AT THE BARBERSHOP

I have used this same barbershop for many years, maybe five. It’s located inside of a shopping mall, in the back of a cosmetics store. Did I say five years? Whoa, is it already so long ago, since I left home?

My mom and dad had divorced some time ago. and I lived with my father who hated me. He was always accusing me of things I didn’t do. He never wanted me, I’m sure, and he was only happy when I finally left home. He re-married with a much younger wife, but then suddenly he got cancer or something, and died six months later.

There are only female hairdressers in the barbershop. I think I can recognize several of them, although the staff seems to change all the time. But it’s not so important for me who’s doing the job. I have only little hair, so it is not very hard work to cut it. Sometimes it’s a trainee, who goes back to the barber school the following week to continue her studies. Sometimes it’s a young and beautiful lady. Usually I don’t pay any attention to the hairdresser.

This time it is different. From the first moment I thought that I knew the hairdresser. I watched her through the mirror, while she was preparing her scissors and other apparatuses to cut my hair. She was approximatele the same age as I, little fleshy and with a grey hair. She used big round glasses that didn’t quite match her style.

“Alma, is that you,” I said when I eventually recognized her.

“Oh my God, Christian,” she said dropping the scissors onto the floor. “I really didn’t know who you were at first.”

Alma took her scissors from the floor and laid them on the desk. She was my father’s second wife. I never understood what my father saw in her. Ordinary looking girl, nearly my age. And I never understood how she could stand my father. He was such a drag.

“Have you been working here long,” I continued. “I think I didn’t see you last time.”

“No no, not long,” she answered. “Oh my good, this is so embarrassing.”

From the mirror I saw that she was nearly blushing.

“Actually, you know, after your dad died I moved to south,” she continued. “When I came back, I got this job as a hairdresser. But I didn’t know that you live in the neighbourhood.”

“So, how do you want your hair to be cut?” she continued in a less emotional manner.

“Oh, just take half of it away, it grows so fast.”

“Shall the ears be in sight? And sideburns, do you want them to remain?”

“No sideburns, no. And yes, cut my hair so that the ears come visible.”

She started her job, cutting with the scissors from all around my head using the comb to assist the job. The hair must be evenly cut all over the place, not make it short somewhere and long somewhere else.

“How did you stand my father?” I asked her. “Did he ever talk about me?”

She was now ready with the scissors and took the cutting machine in her hands.

“I loved your father,” Alma answered.”He was always sad that you were on so bad terms with him.”

“But he hated me!” I replied. “He was alway bossing around, showing that he was the king of the house. How could you not see it?”

“He had a hard time after the divorce with your mother,” Alma said. “He tried to help you concentrate to your studies, so that you could study. Did you succeed with the university? I think he paid it all.”

“Yes I did. I graduated last month and have a master’s degree now.”

“Gongratulations!” she answers. “Shall we go somewhere to celebrate on the evening?”

“I think it’s a good idea.”

Cutting men’s hair is easier than doing women’s hairdressing. I do both.

“Hello,” says a young man entering the barbershop. “I want my hair cut, do you have vacancy?”

I have grieved enough. I should not spend my entire life moarning and thinking about one past relationship. I’m quite young, I have to find new people around me.

“Yes we do,” I answer. The man is nearly my age. “Please take your coat off and have a seat. You can sit there, between those two.”

I’m glad I found this job. It’s a good way to start a new life. Here I meet people every day, coworkers and customers. And who knows, some day I might bump into a new opportunity, which would wipe away my longing, once and for all.

“Are you new here?”

Ok, we were happily married and my husband died suddenly, one year after our marriage. But I have to think about myself. He was much older than I, and someday it could have formed a hinder for our happiness, I have to think.

I go to collect my scissors and other appliances. When I come back, I see something familiar in the young man’s nose. And the whole face. I think that I’m only dreaming because I wast just thinking about my late husband.

But then the young customer continues: “Alma, is that you?” with a voice that cannot belong to anyone else than my late husband, Mike. Or to his son, Christian. I become overwhelmed and drop my tools.

Christian tells me that he is still angry with his father. They had long fights, when Mike urged Christian to go to sleep early. Otherwise he could not concentrate in his studies. The father saw that the university studies were starting to go downwards because of tiredness.

I tell Christian that his father loved him and wanted him to graduate from the school. I hope he understands that what seemed to be austerity, was love and caring.

The boy has graduated from the university. Mike would have been very happy to hear the news.

We decide to go out and celebrate.

I think I do not have to mourn anymore. I lost Mike but i found Christian.