. She glared at me. She looked very annoyed. I felt bad. Had I rung the buzzer too many times? She started gesturing at me. Gestures that were clearly meant to tell me to go away. I was confused, and just stood there. The woman now looked furious and kept making the sort of gestures you use to swat away a swarm of mosquitoes or flies.

  I started to feel more than a little inadequate. As though I had failed some entrance exam. What had I done? Maybe I had looked insincere? I felt quite stunned. I walked away and stood outside the store. Pots and pots of purple flowers had been placed outside the front of the store. The flowers had a jauntiness that seemed quite out of place.

  I am not very knowledgeable about flowers. I asked a passer-by, who looked like a local, if she knew what these flowers were called. ‘They are petunias,’ she said. ‘I’m pretty sure they are Lavender Madness petunias,’ she added.

  New York is astonishing like that. You can ask a perfect stranger a question and get a very informed, very interesting response. Lavender Madness petunias? Why would a psychic decorate the outside of her store with Lavender Madness petunias? Was there a message in that? Probably not, I decided. Maybe Zena, like me, was just not very knowledgeable about flowers. I walked home feeling deflated.

  That afternoon, I tried Simone, the next psychic on my list. Simone works in the window of a storefront on Houston Street. Anyone who walks past can see her with her clients. I had seen her clients, often men, looking as though they were transfixed, glued to her every word. Simone is young, in her early thirties and attractive. In summer, she sometimes wears quite short skirts.

  On a business card, Simone had listed her services as Spiritual Reader, Advisor, Indian Healer, Horoscope, Tarot Card Reader. On the back of the card it said This lady has the power to help by prayer. She has helped people who thought there could be no help. People come to her from all over. Why not you?

  Yes, why not me? I was feeling slightly less nervous than I was earlier in the day when I had pressed Zena’s buzzer. Simone gave me the choice of a palm reading of two palms or the tarot cards for forty dollars. I chose the tarot cards.

  ‘You will live a long life,’ was one of the first things Simone said to me. That seemed like a good start. ‘You are kind and always like helping others,’ she continued. Things were looking good. Simone paused, holding one of the cards. ‘You are psychic yourself,’ she said. Why would a psychic tell a client that the client was also psychic? Wasn’t that going against some very basic business principle?

  I have been told I am psychic before. I think it must be the mournful expression that seems to naturally settle across my face. I can see that mournfulness in photographs of myself even when I was three and four years old.

  The late English poet laureate Ted Hughes had an astronomical knowledge of astrology. He was convinced I was psychic. He told me this every time he saw me. I had enough odd interests of my own to not hold Ted’s passionate belief in the paranormal against him.

  I didn’t reply to Simone’s comment. My master plan was to say as little as possible. Simone continued moving the cards around. Eventually, she told me that the left-hand side of my aura was fine but something was blocking the right-hand side, and I needed help.

  This was the second time in a year that someone had commented on my aura. A few months earlier, again in the name of research, I had gone to see a shaman in a small, Mexican mountain town. The shaman, who lived in a very ordinary suburban house, shuddered when he saw me. It is unnerving enough to visit a shaman without having the shaman shudder at the sight of you.

  He said he could see from my aura that there had been a catastrophic tragedy in my life. The Mexican friend who had accompanied me and was supposed to do nothing but translate the Spanish for me, nodded enthusiastically. The shaman then said that my spirit was stuck in that tragedy.

  He put a blindfold on me and stood me in the middle of his garage. He told me he was lighting a circle of fire around me. This did nothing to steady my nerves. He then waved a lot of feathers. I could feel them brush my face, and I could smell smoke and incense. After what felt like an eternity, he said that the new spirit he was trying to summon up to help me did not feel welcome enough. He said this in a way that made it very clear that I needed to be more welcoming.

  I was having enough trouble just standing up blindfolded and surrounded by smoke without trying to summon up sufficient warmth to welcome a new spirit. ‘He knew your parents were in the Holocaust,’ my Mexican friend said excitedly to me as we left.

  I spent the rest of the week worrying about my spirit being stuck in a death camp.

  ‘You are not sleeping well, are you?’ Simone said.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  She said she was going to improve my chakras. Chakras, she explained to me were life force, energy centres. She said she would give me some oil to dab on my forehead for the mind chakra, and on my heart for the heart chakra, and on the area below my pelvic bone, the sex chakra.

  I momentarily forgot that I didn’t believe in this and felt quite pleased to be improving my sex chakra. I think most people would be pleased to improve their sex chakra. ‘I have very sensitive skin,’ I said. ‘What if I am allergic to the oil?’

  ‘Then just do the heart chakra,’ she said. I tried not to look disappointed.

  Simone spent quite a lot of time on my love life. And the difficulties I had in finding a partner. I may also, she said, have suffered abuse from a former husband. My love life is one of the few areas in which I don’t have a problem. I may be anxious, overly worried, a little fixated about what I eat, but I am in love with and feel loved by the man who has loved me for thirty-five years.

  Simone told me that she had just opened my aura, which was damaged because of disappointment in love. She said she would do some research into my past and go to church and pray. She said she would see me the next day with information that would definitely help me. All of this for just 290 dollars.

  Two hundred and ninety dollars was way more than I had intended spending. But I found myself agreeing to walk to the bank to get cash, as Simone’s credit-card machine wasn’t working. That night I put oil on my heart, mind and sex chakras. Nothing much changed. Except that it poured with rain the next day. New York hadn’t seen rain like that for a long time.

  I was in Caffe Dante when Simone called me. I was in the bathroom. On the toilet, to be precise. I don’t know why Americans call them bathrooms when the toilets in most public places do not have baths. On the phone, Simone sounded very ordinary. And a bit awkward. None of the more compelling quality that had emanated from her endless stream of talk about love lives and past lives was evident.

  I wondered if she knew that I was in the bathroom. On the toilet. And that that was not a convenient place to take a phone call. She was calling because of the rain. She wanted to know if I was still coming to see her. I briefly wondered why she didn’t know that as soon as I left the bathroom I would be on my way.

  A minute after I sat down, Simone told me that I was very much in love with a married man. This love affair had started in the sixteenth century and then resumed again in the late eighteenth century. She told me the man wouldn’t leave his wife and that is what had damaged my aura.

  She told me that she had been meditating in church for me from midnight till five a.m. I looked at her more carefully. Overnight she had acquired a suntan. I wondered if she meditated under a sun lamp, in church. She probably used one of those self-tanning creams, I decided.

  ‘I think this man is now ready to marry you,’ she said. ‘I think he loves you, although maybe he could be a little more emotional.’ A little more emotional? My husband is a very emotional man. A little more emotional and we’d both be weeping all day.

  I must have looked strange because Simone suddenly changed direction. ‘Has he a
lready proposed?’ she said.

  I gave in. I told her I was already married. This didn’t daunt her.

  ‘I can help you heal your aura,’ she said. ‘I will need a T-shirt of yours.’

  ‘I don’t wear T-shirts,’ I said. It is the truth. I am not a T-shirt-wearing person.

  ‘Well, bring me a necklace of yours,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t wear jewellery,’ I said. That is also true. I am not a jewellery person.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said.

  Simone explained that my aura desperately needed to be opened and healed, and that I would need a six-week course for her to do that. She would burn candles, with real gold flecks in them from Brazil, for me. And she would meditate and pray for me. This six-week course would cost 4200 dollars. I said that I would have to think about it. She patted my hand and she told me to take a day or two to think about it.

  All of the lovelorn turmoil of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries and the aura that needed opening and healing and the candles from Brazil flecked with real gold had left me exhausted. It was still raining. I put on my raincoat and walked home.

  I felt annoyed with myself for handing over the 290 dollars. I wasn’t sure that gold-flecked candles or a centuries-long, unrequited love affair were going to help the character in my novel with her search for a lost soul.

  A short time later, I read in the New York Times that Sylvia Mitchell, a 39-year-old mother of two teenage children, who was also known as Zena the Clairvoyant, had been charged with fifteen counts of grand larceny. Among other things, she was accused of swindling two women out of 138 000 dollars.

  It suddenly became clear why I had been so furiously shooed away. The woman who waved me away, who must have been Zena’s assistant, obviously already knew that Zena the Clairvoyant was under investigation. And, although it would require a wild stretch of the imagination, maybe she thought I was an undercover cop.