Mixed emotions like sadness or happiness, love or hatred, romance or lust, failure or victory, which were following each other in Neda's mind like a confused thoughts of a neurotic person soon came to an end. They all came to to finish line in the morning of of her wedding day. She woke up that morning almost certain, almost sure. That day, full of things she had to do, or more correctly things that were supposed to be done to her, did not leave her any time to think or reflect. She just needed to go through the things she had to do; no time for thinking about her feelings, or her doubts or hesitation.
First thing in the morning, she went to the beauty salon with her cousin, Maryan, and her aunt Zari, Maryam's mother. Those days it was not customary for girls to wear make up or to clear up their facial hair until the day of their wedding. The first thing they did to her was to remove extra hair from her full eyebrows and remove her facial hair with a waxed thread. The whole thing was so painful that a few times she got up from the chair and ran outside the salon. Maryam, her cousin chased her and brought her back. When they were finally done with this awful task, Neda announced that she would never again clear her eyebrows or wax her face. She kept that promise. She could never forget that pain, that crying, even screaming, the running away from that torture chamber which their job was to beautify her. She never forgot the beautician, the woman who was in charge of her with her painted face, blond wig, long, manicured nails and her two gold teeth in front of her mouth. To Neda, she looked more like a prostitute than a beautician. Many years later, Maryam, her cousin, agreed with her.
Then it was time to fix her hair; and pin up the hairpiece at the top of her puffy and mountain like hair. Another woman was working on Maryam and her mother. Of course Maryam did not have to go through the torture of removing her facial hair since she was unmarried; but Neda noticed that her aunt Zari did not mind to have her face cleared up especially since Neda's father was paying for the whole thing.
Neda could never forget the woman, who was in charge of her with her two gold teeth when she made a comment when Neda was crying:
"You think this is bad, wait till tonight!"
The way she said that left such a distaste in Neda that she almost wanted to kill her. What that woman said to her was not understandable to her first, but slowly she realized that the beautician meant the first love making. There was a shudder that ran through her spine and brought sweat to her face. She had not thought about it; but now in that salon, she wondered what love making would be like! Would it be really painful?
How did the fixing of her hair begin? She decided to call the woman with golden teeth, "Wig Woman". First the Wig Woman shampooed her hair, trimmed it a little which Neda objected to it. She liked her hair the best part of her body; and no one could make her to cut it. She had heard praises about her hair from her classmates and then family and Mansour. She objected to Wig Woman for trimming her hair, but the beautician said that her hair was uneven. She thought that perhaps on this one issue the the Wig Woman was right. She always trimmed her hair herself to get rid of the split ends.
The Wig Woman put rollers on her hair. At this point Sohrab, her brother came. He had brought ice cream for everyone, courtesy of their father. Neda pulled up the hood of the blow dryer and got up to eat ice cream. She was hungry; she needed a break. The Wig Woman objected it. Sohrab told her to leave her sister alone. Neda had seen emotion her brother to get emotional but a few times and this one was one of them. He looked at her with a strange gaze. To Sohrab, his sister's girlhood was already gone. He hugged his little sister and whispered in her ears:
"Are you okay little sis?"
Neda cried on his shoulder and tried to hide her face from him. She was ashamed of the change that had happened to her face. After he left, they all went back to what they were doing before he had come with the welcome ice cream.
To Be Continued
No comments:
Post a Comment