Husn’s problem, or Ralph’s, as Madame Nuha Aoun used to call him, was simple. For Ralph, whose father sent him to the Evangelical School in Beirut, through the good offices of the Reverend Amin and Dr. Atef Nazzal and others, declared himself useless.
“Your son is a lost cause, Mr. Gandhi,” the principal, Mr. Nabih Khouri, told him. “He’s a lost cause, he’s failing everything. His mind is not on his studies. You should find him some trade to learn and let him work.”
Gandhi had wanted Husn to become a doctor, like Atef Nazzal, who had become a good friend of Gandhi’s. Through Atef, Gandhi discovered that doctors were regular people like everyone else. Husn should become a doctor, but he was hardheaded and didn’t study. He spent his time watching TV and playing pinball.
After long discussions, lots of effort, and lots of patience, Gandhi finally gave in to his son’s plan. He said he’d found a job. Husn was nineteen years old, of medium height but on the short side, had black hair that was kept meticulously neat, and small eyes. He didn’t look anything like his father except for his dark olive complexion and the way he stuttered when he spoke.
Husn decided to leave school because he hated the atmosphere of being under house arrest, and because he was a “lost cause,” as the principal had told his father. He got himself a job in Ahmad’s Hair Salon on Madame Curie Street in Beirut. The work fascinated Husn. It was in the salon that he changed his name to Ralph, and it was there he discovered the world of perfumes.
He’d come early in the morning, mop the salon with this fragrant soap. He’d pour out the liquid soap, which had a yellowish color to it, and mop the floors. Then he’d rearrange the chairs and wipe them with a brown cloth and wait. He was crazy about women’s hair. When he’d watch the strands falling through Master Ahmad’s fingers, he felt he was watching a real magician. He’d breathe in the smell of the dyes and spray and perfume. Ralph’s relationship with the salon was his entrance into the world of women. There he saw women; women quite different from the wives of the refugees who were forced out of their villages in the south and were living on Hamra Street. They were fashionable, sexy, speaking in Arabic and French and with them Ahmad the hairdresser was a magician. After having their hair shampooed by Rafiq, Ahmad’s assistant, they would flirt with him and wait without getting bored as they told their stories and jokes, laughing and giggling before Ahmad’s wandering glimmering eyes. Magazines and pictures and women and Ralph would watch while nobody paid any attention to what he was doing. After a while, Ralph began to learn how to shampoo hair, and here the real ecstasy began. His fingers would slide through their hair and the women would melt in his hands, heads laid back on the metal basin. They’d surrender to their flowing hair while the smell of apples emanated from his hands. Actually this smell was a mixture of apple and other perfumes that reminded one of jasmine; it intoxicated Ralph. His hands would dive into their hair, into their closed eyes, as Ralph worked in a state of semiconsciousness. The smell made him dizzy and the feel of hair sent chills running up and down his spine. Then the women would get up with their wet hair, sit under the dryer, and start talking. Ahmad would cut and style, and when he was all done he’d give them what looked like a metal sash to wear before spraying their hair.
The first time Ralph used hairspray on Madame Nuha Aoun’s hair he felt as though he were flying. As the spray streamed over her hair Ralph fluttered around her like a butterfly. Master Ahmad was quite pleased with this new assistant, for most of the professional ones had left. Joséf, the original owner, left, gave the keys to Ahmad, and just took off.
“That Joséf was something else,” Madame Nuha would say. Joséf was great; it was impossible to get an appointment with him. But now after he left for some unknown place, along with all the rest of Lebanon’s rising stars, it wasn’t much fun anymore to go to the hairdresser.
Actually, Joséf was a woman, prettier than a woman. That’s how all the women who came to his salon felt about him. He was known for his intimacy and elegance. He talked like women, with a penchant for detail, and laughed out loud like women. He had long tapering fingers, a long white face tinged with red, a long delicate nose, long eyelashes, thin eyebrows, and a soft voice that crackled with laughter whether or not there was reason to laugh. Joséf took off. He left Beirut, said he was going to Rome, and never came back. Master Ahmad, his first assistant, who took over managing the salon, said he was living in Jounieh.
“He left the business and went into buying and selling land.”
The last day he was in West Beirut he was scared to death. He embraced Ahmad and said to him, “My sweetheart, the place is yours. Take care of things; I’ll be back.” Ahmad tried to persuade him to stay and told him he’d ransom him with his own eyes. But Joséf was even scared of Ahmad.
“I’m afraid of you, darling. Maybe you’ll kill me; how do I know?”
“How could you say that? You taught me everything I know.”
“This is true, but I’m leaving.”
Joséf embraced Ahmad and started to cry. He walked away and never came back.
Ahmad had never thought about killing his teacher Joséf. It was true that after it became commonplace for shops to be bombed, he told his wife he was afraid and was thinking about taking down the sign from in front of the salon. Then he cursed Joséf and all Christians, and said that the salon was his, that he’d been working in it for thirty years and barely made enough to feed his family. But deep down he never thought about killing Joséf or taking over his shop. Joséf had taught him all he knew about the trade, and through him he met the most beautiful women in the world. From Sabah to Farah Diba to Afghani princesses. He lived like a king with him.
“Joséf was a king,” Ahmad told Ralph. “He dished out money and the money kept on coming. But kings always end up being the butt of jokes in the end. I didn’t let that happen to him. May God protect him.”
Ralph knew that Madame Nuha would never love him the way she loved Joséf. Ahmad told him all about how she was a different woman under Joséf’s hands. She didn’t read magazines like the others; she surrendered herself like a chicken. She appeared to be sighing or as if she were about to choke, and she’d come out looking as beautiful as the moon, her smile overtaking half of her face, and Josef hovering around her like some kind of god.
“Those were the days, not like now. Now we style hair as if it were work. In those days it was an art, and women were real women.”
Madame Nuha didn’t pay any special attention to Ralph. Joséf’s story with her and the way she moaned excited him and made him feel out of breath. When he’d see her coming in and imagined Joséf dancing around her hair, his breathing would become short and choppy. Then he’d forget, until she’d start. She was the one who started it all.
“You started it,” he told her.
She laughed, lying there naked on her wide bed. She laughed and didn’t respond.
“You make me laugh, boy. Come here.”
He’d come and make passionate love to her. She’d take him in, into her insides. Ralph would shake violently inside this white woman. She had a blinding whiteness about her. Ralph would always ask her to turn off the light, but she always left it on.
“I like to see your face, how handsome it becomes. I like to see you.”
It all began. Madame Nuha sank down with her hair under the water while Husn was pouring on the applescented shampoo and delving his fingers into her long blond hair. Her head rose up for a moment and she looked at him but didn’t say anything. Then she lowered her head back down.
“The water,” she said. “The water.”