Something wobbled in her stomach when she thought of his face and the nice, full warmth of his hand. She’d never experienced this feeling—a sweet, nagging commotion, like bubbles bursting in her chest.
“What am I doing here?” she said to herself, letting the soft question hang there in the room.
Her original wish to die had turned into something different, something much more banal: she had run away, absconded. Wasn’t it time to ring Lothar? Hopefully Lothar thinks I’m dead.
What should she say to him? I’m not coming back? I want a divorce? And then? Was she going to spend her life as an assistant chef in a restaurant until she was too old to lift a cooking pot? With a friend who was a witch and forgot from one moment to the next who Marianne was? And yet it felt so good to hear and speak her own language.
Marianne longed to have a friend, one like Grete K?ster had been. She deeply regretted the fact that she’d never shown as much trust in Grete as her friend had in her. But who knows: maybe friendship was the most patient form of love. Grete had never pried with Marianne; she’d accepted that Marianne never expressed how she really felt. She had appreciated Marianne as a listener, and had never attempted to talk her out of her marriage. “If someone suffers and won’t change, then they need to suffer” had been her sole comment on the matter. That had hurt Marianne, and she’d told Grete that it wasn’t so simple. She’d wanted to explain why she kept delaying the breakout from her self-inflicted misery from one year to the next. Soon, her explanations had begun to sound hollow even to herself.
She ran her fingers through her hair. It felt dry and wiry. She went over to the wardrobe and inspected its meager contents: a few Tshirts and cheap blouses from the local supermarket, two pairs of plain trousers and some no-nonsense underwear, a pair of linen shoes and two high-necked nightshirts.
She studied her face and the notches left by the years: the vertical line above the root of her nose; the crow’s-feet around her eyes and the creases at the corners of her mouth; countless freckles, of which she hoped very few were liver spots. And her neck. My God, her neck.
There was nothing she could do about it: she was an old woman. But did that preclude her from longing for a little beauty?!
Within the hour, Marianne was sitting like an excited schoolgirl in Marie-Claude’s hairdressing salon in Pont-Aven. She didn’t consider for one second that it might have been the strange feelings and sweet commotion that had brought her here.
Marie-Claude slid her fingers searchingly through Marianne’s graying long brown hair.
“If you could just give it a bit of shape,” Marianne asked timidly.
“Hmm, it’s more like reincarnation you need. Mon Dieu, you got here just in time,” the hairdresser muttered as she beckoned to Yuma, her assistant, and gave her some quick instructions that Marianne didn’t understand. Secretly Marianne hoped that she wouldn’t end up with the same red locks as Marie-Claude. The hairdresser looked identical to her lapdog Lupin, who was enthroned in an elegant basket on a sort of podium next to the till.
Marianne closed her eyes.
—
When she reopened them an hour later, Yuma was blow-drying her new hairstyle. Next to them Marie-Claude was busy picking nits out of the hair of one of the local farm lads. She was chatting to Colette, who was having her snow-white pageboy hairstyle trimmed in the next chair. The urbane gallery owner was wearing a salmon-pink suit, white python-leather gloves and white slingback pumps.
Colette raised her glass of Bellini to Marianne. “You look magical! Why did you hide it so well?” she called, then, turning to Marie-Claude, “she needs a drink.”
Marianne’s heart skipped a beat as she studied herself. Her mud-colored mop of hair was nowhere to be seen; in its place she sported a feathery bob that curved around to her chin and had taken on the color of young cognac. Yuma had arranged it to emphasize her heart-shaped face. Lisann had plucked her eyebrows too, although the unexpected pain of the tweaking had brought tears to her eyes, and the dyeing of her eyelashes had stung them.
Marie-Claude was now standing next to Yuma, examining Marianne critically through screwed-up eyes.
“Something’s missing,” she concluded, and motioned to Marianne to take a seat at the makeup station with Lisann. Marianne found this both ludicrous and wonderful. She took a long swig of the Bellini that Yuma had brought her; the champagne went straight to her head, and everything around her began to glow.
When Lisann had finished her work and passed her a mirror, Marianne realized that she liked her eyes. And her mouth. As for the rest…Well, she looked different from how she felt inside. Only a few weeks ago she’d felt half dead. Now she felt as if she were forty. Or thirty. Like someone else. And tipsy.
She questioned Lisann about possible remedies for wrinkles.
“Lipstick during the day, lipstick in the evening, and a lover at night,” Lisann piped coquettishly. “Or the other way around: two lovers and one lipstick.”
As Marianne was paying, Marie-Claude said, “Your admirer is going to be impressed.”
“My what?”
“Or your husband.” The hairdresser peered at Marianne’s ring finger, but Marianne’s hands were tanned from her daily outings and the white band had faded.
“Je ne comprends pas,” Marianne said hastily.
“Don’t you have a husband? Well, the way you look now, you could have a husband and a few lovers on the side. Probably not the youngest men, but there are enough gentlemen of an interesting age around here. Has anyone particularly caught your eye?”
“I don’t understand,” Marianne repeated, but she could feel the blood shooting into her cheeks. Marie-Claude noticed it too. Luckily she can’t read my mind, thought Marianne, who could still see Yann Gamé before her and still feel that touch in Pascale’s garden in her fingers.
“Colette, which lover could we recommend today?” Marie-Claude asked the gallery owner, whose presence made Marianne immediately feel dowdy once again.
Colette looked at Marianne with eyes like a cat’s. Her face was a maze of wrinkles, but Marianne was still very impressed by her slenderness and perfect ballet posture.
“We should ask Madame what she has in mind,” replied Colette. “Some men are good for life, but unsuitable as lovers. Others are good for sex, but are deaf to any difficulties or feelings.”
“Yes, and then there are those who can’t do either,” Marie-Claude summed up. “That’s the kind I’ve always had,” she added, sighing.
—
Marianne and Colette left the salon together and walked side by side down the steep lane. Marianne paused as they passed the fashion boutique.
“Please,” she began, “would you help me? I need…” She pointed to her clothes. “I need style,” she said simply.
“Fashion has nothing to do with style,” said Colette in her husky voice. “It all depends on whether you want to conceal or reveal who you are.”