Anita had warned her that the process was—or could be—one step forward, two steps back, but Marisa was too buoyed by the success of her scheme to listen.
And she so enjoyed cooking with Nonna, and sharing it with her neighbor. Well, apart from the night where Alexei suggested a plum wine which came from his unfathomably deep liquor cabinet.
For the plum, Nonna suggested duck, and Marisa, to her absolute astonishment, was able to order it from a nearby farm and when it appeared, tragically covered in feathers and with the head still attached, Nonna talked her down off the ceiling and patiently, after going out and finding her own from somewhere—Marisa was scared to ask in case she’d just headed down to the nearest lake and lassoed one—walked her through butchering it, a faintly unpleasant affair but still, oddly, in its own way quite affirming; she felt in touch with her hands and the food she was preparing, that something really was happening. She played a podcast and almost—almost felt like a normal person, doing a normal thing.
Unfortunately, what Alexei had taken to be plum brandy, due to a fancy swirly label he couldn’t read properly, was plum sake, and so unbelievably strong that they were both completely trolleyed by the second glass, poured with Alexei’s rather generous hand, and the duck breasts burned on the hob but they didn’t care as they were laughing too much, so it wasn’t exactly the evening they’d planned, especially when Marisa made the mistake of saying, “Okay play something now,” and he had said, “Oh, music is only when drunk, I see,” and then tried to play something and got completely bamboozled and ended up ploughing the tune into a wall.
But it was still fun, and the following evening Marisa salvaged what she could of the duck and sliced it very thinly and reduced the sake down to its essence and made a cold plum and sesame seed duck salad with bean sprouts that was formidably delicious because she couldn’t bear the idea of the duck dying in vain, so it all worked out as well as it possibly could.
* * *
“But I still have to pay you for the lessons,” she protested, picking up a groceries delivery on the front step after enduring the twins’ faltering attempt at “Three Blind Mice” for a solid forty-five minutes. (Huckle sat outside, pondering what the talent was, exactly, that Mr. Batbayar had spotted that he couldn’t quite hear.)
“We’re drinking through your friend’s bar, and lessons are expensive.”
Alexei frowned. The evening light was cresting the hill, about to disappear behind their houses.
“Yes. There is a thing.”
“Name it.”
“My hair. It is like a crazy wild man in the woods.”
It was true, his dark hair went everywhere; there was absolutely loads of it, straight and in his eyes.
“Isn’t there a hairdresser in the village?”
“There is. It is a lady . . . She is pupil.”
Marisa wondered if it was one of the ones who brought love songs but didn’t like to mention it.
“And she has a lot of questions always for me.” He looked pained.
“I do not want to be rude but . . .”
“So what . . .”
She looked at him. “You don’t want me to do it.”
“Just makink it straight at back. I cannot see it.”
“I can’t cut hair!”
“Will be fine.”
“It won’t be!”
“Marisa,” he said. “You have no faith in yourself.”
“I know that!” she said, despairingly. “That’s why I’m here.”
He looked at the sun, moving toward the sparkling sea, and his eyes took on an inquiring look.
“Can’t I just give you cash?”
His face took on a stubborn look.
“No. Hair. Stay here.”
He went in and returned with a bowl of water, his own hair dampened down, and a pair of scissors.
“These are kitchen scissors,” she exclaimed.
Of course they had a pale blue handle.
“They are not . . . used scissor. So. They are anythink scissor.”
He sat at the edge of his steps with his back to her so she could reach through the divider. Then he brandished the scissors and a comb behind him.
Marisa sighed. “If this is a disaster . . .”
“Everythink can be disaster,” said Alexei. “Still. We try.”
He leaned back his head on her side of the steps, and she felt the weight of it in her hands.
“Don’t lean too far.”
“Thank you. Don’t die for haircut. Is good advice.”
Marisa began to comb out the bushy head. He had his eyes closed, and she understood why: it was oddly personal this, to be so close to someone, especially when you had access to scissors. It had, she realized, been a long time since she had been in such close proximity to another human being, particularly a stranger. Mahmoud didn’t really count.
That seemed so awful; to lose something as fundamental as touch.
She combed everything in a straight line, then did what she’d seen hairdressers do and held a line of it between her fingers, then snipped it off.
“Hmm,” said Alexei.
“What’s the matter?” said Marisa, panicked.
“Well, now I think, perhaps my power is in hair.”
“Like Samson?”
“Yes. Perhaps if you cut hair, I not play anymore.”
“Great!”
He laughed ruefully, but there was no rancor between them now.
His hair was thick and long. Marisa made another straight line of her fingers, and snipped.
After the first shining dark locks fell to the ground—which did feel in fact, rather like a shame—it was much easier. She cut and shaped round the bottom of his head. There was a scent to him, feeling so intimately up close; like woodsmoke. It was pleasant, like whisky, a hint of the cigarillos; pencil sharpenings for some reason, and tobacco, and something a little sharper, like oranges. It was an old-fashioned smell.
He sat perfectly still under the bright blue sky, the only sound the snip snip snip as she tried to tidy everything up, and, if she was entirely honest with herself, not really wanting it to end. His face with his eyes shut was much more expressive and pleasing than when hunched in a permanent grimace.
She felt she should speak, but she was concentrating. Plus, if everyone in the village asked him too many questions, she didn’t want to add to it. And she didn’t want him to ask any questions back.
It was not unpleasant, feeling her hands on his head, in the sweet spring air.
“You should cut your beard too,” she said.
“Now you are professional, I see.”
“Ssh, don’t move.”
He obediently closed his mouth. High above, a pair of gulls circled lazily in the soft air, cooing to each other.
“You do not ask questions.”
“You said you don’t like it.”
“Well, now is too quiet.”
She snipped gently.
“I ask you. Why you never go out?”
“I have . . .”
She had told Polly. She could talk about it.
“It’s an illness. Called agoraphobia. I’m getting better though. I’m on the steps! I am talking to you!”
“So you hide at end of world?” he said, musing. “Well, I’m glad you do better.”
“Why are you here?” said Marisa in answer.
“Oh.” He sighed. “Is long story.”
“You have a lot of hair.”
He smiled.
“Don’t move.”
“Well. Is not long story. Is old story. Beautiful woman. She not want me anymore. ‘Go away, Alexei.’ So. I go away. Very far.”
He sighed.
“Very far.”
* * *
“You’re done,” she said, having finished the rest of the job in silence, wondering what on earth the woman was like, what had happened that had made his friends send him a bar to hide himself at the foot of a country he wasn’t even from. No wonder he didn’t want to get his hair cut in the village.
When he finally sprang up, shaking off the hair down below into the dirt of the unpaved road, he realized he didn’t have a mirror.
“Well?”
Marisa smiled. She was quite proud of her handiwork. Now, his hair softly and lightly covered his head, one stray here or there but mostly just a gentle covering, with a longer quiff on front. He pulled his hand through it distractedly.
“It’s lovely,” she said, then bit her lip. “Well. I hope you like it.”
“Perhaps I will not be frightenink all the children,” he said.
“I don’t think they’re frightened really,” said Marisa. “You’re not that frightening a person. When you get to know you.”
There was an odd moment there as his face looked sad suddenly; his eyes far away.
“Well. I am glad you are thinkink that.”