Free The Combover by Adrián N. Bravi Page A

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 talking 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