Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop (14 page)

Arturo was silent for some time.

‘He's right about one thing,' he said eventually. ‘I have been too complacent. I'm a coward, Ernesto. I've been sitting here waiting for people to come to me. I justify it by saying that I need to take things slowly, build up their trust, when really I'm just scared to do anything.'

‘Scared? What are you scared of?'

‘People,' said Arturo, ‘people and their problems. What can I do to help anyone?'

‘Well, you helped me.'

‘Yes, I did. But that was easy. What if people start coming to me with really sick children, with diseases I have never seen before that I don't know how to cure, or worse still with all their worries and fears? I can only let them down, Ernesto. I have nothing to offer them, nothing. What can I do for them? I don't understand anything about their lives.'

‘You won't know though, until you try,' Ernesto said.

‘Well, that's true,' Arturo said, impressed by Ernesto's sudden insight.

‘But don't worry, doctor,' Ernesto said, ‘we'll come up with a plan. My mother may have some ideas. Why don't you come and join us for lunch on Sunday. You'll be able to observe the Gringito like the mayor said. See what you think, you know, see whether he's behaving normally for a gringo or not. You have seen more of them than I have. I find it hard to tell. You can also meet my sister, Isabela, she's been asking me a lot about you.'

‘Well that would be nice, thank you, Ernesto,' Arturo said, genuinely touched at having received his first invitation to eat at someone's house. ‘But will your mother mind?'

‘No,' Ernesto replied. ‘I'm sure she'll be delighted.'

Don Bosco had only one suit and he had worn that to Francisco's funeral. And besides, he said to himself, it's far too formal for Sunday lunch. He pulled his neatly folded collection of shirts from the drawer and stared at them. The blue one he had never worn and it was far too small; the two white ones were too frayed at the collar to be smart. That's because I wear them every day of the week. I must have something new, he concluded. ‘But what is this all about? Could it be, could it be?' he asked out loud, and then stopped himself. ‘Don't be a fool, Pepito, you were a fool once and see where that got you.'

Nobody now used his familiar name, ‘Pepito'. His mother and brothers had always called him by it, but in recent years, since his family had one by one tired of life and left him to face the world alone, the name had been kept alive only in his solitary ramblings. He tried on the blue shirt just in case, and looked at himself in the dusty little mirror. A small, fat, balding man stared back at him in a shirt that was far too tight for any self-respecting barber to wear. He sank down on the bed and gazed at his feet. ‘Fat old fool. Fat old fool,' he said softly, and threw one of the fraying shirts over
the mirror in an effort to block out the truth. ‘And why would she? After all these years why on earth would she?'

Don Teofelo had never seen his friend in quite such a state of confusion. The mood in the shop had been rather subdued all day. Don Julio had tried with limited success to draw Don Bosco into conversation and discover the cause of his dejection. The usual arguments and banter had been replaced by the drone of other people's sad stories being indiscreetly shared with the world in
Tia Sophia's Problem Hour
, through the voice of the small crackling radio in the corner.

‘Our next caller, Maria Louisa,' simpered the sugary tones of Tia Sophia. ‘Tell us what is troubling you.'

‘Hello, Maria Louisa?' Tia Sophia said again, a harsher tone creeping into her voice. ‘You are through, please do tell us your troubles.'

‘Yes,' a voice whispered in reply. ‘I have many troubles, many troubles. I ask every day: “What have I done to deserve so many troubles?” I have seven children to feed and another one on the way, God help me.'

‘God help you, indeed,' agreed Tia Sophia.

‘But my husband is not a good man. He walked out of the house last week. He said he was going to buy some milk for the baby. He still hasn't come back. I pray to God every day that he may walk back in with the milk, but he hasn't.'

‘Do you live a long way from the shop?' asked Tia Sophia.

‘No, this is the problem, it's just down the road,' said the voice of Maria Louisa breaking down into deep uncontrollable sobs. ‘He's
left us with all his debts and now some men have come round and they say they are going to take all our furniture away. They're sitting here now drinking tea while I'm phoning you. I pray to God every day, please help us.'

‘Well, your husband does sound like a bad man. Praise God, perhaps you are better off without him,' Tia Sophia suggested.

‘But I have no money,' sobbed Maria Louisa. ‘What am I to do about these men drinking my tea? What am I going to do about feeding the baby? Please, please can you help me?'

‘This is a sad story,' Tia Sophia cut in. ‘I will pray for you. We will all pray for you, for an end to your troubles,' she concluded as the soft music of
Tia Sophia's Problem Hour
drowned out the sobbing of Maria Louisa.

‘I can't listen to any more of this,' said Don Bosco, wiping the corner of his eye with his old shirtsleeve. ‘Why do people have such sad lives? Why? Can you answer me that, Julio? Sometimes I wonder, what's it all about when everywhere people are living such sad and desperate lives?'

‘What is wrong with you?' said Don Julio, walking over to the radio and changing the channel. ‘You've been acting like a hen that's lost her chickens all day. Pull yourself together, man.'

‘The riots sweeping the city began two weeks ago,' the radio continued, now in a deep, confident, masculine tone. ‘We are getting reports of a car bomb that exploded outside a police station this morning, killing two passers-by. Reports say it is believed to be the work of the People's Liberation Front. The army is beginning to gain control and the ringleaders of the riots, believed to be a group of students and teachers based at the university, have fled into the countryside. The President says he will not resign and that his decision is final.'

‘The country is falling apart,' Don Bosco continued. ‘Riots in the city, bombs going off, women and children without homes and food. You shouldn't joke about it, Julio. Why has the world become such a troubled place?'

‘The world has always been a troubled place, Bosco, it's just that you have never bothered to take notice of it before,' Don Teofelo interrupted from the barber's chair. ‘But right now I'm less concerned about the state of the world than I am about what you're doing with that razor. What's wrong with you?'

Don Bosco did not answer. He continued shaving the same patch of skin that he had been scraping at for the past five minutes. Then, suddenly catching sight of Nicanora hurrying across the plaza, he announced in a voice loud enough to drown out the radio, ‘I don't have anything to wear.'

Teofelo turned abruptly in the chair, to make sure that the words had been uttered from his old friend's mouth. With the sudden movement, the razor, which had been hovering in anticipation below Don Teofelo's ear, cut a slice through the protruding organ. Teofelo, uncertain whether to be shocked more by his friend's sartorial announcement or by his effort to amputate his ear, was silent for a minute, then, seeing the stream of blood pouring down his face, screamed: ‘Bosco, you've lost your mind and now you've tried to kill me,' and then passed out. Confusion continued in the shop for a good five minutes as the blood began to form a little pool at Don Bosco's feet. Don Julio ripped up a towel and tried to wrap it round Teofelo's head, for no better reason than that he could not stand the sight of blood and was about to pass out himself if he had to look at it any more.

As luck would have it, Arturo was passing through the plaza just at the moment when Don Julio rushed out of the shop shouting,
‘Bosco has gone mad and has just sliced off Teofelo's ear, and he is lying in there bleeding to death as we speak.'

Arturo rushed to the scene, momentarily forgetting his own abhorrence for the sight of blood – just like a real doctor, he thought to himself afterwards. Don Bosco was standing staring into the mirror white-faced, the bloody razor in his hand.

‘It was an accident,' he kept repeating, ‘it was an accident. I didn't mean to kill him.'

Arturo placed a hand on Don Bosco's shoulder and led him over to a chair. ‘Make him a cup of camomile tea,' he said firmly to Don Julio, who was running around the shop screaming, ‘Oh, my Lord, there is blood on the floor and blood on Bosco's hands.'

The sudden authoritative tone of Arturo's voice brought Don Julio to an abrupt halt, in the middle of a sentence about how the blood flowing from the door of the shop was about to drown the plaza and sully the reputation of the town for ever. Don Teofelo, who was slowly coming to his senses again in the midst of the commotion, let out a soft moan as he saw his bloodstained reflection in the mirror. Arturo gently unwrapped the towelling bandage that Julio had wound erratically around his friend's head in an attempt to mummify him, and revealed the offending wound. Don Teofelo sat compliant as the young doctor bathed the gash with warm water and then after some time announced that the cut, though deep, was neither life-threatening nor a cause for great concern.

‘He's not dead, then?' Don Bosco asked suddenly, broken from his trance.

‘No, I'm not dead, Bosco, no thanks to you,' Teofelo replied petulantly. ‘But what about my ear, doctor, will I lose my ear?'

‘Only if you lose your head as well,' Arturo replied in an attempt to lighten the mood as he rebandaged the ear. ‘Both still appear to be firmly attached. You have no cause to worry.'

Don Bosco went over to Teofelo to offer his friend the hand of reconciliation.

‘I'm so sorry, Teofelo,' he began. ‘I don't know what came over me. I just didn't see your ear there.'

‘Well, it was in the same place that it has always been, until you tried to remove it,' replied Teofelo, not quite ready to drop his indignation. ‘I would have thought that, after thirty years of working as a barber, you would have discovered that your clients have ears stuck to the sides of their head.' Then seeing the eyes of his old friend moisten, Teofelo stood up and embraced him. ‘It was an accident, Bosco, I know that. I shouldn't have moved my head in such a hurry.'

Don Bosco sat down and put his head in his hands. ‘I don't know what's wrong with me,' he said. ‘I don't know what has come over me. I'm just not myself at the moment.'

Arturo sat down beside him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. ‘What's wrong?' he asked gently.

‘He doesn't have anything to wear,' said Don Teofelo.

Arturo stared at him.

‘That's what is wrong with him, doctor. He's upset because he doesn't have anything to wear.'

Don Bosco hid his face in shame. ‘It's true,' he said. ‘It's true. I have nothing to wear and I'm a fat old fool.'

‘Do you have a fever?' Arturo asked.

‘I don't think so,' Don Bosco replied.

‘What do you mean, you don't have anything to wear?' Teofelo asked finally. ‘You're sitting there in a shirt and trousers as far as I
can see, the same shirt and trousers that I've seen you in for the past ten years at least.'

‘That's exactly it,' Don Bosco replied, his voice filled with anguish. ‘That is exactly it, Teofelo. I have two shirts and they are both the same, and I've been wearing them for the past ten years. They are frayed at the collar and have holes in the sleeves, and I need something new to wear by Sunday.'

‘Why, what's happening on Sunday?' Teofelo asked, intrigued.

‘She has invited me to lunch.'

‘Who has?'

Teofelo, Julio and Arturo now drew around Don Bosco in a tight confidential circle.

‘Nicanora.'

‘Nicanora?' replied Julio. ‘Why?'

‘I don't know. She just said that twenty years ago she did me a wrong and then invited me to have lunch with her to make up for it,' said Don Bosco. ‘We're having chicken.'

‘Chicken?' said Teofelo.

‘I thought you were over her,' said Julio.

‘So did I,' said Don Bosco hopelessly, ‘so did I. But what do you think she wants, Julio? Why now, why after all these years should she invite me to lunch?'

‘And you have nothing to wear,' said Teofelo, finally understanding the events of the morning and delighted that sanity had been restored to his friend. ‘We can fix that easily. The clothes market will be near here in the next few days. We'll get there early and find you a new shirt, won't we, Julio? And a new pair of trousers for that matter.'

‘Of course we will. What colour shirt would you like?' Julio asked brightly, looking at Don Bosco with compassion in his eyes.