Free Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway Page B

David watched her dark serious face
above the smock that came close around her neck. She looked into the hand
mirror and watched the comb and scissors lifting and snipping. The man was
working like a sculptor, absorbed and serious. "I thought about it all
last night and this morning," the coiffeur said. "If you don't believe
that, Monsieur, I understand. But this is as important to me as your métier is
to you.
     
    He
stepped back to look at the shape he was making. Then he snipped more rapidly
and finally turned the chair so the big mirror was reflected in the small one
Catherine held.
     
    "Do
you want it cut that way above the ears?" she asked the coiffeur.
     
    "As
you like. I can make it more degage if you wish. But it will be beautiful as is
if we are going to make it truly fair."
     
    "I
want it fair," Catherine said.
     
    He
smiled. "Madame and I have spoken of it. But I said it must be Monsieur's
decision."
     
    "Monsieur
gave his decision," Catherine said.
     
    "How
fair did Monsieur say he wished it to be?"
     
    "As
fair as you can make it," she said.
     
    "Don't
say that," Monsieur Jean said. "You must tell me."
     
    "As
fair as my pearls," Catherine said. "You've seen them plenty of
times."
     
    David
had come over and was watching Monsieur Jean stir a large glassful of the
shampoo with a wooden spoon. "I have the shampoos made up with castile
soap," the coiffeur said. "It's warm. Please come over here to the
basin. Sit forward," he said to Catherine, "and put this cloth across
your forehead."
     
    "But
it isn't even really a boy's haircut," Catherine said. "I wanted it
the way we planned. Everything's going wrong.
     
    "It
couldn't be more a boy's haircut. You must believe me.
     
    He
was lathering her head now with the foamy thick shampoo with the acrid odor.
     
    When
her head had been shampooed and rinsed again and again it looked to David as
though it had no color and the water tunnelled through it showing only a wet
paleness. The coiffeur put a towel over it and rubbed it softly. He was very
sure about it. "Don't be desperate, Madame," he said. "Why would
I do anything against your beauty?"
     
    "I
am desperate and there isn't any beauty." He dried her head gently and
then kept the towel over her head and brought a hand blower and began to play
it through her hair as he combed it forward. "Now watch," he said. As
the air drove through her hair it was turning from damp drab to a silvery
northern shining fairness. As the wind of the blower moved through it they
watched it change. "You shouldn't have despaired," Monsieur Jean
said, not saying Madame and then remembering. "Madame wanted it fair?"
"It's better than the pearls," she said. "You're a great man and
I was terrible." Then he rubbed his hands together with something from a
jar. "I'll just touch it with this," he said. He smiled at Catherine
very happily and passed his hands lightly over her head. Catherine stood up and
looked at herself very seriously in the mirror. Her face had never been so dark
and her hair was like the bark of a young white birch tree. "I like it so
much," she said. "Too much." She looked in the mirror as though
she had never seen the girl she was looking at. "Now we must do
Monsieur," the coiffeur said. "Does Monsieur wish the cut? It's very
conservative but it's also sportif." "The cut," David said.
"I don't think I've had a haircut in a month." "Please make it
the same as mine," Catherine said. "But shorter," David said. "No.
Please just the same. When it was cut David stood up and ran his hand over his
head. It felt cool and comfortable. "Aren't you going to let him lighten
it?"
     
    "No.
We've had enough miracles for one day." "Just a little?"
     
    David
looked at Catherine and then at his own face in the mirror. His was as brown as
hers and it was her haircut. "You really want it that much?"
"Yes I do, David. Truly. Just to try it a little bit. Please." He
looked once more in the mirror and walked over then and sat down. The