Ninety-three

"I was wrong to grow older. Pity. I was so happy as a child."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

For a long period commencing when I was eleven years old, when my brother and I attended Sunday Mass in the nearby village, an old lady, unfamiliar to us, took her place regularly in the pew behind our regular place.
We noticed her when she began to make her weekly visits a routine. I never found out where she came from or who she arrived with but the appearance continued for several years.
"Ninety-three," she would spit onto the back of my neck, or that of my brother's. She made rubbery noises with her lips at every declaration.
"Ninety-three" was all we ever heard her say before she blew air with a rather disturbing smacking noise.
I remember getting to my feet once for a certain part of the service and finding that I was unable to rise completely. The old woman had grabbed with two hands the bottom of my jacket and was tugging for all she was worth with a strength that belied her age.
"Ninety-three," she wheezed. I could not move and was caught midway, unsure what to do for the sake of politeness.
Much later, what seemed to me like hours, she relaxed her iron grip on my clothing and I was free, albeit blushing furiously at the unanticipated encounter.
She was not really there; that is to say I do not believe she was aware she was holding onto the jacket of a stranger nor indeed even that she was in a church. Most likely she was enveloped in another world entirely, shielded from her infirmity by the mercy of her memories.
I admit that she frightened us both. We were children, and not able to comprehend why an adult would act in such an eccentric way. Elderly people were known to us for their wisdom and common sense, and in our eyes she broke every rule.
The elderly are full of the most elaborate mystery; tragedy occurs when that treasure can no longer be accessed. My brother and I always wondered what "ninety-three" might have meant to her that she needed to mutter it over and over again.
Maybe it was a portion of a girlish song from her early days, or the number of her first house with a dear husband, or the number of pennies she once won unexpectedly at a village fair. Of course I cannot say for certain but I would like to imagine that it was a happy fragment she spun in her mind.
My sibling and I continue to remember that old lady and her restless numerical chattering- but, just like a faded photograph found in an anonymous box, it remains permanently without meaning or a frame of reference.