Chapter 3 joke (3)

3 I didn't decline Koska's recommendation, and let him lead me into a barber's shop. There were three large swivel chairs in front of three mirrors, two of which were already occupied.Their heads were thrown back and their faces were covered in foam.Two women in white gowns were leaning over them.Koska approached one of the women and whispered something in his ear.The woman wiped her razor on a towel, and called out to the back of the shop, and a girl in a white smock came out to attend to the gentleman who had been left in a chair.At this moment the woman Koska had greeted gave me a slight nod and beckoned me with her hand to sit in the empty chair.Koska and I shook hands and said goodbye, and I sat down, resting the back of my head on the cushion that supported my head.So I looked at myself backwards in the mirror as I have done for so many years in this life.I avoided the mirror in front of me, turned my eyes to the air, and looked aimlessly at the whitewashed ceiling, which was stained with stains.

I stared at the ceiling and didn't even move when I felt the barber's fingers on my neck.She tucked the hem of a white cloth into the collar of my shirt and stepped back, and I heard the razor scrape back and forth on the leather strips used to sharpen the blade, while I remained motionless, comfortably, A fixed posture, relaxed and thoughtless.After a while, I felt wet fingers applying greasy shaving cream to my face, and I suddenly realized that it was a strange and unreasonable thing: a woman I had never met, who had no relationship with me. For no reason, I had nothing to do with her, but she came to touch me tenderly.When the barber had finished, she picked up a brush and started soaping, and a vision arose in my mind (because even in moments of rest and relaxation, the mind does not stop): I have become an unarmed The victim, completely at the mercy of a woman sharpening her razor.Since I seem to feel that my body has been dissolved in space, and only my own face is being touched by fingers, I can easily imagine her delicate hands, holding my head (turning it around, stroking it) .It seems that they don't see my head as attached to the body, but as a "self-contained" thing, so that the sharp knife waiting on the side table can finally bring it to the point of perfect independence .

The rubbing stopped.I heard the barber go away, and this time she actually picked up the razor.For a moment I thought (because the mind continued to work) that I should see what the mistress of my head (also the elevator), my lovely executioner, looked like.I moved my eyes from the ceiling and looked into the mirror, and I was stunned: the tossing that I thought was fun suddenly turned into a very real scene: the woman in the mirror bent over me, I seem to know her. She pressed my earlobe with one hand, and with the other hand, she scraped the soap foam off my face very carefully; I observed her carefully, and although I was stunned for a moment, I recognized who she was, but this identified her It slowly dissipated and disappeared.Then, bending over to the sink, she wiped the snow off the razor blade with two fingers, straightened herself up, and turned the chair slightly, and at that moment our eyes met for a second, and I again I think it's her!No doubt the face had changed: grayed, haggard, dimpled, like her sister's; but it had been fifteen years since I last saw her!At this stage, time has branded a deceitful mask on her true face, but fortunately, there are two holes in this mask, through which the original eyes, the true eyes, can stare at me again, Like those eyes I used to know.

But then something strange happened: another customer came to the barber shop, and he came to sit behind me and waited.Soon he was talking to my barber, talking about how beautiful it was in the summer, and what swimming pool was being built on the edge of town; I didn’t listen to it, and there was nothing important to say).I found that her voice was not familiar to me.The tone was calm, without any unease, almost vulgar, a completely unfamiliar voice. Now she's slapping me in the face, pressing my face with her palms, and I (albeit in the wrong voice) start to re-identify that it's her, and I feel like after fifteen years my face is being caressed by her hands again, Long, tender caresses (I completely forgot that this is not caressing, but washing my face).That guy was getting more and more chatty, and her strange voice kept answering.I can't believe it's her voice.But I still think I can identify her from her hands.I tried to tell from the strength of her hand whether it was her, and whether she recognized me.

Then she brought a towel and dried my cheeks.The wordy fellow laughed loudly at a joke he had just told.I noticed that the barber wasn't smiling, so she must have said something to this guy, she must not have been very careful.This again terrified me, for I took it as a sign that she recognized me, that she was agitated.I made up my mind to talk to her as soon as I got up.She took the towel off my neck.I stand up.He drew a five-crown note from his coat pocket.I was expecting the eyes to meet again so I could talk and call her name (the guy was still babbling) but she kept her head nonchalantly and took the money neatly and took it with no response .Immediately I felt like a whimsical lunatic.So I never had the courage to speak again.

With an indescribable sense of dissatisfaction, I left the barber shop with my head full of doubts.It is so heartless and unjust that I am suspicious of a face that I once loved so much. Of course, it is not difficult to get to the bottom of it.I hurried back to the hotel (I saw an old friend from his youth on the opposite sidewalk from a distance, Yaroslav, the head of the dulcimer troupe. But I hurriedly turned my face away as if I was avoiding the harsh and too loud sound) .From the hotel I called Koska; he was still in the hospital. "Please tell me, is the name of the female barber you asked her to shave me Lucy Sebekova?"

"She has another name now, but it's her. How did you know her?" Koska said. "I mentioned it a long time ago." I replied.I walked out of the hotel (it was starting to get dark) without thinking about dinner, and wandered the streets.