Luiz the barber

It was late morning and the small, unprepossessing barber's shop
looked empty but for the feint movement of a small, unprepossessing man
through a window filled with signs offering different cuts at different
prices.

I was on my way to interview the local baron, Don Simeone, for my
newspaper and had arrived from the city hot and unshaven. My pensione
hostess recommended the services of Luiz as the small town's finest
barber ('My late husband - may Maria bless his soul - visited Luiz
every morning for over twenty years. If you hurry you may still catch
him.')

The shop was little more than a shack appended to an older, more solid
house behind. Within, to the left of the door were a row of three empty
leather seats burnished by the many trousers of the town's male
inhabitants. Opposite, sat a customer in a solitary barber's chair
before a mirror above a basin. Around the customer buzzed a man I
assumed to be Luiz, chatting lightly and washing off the soap from the
man's chin.

'Dias,' I said, sitting and wiping the sweat from my brow.

'Good day,' Luiz said without turning. 'Be with you in a moment,
sir.'

'Dias,' muttered the other customer.

The shop was cool out of the heat of the sun and a slow moving fan made
of dark heavy wood moved the air gently. I wiped my brow with a
handkerchief and waited as the other customer handed over some crisp
notes, took the towel from off his shoulders, patted Luiz on the
shoulder and left.

'Now sir, I am ready.'

I went over and sat in the chair and looked up to see a man with his
eyes closed-up and a gleaming razorblade in his right hand.

'Yes,' he began, sensing my apprehension (I could see my apprehension
in the mirror). 'I am blind, was born blind and will always be so. But,
for much of that time I have also been a barber and last cut a man
whilst shaving long before you were born, so please relax.'

I closed my eyes and he offered me coffee. 'Louisa! A coffee for the
gentleman from the city, please. A shave for you, sir?'

Luiz draped a dry towel around my shoulders then took a hot, moist
towel and spread it over my mouth and chin. As he did so he said, 'You
are here to see Don Simeone, are you not?'

I nodded.

'I could tell you much about Don Simeone.' Two hands started to massage
the towel and soften my stubble.

As the towel was removed I asked how Luiz knew I was seeing the
baron.

'This is a small town - little more than a village. I am visited by
many people every day. I hear of most things that happen.'

'What is the Don like?'

Luiz splashed a few drops of shaving oil into his hands and the
atmosphere of the shop filled with a musty thickness as he rubbed his
hands together and then applied them to my face.

'He has changed, has Don Simeone. We have known one another many
years.'

'Since you were children?' I had heard tell that Don Simeone had been
an arrogant boy, cruel to friends and family alike.

'I was born in the city but life was not good there. My mother died and
my father was sick with blind son. So, when I was almost a young man,
we came here to become farmers.' His words were soft, infused with the
aroma of the oil, almost soporific.

'And you became a barber.'

'Not immediately, no.' There were steps behind me and the tang of
coffee competing with the oil in the air. 'Thank you, Luisa.' I opened
my eyes to catch a glimpse of the back of a girl with long dark hair
departing through the strings of beads in the door through to what had
to be his house. 'Your coffee, sir.'

I sipped the hot, thick, sweet, dark coffee.

'The land was not good. My father was a lazy man and with poor soil you
need to be industrious.  I worked hard, but without sight I was
limited. Now my father's laziness extended to having me shave him each
morning. Our neighbours and the whole town could see me each morning
shaving my good-for-nothing father before being led by him to our field
outside the town. I worked for five years under his instruction but it
was no good: we quickly became destitute.'

I put down my coffee and Luiz began to clean his razor on his leather
apron before continuing. I closed my eyes once more.

'My father went to Don Simeone who had, at that time, just inherited
his estates. My father asked for better land to farm but Don Simeone
just laughed and said nothing. My father then asked for a loan to buy
better seed and a donkey to help me till the soil. Again Don Simeone
laughed and said nothing. My father then burst into tears and, falling
upon the Don's mercy, asked what he could do without good land, without
a beasts of burden and without decent seed. The Don laughed once more,
came over and shook me by the shoulders. I was afraid, I needn't tell
you. "Every morning we see your son making good work of that lazy face
of yours. It is a miracle he hasn't slipped on purpose," he said.
"Employ your son as a barber and you will be well provided for."'

Luiz gently pulled at my left ear and began to shave my jaw. 'It was
good advice,' he continued. 'For a while people were reluctant as you
were, but I am doing a good job, no? I can thank Don Simeone for
this.'

'And you are on good terms?' I asked.

'For several years he came to me every morning. It was not only that I
was the quickest and the best, though. There was a woman.' I smiled.
Luiz smiled - perhaps ruefully. 'She was the most beautiful woman in
the town: Isabella.' He paused, savouring her memory. 'Isabella's
father was my neighbour and, as a young girl, she would sit on those
seats talking with the men of the town as they waited to see me. Now,
in no time at all she was no longer a girl but a beautiful woman with
hair as long as my Luisa's is now and with a gracefulness and kindness
unmatched by any woman in the town. You will not be surprised to learn
that Don Simeone was not the only young man who patronised my shop so
that he could talk and gaze upon the fair Isabella. But, and this may
surprise you, it was with me that she fell in love. During siesta we
would drink milk in the cool of her courtyard under the shade of the
trees and plan our lives together.'

I reached forward, collected my coffee and sipped.

'During the harvest festival in the year after my father passed away I
asked Isabella's father permission to marry her. I was doing well by
this time, with many customers, and he could see that I would be able
to support his daughter. He gave his approval and we agreed to marry
during the festival of San Andreas.'

'I shouldn't think Don Simeone approved,' I said.

'You are right. But curiously he said nothing to me. Around the town
and in the tavern he would exclaim,"What  a waste! Why should a
blind man savour the most beautiful Isabella?" This, he would say to
anyone who would listen. "Why should a blind man savour the most
beautiful Isabella." To me, though, each morning he would say nothing.
Some of my closest customers would warn me to beware but I told them
not to worry: if he had a problem he could come to me about the matter.
Now, you must know something of Don Simeone. He is a powerful man who
has had many enemies in his time. Do you think I was na?ve not to
expect a reaction from him?'

'I have never met him,' I replied ,diplomatically, as Luiz stepped
forward to tackle the other side of my face.

'I was na?ve. I was foolish!' At this point Luiz stopped, and I
wondered if blind men could cry. 'The ceremony was held before all the
town at the start of the festival and was the happiest moment of my
life. The happiest moment, that is, until I lifted the mantilla from
the face of my wife to kiss her lips. I screamed in fury before the
town, "This is not my Isabella!" For as I later learnt she was a whore
from outside the town employed by Don Simeone to become my wife. In the
distance I could hear Don Simeone laughing. I was na?ve, no?'

I was becoming a little nervous. In telling his story Luiz was becoming
more dramatic in his razor strokes. He was almost done but had my upper
lip left.

'And surely the marriage was not legal?' I asked.

'You would think not, my friend. But the priest told me I was now
married before hundreds of witnesses, God the Father and the Holy
Mother herself.' Luiz held my lip between his thumb and forefinger and
I waited for him to strike. 'I was powerless. Married. Don't get me
wrong here, A?a did become a wife to me but she was not Isabella.' He
let go of my lip.

'And what happened to Isabella?'

'I think you have probably already guessed.'

'Don Simeone?'

'Si. Married that very morning. I needn't add that on his marriage he
stopped coming to me. I don't think he would have trusted himself to my
blade, no? '

'This is a very sad tale you tell,' I said.

'But it is not finished.' With this he seized my upper lip once more.
'Isabella and I were still in love, though terribly unhappy. My
customers would whisper to me of how ill she had become in her sadness,
how pale. I kept this from A?a though, for she was now my wife, wanted
children and no further mention of "the beautiful Isabella". In time I
did my duty as a husband and my wife became pregnant. Tragically, a
year after marriage Isabella died with a miscarriage. You see, if I
could not have her, heaven would. Si? But not for long. One week later
A?a gave birth to my Louisa.'

The blade raced across my lip. I opened my eyes. There before me,
waiting by the door was Luiz' picture of perfection. How long she had
been waiting there I could not say. Her head was cocked slightly to one
side, listening to a story she must have heard a thousand times
before.

'My friend, my tale is a happy one.' Luiz splashed cool water on my
face and lifted the towel to dry me. 'Though we never loved one another
my wife and I were happy because we had Luisa here, whom everyone tells
me is a spit for Isabella. Certainly I brought her up to be graceful,
dutiful and kind. There are strange things that happen in this world
that I cannot explain. That Luisa has the spirit of Isabella and has
memories of drinking milk in the courtyard during siesta I do not
doubt. Others say this too. If you want confirmation of this ask Don
Simeone.'

'Don Simeone?'

'He loved Isabella as I did. You might say that we are united in grief.
After all, I cannot bear him a grudge when she loved me. We are now
firm friends and have been for many years. Who was it I was shaving as
you came in but Don Simeone?'

I looked to the young woman for confirmation. She nodded. Every word
was true.

I stood up, found some notes screwed up in my pocket and passed them to
Luiz.

'Thank you, I said. You have much to be grateful for.'

'You are right, my friend. My eyes have been opened many times.'

With that I bade the blind barber farewell and ascended the hill to
meet Don Simeone.