At the Hairdresser

 

 

They’re seated in a row along one side of the salon, and anyone entering sees them only in profile, as happens with the figures in the Leonor Fini painting, The Permanent Miters. There’s a sour smell about the place. Now and then you hear the buzz of some electronic hair-manipulation gadget. Calmly, in religious pose, the women await each stage of the ritual. Mother Superior (wearing her nuncio’s gown) issues concise orders; she points at a basin, demands some dye. The bottles on the shelves are bathed in light.

An initiation tunic is placed over the most recent arrival, the ends tied around her neck with a ribbon. She is then ushered over to a chair reserved for her. She is ordered to lean back and place her hands in her lap as the ablution begins. Someone spreads incense around the salon. From their respective recesses in the wall, the plants - their stems rigid, as if made of plastic - preside sternly over every stage of the ritual. Then the unction: someone pours water into the basins, wets the tips of her fingers, and massages the foreheads and necks of the elect. Some ointment is applied to another woman (the second in the row of those seated against the wall), and strands of her hair are painstakingly separated from one another; then, when they are sticking out like crosses, they are clipped together and a needle is stuck through them. Someone else works her way down the row of sitting women and stops to tar the face of each one. She spreads the cream slowly, ceremoniously, aiming to cover the marks and stretch lines, to hide the underlying shapes. The row is gradually transformed into a succession of gravestones.

Mother superior steps back. She goes over by the wall in order to get a better look at her work. With hidden satisfaction, she admires the identical petrified masks. She calls for a dab of cement around a woman’s eye, wipes off some extra lime from someone’s neck. Then she steps back again to consider the adjustments. You can hear the distant buzz of a face-destroying firmer. The plants don’t seem to notice the noise, the sunlight, or the moisture from the baptismal fonts.

The first one to leave deposits her oblation at the door: dark bills like a tapestry on the counter.

The others remain behind, silent, strapped to their chairs, as the leader of this ceremony raises above her head the golden chalice containing the menstrual blood of a dye job.