The Combover

by Adri

  At a certain point, as I was writing my list, I heard the sound of trampled leaves and moving branches. I felt anxious. I didn't recognize the sounds and didn't know what it could be. I thought perhaps a deer might be roaming the neighborhood or a brown Apennine bear might have wandered down from the Monti della Laga and ended up at Cingoli, looking for some heather or birch to nibble. Then, along with the sound of trampling came voices, an occasional giggle—in other words, a typically human din—so I grabbed the piece of branch I had left outside the cave and took it inside. I sat there waiting, part hidden, expecting that the people who were approaching would carry on without seeing me; but no, as they were passing the cave, they saw me in a corner and jumped with fright. They stopped and looked at me without saying a word, as if they couldn't believe their eyes. They were a boy of fifteen with down over his lip and a girl of about fourteen (looking so sweet that it made you think perhaps there might be hope for the world after all) who was wearing a strange hat with a white flower in it and a pair of blue-rimmed glasses. After the fright, and realizing I was harmless, she smiled, giving a friendly wave.

  "So then, what is there to look at?" I asked the boy who was staring at me as if I were a Martian.

  "Are you alright?" he said (I wasn't sure whether he was asking her or me).

  "You're asking me?" I asked, just to make sure.

  "Yes, you—are you alright?"

  "Yes, sure, I'm fine, and I'd be even better if you'd move away from the entrance."

  "Ah, yes, the entrance," said the boy, moving to one side.

  For a moment I thought how stupid I had been to mistake the footsteps of two such scrawny youngsters with those of a bear.

  "Do you live here?" asked the girl as she peered at me with two large, green eyes.

  "Yes, this is my new house," I said.

  "Since when? Last time we came you weren't here."

  "But now I am. This is where I sleep."

  "Ah," said the girl.

  "Yes, but try not to spread the word—when people find out someone's in hiding, they do all they can to get him to return to civilization, you understand?"

  "And why are you hiding?" she asked.

  "I'm not hiding, I'm escaping, that's all."

  "We often come walking around here," said the girl, changing the subject.

  "It's a nice place."

  "Are you from Cingoli?" asked the boy, who was still eying me.

  "No, but I came to Cingoli quite a lot when I was young. I used to go to the Salesians."

  "And how come your hair is all sticking forward?"

  "I like it, it's the way I do it."

  "Oh," said the boy.

  "And," I said, "it brings me luck."

  "I've got nothing to bring me luck, can I touch it?" he asked. The girl started giggling and covered her mouth ("Go on, what are you talking about," she muttered, nudging the boy).

  This, for me, was a real ordeal, but I couldn't get out of it, now that they'd seen me there in the cave.

  "I'll let you, but please, don't mess it up."

  "I promise," he said, lifting his right hand.

  The boy rested his whole hand with great care on my head and then moved it down, following the direction of the combover. Then he lowered his hand and cleaned it on his trousers. He was quite right. Not even I would have I endured that filth on my hands.

  "Sorry, I'm afraid it's rather greasy, but up here in the mountains it's not so easy to wash each day."

  "And aren't you worried about the wind?" he asked. "I mean, of it messing up your hair."

  "You bet!" I said. "Wind is one of the things I hate the most."

  "But if you've come into the mountains to be a hermit you have to do without everything, even your combover."

  "I haven't come to be a hermit and I don't have to do without anything, in fact I'm very fond of my hair."

  I don't know why, but since they had mentioned the wind, I decided to tell the two youngsters the story about when I married Teresa, four or five years earlier, and she and I were walking along, and two photographers were following on either side of us, along a path lined with old oak trees that led up to the restaurant where our family and friends were waiting at the entrance. It was very hot, and there wasn't a breath of wind to dry those sweaty foreheads that were now all looking at us, waiting for us to arrive. We went into the main room of the restaurant. They had given us the central table so we could see all our guests, and likewise they could see us all the time. A semi-circle of tables and we at center-stage, smiling and nodding in all directions. All was going to plan until, just as the antipasto was arriving, something happened which I hadn't expected and which we hadn't been told about during our prior discussions with the restaurateur. As if by magic ("And I don't rule out the possibility," I told the two youngsters, "of some concerted plot against me, though I don't have sufficient evidence"), a series of ceiling fans were switched on, arranged in such a way to ensure that everyone had a little extra air, enough to tide them over the long wait between each course (especially between the first and the second). It was a factor I hadn't taken into account when I was organizing the wedding. Nor had it occurred to my wife that any sort of problem might exist; on the contrary she had raised her arms and thanked the staff for switching on those infernal devices, exclaiming "At last!", followed by an unforgivable, "About time too."

  The fact that my combover was now in serious jeopardy, and that the whole thing had placed me in a very embarrassing situation, was a problem she completely failed to understand. Given her complete lack of responsibility, I realized there and then that our marriage was not going to be as blissful as we had imagined. ("If my wife couldn't recognize the problem, even on our wedding day," I told the youngsters, "it meant the marriage was destined to fail.") I was extremely annoyed. I already saw the outside world as a constant series of traps, but I never imagined I would be caught out like this on my own wedding day; and so, as discreetly as I could, I told one of the waiters that I had a back problem and asked if he would kindly switch off the fan that was right behind us (directed on that panoptic table par excellence, from which I was able to watch the blowing hair of the guests).

  "I'm sorry," said the waiter, without any particular attempt to take me seriously, "it's a centralized system: if I switch one off, they all go off."

  The whole thing seemed pretty odd, but I took it in good spirit all the same. I think I even apologized for my request. Moreover, what I was asking was clearly one of those things the restaurant had never contemplated. There again, I'd had to fight draughts all my life, so why shouldn't I do the same on my wedding day? The antipasto had already been put in front of me, a plate of anchovy with salsa verde and grilled squid, but what I was most bothered about was protecting my hair from that lively gust (useful against sweat but a scourge for everything else). Then, with a series of strategic maneuvers, hand smoothing, shifts of the head and so forth, I realized to my amazement that the breeze was not entirely unfavorable since—as I have already said—it came from behind, onto the back of the head, and as my combover was not lateral like my father's, my hair wasn't too badly affected, indeed, the air from behind helped to keep my hair in place. ("I just had to make sure I didn't catch a gust of air from the side or otherwise my combover would have shot up," I explained.) So far, I told the two youngsters who were now sitting down in front of me in the cave, everything was going quite well. But the problem would arise when I had to stand up to greet the guests or, even worse, when I had to turn to my wife for a photograph or simply to tell her how much I was enjoying the anchovies and the squid. In short, everything led me to think it was best for me to stay fixed there in my place with my head facing the central area of the semicircle, not turning to either side—to my friends on the far right, for example.

  The only movement the fan would allow me to do was always to say "yes." In such circumstances, a "no" would have been fatal. I finished the antipasto in this state of uncertainty. My wife was talkin
g to me. She was happy, though I never really understood from her expressions where joy ended and sadness began. But I answered her as best I could, gesturing with my hands or slightly turning my cheek to listen to her. I was sorry she hadn't understood immediately how difficult it was for me to turn to her, that she didn't realize how I was suffering because of the air currents, and that I didn't have the courage (goodness knows why) to explain that that accursed fan was ruining the wedding reception.

  Then, in the pause between the antipasto and the first course, what I had feared from the very beginning finally happened. A guest stood up at the far end of the room, the usual bastard who can never mind his own business, and with a great booming footballer's voice, without even clapping his hands, he began chanting: "Kiss the bride! Kiss the bride! Kiss the bride!"

  And a chorus of idiots joined in, banging their forks in time against their glasses, chanting once again: "Kiss the bride! Kiss the bride! Kiss the bride!"

  And then my wife, smiling and blushing at the same time, without the slightest concern for my hair, leaned toward me and, taking my head between her sweaty, squid-oiled hands, she turned me toward her to kiss me on the lips. It was inevitable that the fan would make my hair stick up to one side, transforming me into an ignominious baldhead. I had no defense. But at the same time I was brave enough to flatten my hair down while she still held me by the mouth. My wife's brother—either as a joke or out of solidarity—then got up from his table and carefully smoothed down my hair, making light of what had happened. He was the sort who always kept to himself and the last person from whom I expected any help. Some people shouted, others laughed, some still carried on loudly demanding another kiss. I thanked my wife's brother with a nod and then went off to tidy myself up.

  9

  The bald mystic of the mountain

  The girl carried on looking at me, and I didn't really want to continue with the story, not least because there was nothing else to add. What more could I say? A disastrous ventilation system had ruined my wedding. And so? There's a photograph somewhere at home of me kissing my wife, with my forelock sticking up to one side. For a man like me, who has spent hours and hours in front of the mirror so as to avoid every kind of nasty surprise, when I see that photo or even just think of it, it's like a punch in the stomach. Posterity has no pity in such matters and a photographer ought to know that. My photographer was unprofessional, and I didn't have the courage to destroy the shot. "That's not true," said my wife, who had hidden the negative somewhere or other, "it's just an obsession of yours, you look fine even like that."

  I continued tracing a piece of a branch I was holding through some pebbles, saying no more.

  "And now . . . your wife?" asked the girl.

  "At home, I expect. She'll be wondering where I've got to, but I don't suppose she'll be too worried if I'm away for a few days, on the contrary . . . And now, if you don't mind, I have to go down to the town to buy some things."

  "Then you'll come back?"

  "Yes . . . I'm not sure I much enjoy being in this cave, but I prefer being here than down there, among all those uncombed louts."

  I stood up, emptied my rucksack, and put everything into my sleeping bag. Then I put my rucksack on my back.

  "So then, see you again next time—and remember, don't tell anyone you found someone sleeping up here."

  "If you need a hand, we can come down with you," said the boy.

  "No, no, you carry on where you're going, I have things to do and it's better I go alone. I don't want people around me."

  I reached the path through the wood and then headed down to the town. I had breakfast at the first bar I found. At that hour there were a dozen or so old men around a table watching four others playing briscola. I felt a moment's envy for those who had the time to sit in a bar watching others play cards. As I drank my cappuccino, I was approached by one of the old men who was watching the game.

  "Let me see, let me see," he said, examining my head.

  "What's the matter?" I asked.

  "You're cheating."

  "In what way?"

  "I'll tell you in what way . . . you've got no hair, you push it forward."

  "So? That's my business."

  "You're a cheat. You want me to believe you've got hair and you don't. That's not right."

  "What's not right? I've got hair and can use it as I like."

  "Not here at Cingoli . . . If you've got it, fine, otherwise off with it all."

  I gulped down my cappuccino and left without replying.

  "Decrepit old fool," I muttered to myself, "why can't he mind his own business? Would I start asking him why he's wearing that hat and those trousers and that stupid moustache? What do people want from me? Why can't they just leave me in peace? And then, at Cingoli, what about the Salesians? All the Salesians at Cingoli had combovers . . . I remember them, Don Teodoro, the others . . . no one ever complained . . . and now some old idiot comes and tells me off . . . a bald man is always one of God's elect, whether he's got long hair, short hair, shorn head, or combover. Nature has chosen him, nature has made the choice for him . . . for God's sake!"

  But there was a tiny voice in my head, siding with the old man, saying: "You know, after all, the old man's right, you're trying to make people believe something that's not true. In other words, you're misleading them."

  "Fuck off yourself," I said to the voice talking in my ear. "Nature has certainly been unkind to me in many ways (premature baldness, hemorrhoids, partial epilepsy, gingivitis, backache . . .), but it has compensated me with above-average intelligence and an elegance that is the envy of many ill-dressed people, and of a lot of self-assured shorn heads, perfectly integrated into society—you have to understand that shaving is simply a form of subjugation."

  I went into the first clothes shop I could find along the street and bought a beret, the only beret they had. Red, checkered, for winter (even though it was June and boiling hot in the mountains). The beret ruined my hair, but I had no alternative so long as I was down there in the town. I never liked putting things on my head, but this was war and I had to defend myself, regardless of what I looked like. I got some money from the cash machine and bought everything I had written down on my list. I called home from a pay phone. Fortunately it was the answering machine that replied.

  "Hi Teresa, don't wait for me, I'll come back later or perhaps never, I've got to sort myself out; yes, yes, myself, I don't know what this myself is, but I've got to sort things out all the same; so don't go looking for me, just leave me in peace for once. Bye."

  I allowed myself a generous lunch of pecorino cheese and rocket salad, and with my heavily-laden rucksack on my back, I climbed up the mountain again. The two youngsters had left me a note on my sleeping bag.

  It read: "Nice to have met you. We'll come and see you again. Have a good day."

  I wasn't exactly jumping for joy. I hadn't come up to the mountains to make friends with two young striplings. "If they want to come and see me, and have nothing better to do, then fine, but if everyone minds their own business so much the better," I thought.

  Having sorted out the things I'd bought and furnished the cave as best I could, in the late afternoon I took my brand-new axe and started chopping some wood. I gathered up all the branches and pieces of bark from the surrounding area, chopped them well, and stacked them in the last cave. There was plenty of wood lying about in the undergrowth and around the tree trunks. That evening I made a small pile of twigs and bark in front of the cave and lit a fire using the matches. It wasn't cold, but it seemed like it; I held my hands out over the flame, I rubbed them together; then I took out Spinoza's Ethics, turned a few pages, and read a proposition at random. This then referred me to his demonstration, which in turn, referred me to other propositions or other related comments, so as to create in the end such a maze of references that, by starting off at whatever point in the text, I found myself reading the whole of it, or almost. After an hour, or two at most, I put the Ethic
s aside and fell asleep.

  Two days later, when I had begun to get used to cave living, the two youngsters came to see me, the boy with down over his lip and the girl with the blue-rimmed glasses. With them was a woman who had a dog on a lead. The dog was called Edison. They all lived in the town and often came for walks in this area, they said. The woman was wearing dark glasses, and when she saw me she tried to get as close as she could. Otherwise, she said, everything she saw was blurred. She didn't worry about the fact that to look at me she had to come so close that I could almost feel her breath. She had no choice if she wanted to see things clearly. It was of no interest to me—we all have our problems—but it's always odd when you find yourself face to face with someone who sees little or nothing.

  "My nephew told me you're living here now."

  "I'm here for the moment, then I'll see. And I told him not to tell anyone . . . but he clearly didn't listen . . ."

  "He told me you are also a bald mystic."

  "A what?"

  "A bald mystic."

  "No, I'm not a bald mystic, not at all. Where did you get that idea?" I asked the boy, who was blushing all over.

  "You told me you did your hair like that because it brought you luck, remember? And then I asked you whether I could touch it, to give me some luck as well."

  "Of course, but what's that got to do with bald mystics? You've interpreted everything your own way. Alright, alright, forget it, but I'm no kind of mystic, and I certainly don't go round reading people's scalps, I'm sorry."