“Generally speaking hats are headgear, as they say. But it’s a different matter when it’s on the head of a particular client. Then, when that client stands at the mirror, it’s another matter again. Because who really sees themselves in the mirror at a moment like that? No one, let me tell you, no one. Who do they see? Exactly, who do they see? Maybe they themselves don’t know who they see, even though they’re standing in front of themselves. And that, so to speak, is the fascinating secret that makes it worth devoting your whole life to selling hats.”
“Pass me the file,” I said. “I can’t reach down, I have to hold this up.”
He started rooting around among the tools on the counter.
“It’s in your hand,” I said.
He gave it to me automatically.
“Now hand me those pliers.” I reckoned if I kept him busy passing me this or that, he might stop talking. “Take the screwdriver from me. Now give it back again.” Pass me that, take this from me. Pass that, take this. Instead of making the repair, it was like I’d succumbed to him, and I kept repeating: Pass that, take this, take this, pass that.
In the end I had him climb up on the countertop, stand next to me, and hand me tools or take them from me, because it was hard for me to reach his outstretched hand when he was standing on the floor, and I couldn’t always bend down. He pulled up a chair, climbed onto it, stood next to me, but not even that prevented him from talking.
“There were times that from the first glance you could tell the hat wasn’t right for the face, but the client said he thought this one looked best on him. You’d wonder who he was seeing that he’d chosen that particular one. Unfortunately you couldn’t say, That one doesn’t suit you, because it might sound like you were questioning not the hat but his face. What am I saying, face, it was as if you were questioning the image of himself that he carried. And after all, that’s something everyone has a perfect right to, everyone bears that image within themselves …”
“I dropped a screw. Could you climb down and find it?” Once again I was trying to interrupt him.
He popped down almost like a spring, he was agile for his age. And wouldn’t you believe it, he found the screw at once. You or I would have hunted all over for it. All he did was step down from the chair, lean over and pick it up. He climbed back just as quickly.
“Maybe it was like you were questioning his own unsatisfied need for himself, his thirst for himself, his longing for himself, because each of us allows ourselves something like that, it helps us to live. And you have to respect that in a client. Profit isn’t the most important thing when you’ve been dealing with hats as long as I have. Besides, you outgrow the desire for profit, especially when you’re nearer rather than further from the boundless place where profit counts for nothing at all. When you start to measure out your life with all the hats you’ve sold. When you’re visited more and more often by doubt about whether everyone was satisfied with the hats they bought. If I’d been certain of that I would have said, All praise to the hat. Unfortunately, I’m not. Despite the fact that even before the previous war, when I was more or less your age, I worked as a clerk in a hat shop. I began life with hats, so to speak, and I’m ending it with them. That includes two world wars. You might think that when it comes to hats I know everything. It turns out though that I don’t. And please believe me, young man, I learned this wise lesson only when my shop was taken over by the government. Though it is what it is, as you can see. In this way I was punished for daring to believe that I knew anything. Whereas in reality, what on earth do I know, as it turns out. The more so if you take as the highest measure of knowledge that you don’t even know that you don’t know, however much you know.”
This time I told him an untruth, saying I’d dropped another screw. And imagine this, he got down, found it, climbed back up and handed it to me. After that I stopped trying.
“Pass me the bulb and the lampshade, then you can step down.”
I replaced the shade and screwed in the light bulb.
“There’s nothing more can be done here,” I said. “Now it all depends on what the wiring’s like. Turn the switch.”
He turned it, the light came on. No, he didn’t explode with joy. He simply said:
“Oh, the light’s working.” He turned the switch again, the light went off. He turned it on again, off again, on, off. All at once he was gripped by a kind of anxiety:
“When you leave, will it still come on?”
“Sure it will,” I reassured him. “But all this is a stop-gap measure. You need to replace the fittings, the wiring, everything. And don’t delay.”
“How much do I owe you?” he asked, holding me back, because I was getting ready to leave.
“Nothing.”
“But I have to give you something for your troubles. Wait a minute,” he said, pausing to think. He suddenly went up to the display and took down the brown felt hat. “I can’t sell you a hat from the display. But at least try it on. You’ll see yourself that it’s too big for you. I wouldn’t like you to go away unconvinced.”
I put it on and looked in the mirror, while he put one of the dull-colored hats in the display.
“See? It’s too big, like I told you. And brown felt makes it look even bigger next to your young face.”
The hat fell down over my ears. Plus, when I saw my reflection in the mirror I started wondering if that was me with the hat on my head. Have you ever had those kinds of doubts about whether you are you? I’ve had them all my life. I always felt as if I was divided within myself into one person who knew it was him and another person who felt no closeness with himself. Into one person, shall we say, who knows he’s going to die, and one person who rejects the idea that it’s him and thinks someone else is going to die in his stead. I’ve never been able to be together long enough even just to sympathize with myself. Let me tell you, a person shouldn’t think too much about himself, or even more go probing himself. He is the way he is, and that ought to be enough. And whether he’s himself or not, let that be resolved in due course.
Standing in front of the mirror, with the outsized hat on my head, staring at my own reflection, I became painfully aware of that division inside myself.
“Are you shaving already?” he suddenly asked. I was taken unawares, and over there, in the mirror, I went red as a beetroot.
“Of course,” I said, though I don’t think it came out very confidently.
“How often a week?” He wouldn’t let up, as though he had some purpose in mind.
“It depends.”
“Don’t take offense, young man. I’d guess at the most once a week, on Sundays. I’m asking because brown felt isn’t a good match for a face that’s only shaved once a week. Actually, it’s the worst match. Aside from the fact that this one is too big.”
He caught me off balance with that remark, and I pulled the hat further down over my eyes, hoping it might not look quite so big.
“Not like that. Why hide your face?” He came up and tipped the hat back. “While your face is young it should be exposed, let the youth in it shine. It won’t be able to shine when it’s furrowed with wrinkles. Before the war it was mostly government workers that bought brown felt hats. In that respect nothing’s changed. Whenever they come to do inventory, there’s always one or another of them will ask if by any chance I have a brown felt hat. I don’t, how could I? Never mind that, they pick out another hat or a cap, usually forgetting to pay. And that’s the difference. Obviously I’m not going to say anything. I have to pay for it out of my own pocket. Though how can I do that when a month’s salary doesn’t cover a month’s living expenses. Those guys ignore the fact that it’s all state-owned, whereas me, I have nothing on my conscience. I mean, what could I have on my conscience in a place like this, you can see for yourself. This is all there is. Except that, unfortunately, it depends on them whether you have something on your conscience. Your conscience is state-owned too. There’s no longer any need for God to remind us about our conscience. Hang on, maybe a bit further back, so your hair shows a little in the front.”