Part 8 (2/2)

”Maria told me she was a very nice lady. She gave her dresses, and a very nice Palpaga Palpaga coat. She couldn't wear them anymore because she'd put on weight, so she said to Maria, 'Could these be of any use to you?' You see, she was a very nice lady.” coat. She couldn't wear them anymore because she'd put on weight, so she said to Maria, 'Could these be of any use to you?' You see, she was a very nice lady.”

Palpaga is a type of llama with a highly valued wool fleece and a head adorned with a papaya. is a type of llama with a highly valued wool fleece and a head adorned with a papaya.

”I don't know ... ” I say half-heartedly. ”I just get the feeling I'm stealing from a dead person.”

Manuela looks at me from the height of her exasperation.

”You are borrowing, not stealing. And what is she going to do with that dress, poor woman?”

There is nothing to be said to that.

”Time for Madame Pallieres,” says Manuela with delight, changing the subject.

”I'll savor the moment with you.”

”I'm on my way, then.” She heads for the door. ”In the meanwhile, try on the dress, go to the hairdresser's, and I'll be back later to have a look.”

I look at the dress for a moment, doubtfully. In addition to my reticence to clothe myself in the garments of the deceased, I am greatly afraid that the dress will look utterly incongruous on my person. Violette Grelier is to dishrags what Pierre Arthens was to silk, and what I am to a shapeless purple or navy blue overall.

I shall wait until I get back to try it on.

And I did not even thank Manuela.

Journal of the Movement of the World No. 4.

A choir is a beautiful thing.

Yesterday afternoon was my school's choir performance. In my posh neighborhood school, there is a choir: n.o.body thinks it's square and everyone competes to join but it's very exclusive: Monsieur Trianon, the music teacher, hand picks his choristers. The reason the choir is so successful is because of Monsieur Trianon himself. He is young and handsome and he has the choir sing not only the old jazz standards but also the latest hits, with very cla.s.sy orchestration. Everyone gets all dressed up and the choir performs for the other students. Only the choir members' parents are invited because otherwise there'd be too many people. The gymnasium is always packed fit to burst as it is and there's an incredible atmosphere.

So yesterday off I headed to the gymnasium at a trot, led by Madame Fine because as usual on Tuesday afternoon first period we have French cla.s.s. ”Led by” is saying a lot; she did what she could to keep up the pace, wheezing like an old whale. Eventually we got to the gym, everybody found a place as best they could. I was forced to listen to the most asinine conversations coming at me from below, behind, every side, all around (in the bleachers), and in stereo (cell phone, fas.h.i.+on, cell, who's going out with who, cell, dumb-a.s.s teachers, cell, Cannelle's party) and then finally the choir arrived to thundering applause, dressed in red and white with bow ties for the boys and long dresses with shoulder straps for the girls. Monsieur Trianon sat down on a high stool, his back to the audience, then raised a sort of baton with a little flas.h.i.+ng red light at the end, silence fell and the performance began.

Every time, it's a miracle. Here are all these people, full of heartache or hatred or desire, and we all have our troubles and the school year is filled with vulgarity and triviality and consequence, and there are all these teachers and kids of every shape and size, and there's this life we're struggling through full of shouting and tears and laughter and fights and break-ups and dashed hopes and unexpected luck-it all disappears, just like that, when the choir begins to sing. Everyday life vanishes into song, you are suddenly overcome with a feeling of brotherhood, of deep solidarity, even love, and it diffuses the ugliness of everyday life into a spirit of perfect communion. Even the singers' faces are transformed: it's no longer Achille Grand-Fernet that I'm looking at (he is a very fine tenor), or Deborah Lemeur or Segolene Rachet or Charles Saint-Sauveur. I see human beings, surrendering to music.

Every time, it's the same thing, I feel like crying, my throat goes all tight and I do the best I can to control myself but sometimes it gets close: I can hardly keep myself from sobbing. So when they sing a canon I look down at the ground because it's just too much emotion at once: it's too beautiful, and everyone singing together, this marvelous sharing. I'm no longer myself, I am just one part of a sublime whole, to which the others also belong, and I always wonder at such moments why this cannot be the rule of everyday life, instead of being an exceptional moment, during a choir.

When the music stops, everyone applauds, their faces all lit up, the choir radiant. It is so beautiful.

In the end, I wonder if the true movement of the world might not be a voice raised in song.

6. Just a Trim.

Will you believe me if I tell you that I have never been to the hairdresser's? When I came to the city from the country, I discovered that there are two equally absurd professions, each of which accomplishes a task one ought to be able to take care of on one's own. To this very day I still find it difficult to believe that florists and hairdressers are not parasites, the former living off nature, which belongs to everyone, the latter performing with an outlandish amount of playacting and smelly products a task which I can expedite in my own bathroom with a pair of well-sharpened scissors.

”Who cut your hair like this?” asked the hairdresser indignantly once I had, with a Dantean effort, entrusted to her the mission of transforming my head of hair into a domesticated work of art.

She is pulling and shaking two strands of an immeasurable dimension on either side of my ears.

”Well, perhaps I shouldn't ask,” she continues disgustedly, sparing me the shame of having to inform on my own person. ”People have no respect for anything anymore, you see it all the time.”

”I'd just like a trim,” I say.

I am unsure what is meant by that but it's a cla.s.sic line from early afternoon TV series, which are filled with young women who wear buckets of make-up and who invariably spend their time at the gym or the hair stylist's.

”Trim? There's nothing to trim! We have to start from scratch, madame!”

She examines my scalp with a critical eye, and lets out a whistling sigh.

”You have really good hair, that's already a start. We should be able to do something with it.”

In the end, my hairdresser turns out to be a good sort. Once her outrage, the legitimacy of which is actually there to confirm her own professional legitimacy, has abated-and because it is always good to read from the social script to which we owe our allegiance-she looks after me with grace and good humor.

What is to be done with a thick ma.s.s of hair other than cut it every which way when it begins to expand? This had been my lifelong credo in matters of hairstyling. Henceforth, to attempt to sculpt the resulting unruly ma.s.s into a shape shall be my abiding cutting-edge capillary concept.

”You really do have beautiful hair,” she concludes, observing her labors, visibly satisfied. ”It is thick and silky. You shouldn't be letting just anyone cut it.”

Can a hair style change a person to such a degree? I cannot believe my own reflection in the mirror. Now that they are no longer confined by a black helmet, my features-which I have already qualified as anything but attractive-are framed by a light and playful wave, and are decidedly more appealing. It makes me look ... respectable. I even think I look like an aspiring Roman matron.

”It's ... fantastic,” I say, wondering how I will ever hide this ill-considered folly from the stares of the residents.

It is inconceivable that all these years in pursuit of invisibility have run aground on the shoals of a matronly hair style.

I go home, hugging the walls. With incredible luck, I do not run into anyone. But I do fancy that Leo is giving me strange looks. I go up to him and he puts his ears back, a sure sign of anger or confusion.

”Oh come on then, don't you like it?” And then I realize that he is sniffing the air around me.

The shampoo. I reek of avocado and almond.

I stick a kerchief on my head and attend to sundry fascinating ch.o.r.es, the high point being the conscientious polis.h.i.+ng of the bra.s.s k.n.o.bs on the elevator cage.

It is now ten to two in the afternoon.

In ten minutes Manuela will emerge from the darkness of the stairwell to come and inspect the finished product.

I do not really have time for meditation. I remove my kerchief, undress hastily, slip on the beige gabardine dress that belongs to a dead woman and there comes the knock at the door.

7. The Vestal Virgin in Her Finery.

Wow ... holy cow!” says Manuela.

An onomatopoeia and a slang expression coming from the mouth of Manuela, whom I have never known to say a single trivial word, is rather like the Pope forgetting himself and shouting to the cardinals, Where the devil is that b.l.o.o.d.y miter Where the devil is that b.l.o.o.d.y miter?

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