Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop (29 page)

‘I can't believe it,' Teofelo said, ‘I almost thought we had lost him for good.' And when he stepped forward into the morning light Julio saw that Teofelo's eyes were swollen and red-rimmed.

‘He must have returned in the middle of the night. I wonder where he was hiding, the old dog. Well let's at least leave him to settle in for half an hour, we don't want to overwhelm him,' Teofelo said, still not quite believing that their friend was back. ‘You know what Bosco is like. We don't want to intrude on him too early in the day.' And Julio settled down to a welcome breakfast, ready to pick up his life where it had left off two days earlier.

By the time Teofelo and Julio reached the plaza, a small group of men had gathered outside Don Bosco's, just as they would have on any normal working day. The pole had been placed in front of the door to indicate that the shop was now open, and the table and chairs were exactly where they should be.

‘Do you know when he got back?' Teofelo asked Don Alfredo, who was sitting tapping his fingers impatiently on the table.

‘I've been waiting for over an hour now and he still hasn't appeared,' Alfredo replied. ‘You would think having left us in the lurch for so long that he would at least open on time.'

‘Come now,' Teofelo said, anxious to prevent a quarrel the moment Don Bosco opened the door. He knew his old friend well, and he was sure to be feeling shamefaced about his uncharacteristically impetuous behaviour. ‘It has only been one day after all, and Bosco has been going through a hard time lately.'

‘
He's
been going through a hard time,' Alfredo replied. ‘I've had to put up with this stubble on my chin since Sunday. I really don't think that he's running a very good business these days.'

‘I agree,' said Don Arsenio, who had joined Alfredo at the table. ‘It was very irresponsible of Bosco to shut up shop without even telling any of us. It is a barber's after all. It's an essential service. He doesn't have the right to just go off like that. It's downright irresponsible of him and I have a good mind to tell him so myself. Once he finally opens up.'

Ramon, who was sleepily crossing the plaza, late for his administrative duties yet again, saw the barber's pole out of the corner of his eye and made a mental note to go later in the day and get his hair cut. He then stopped in his tracks, realising what it meant, and gave a yelp. He went running towards the crowd of men who had gathered on Don Bosco's doorstep to find out what was going on.

‘Don Bosco has returned,' Julio replied triumphantly. ‘No thanks to you,' he added.

‘Oh no,' Ramon said, remembering the notice that the mayor had asked him to place on the shop the previous afternoon. ‘The mayor will not be pleased. He will not be pleased at all.' Ramon knew he was now in for a very difficult day at the town hall. ‘Where did you find him?' he asked, somewhat in awe of the search party. ‘Did you have to go far into the swamp? Did you see the
kachi kachi
?'

‘We went as far as we needed to go,' Teofelo said quickly.

‘Some of us', Julio replied, ‘are not afraid of the
kachi kachi
. At least we would not let it stop us from going where we need to, to find a friend. And as it happens we did see it –' and Julio was about to start a long description of how the
kachi kachi
had followed them, first in the guise of a large water rat and later as an owl, when he
was stopped mid-speech, by the door of the shop slowly opening. At first it opened only a crack, wide enough for Don Bosco to peep through and see who was waiting for him on the doorstep.

‘Come on, Bosco,' Alfredo said, ‘we aren't really going to give you a hard time for deserting us. Let's get the day started, there are plenty of beards here waiting to be trimmed.'

‘Yes, come on, Bosco,' Julio joined in. ‘We are just glad to see you back, you know that. Hurry up and open, and I hope you have the coffee brewed.' There was a hesitation behind the door, suddenly it opened wide, and someone who certainly was not Don Bosco stepped out and put a sign next to the barber's pole.

Under temporary management
, it read,
until the return of Don Bosco
. There on the doorstep, with a razor in one hand and a shaving brush in the other, stood Doña Nicanora. ‘So which of you is first?' she asked, welcoming her clientele. The men stood open-mouthed, every one of them lost for words. Never in the history of the town had such an audacious event occurred. Nicanora left them to their silence and disappeared back inside to return a minute later with Don Bosco's hat, which she placed on the barber's pole.

‘Don Bosco', Nicanora began, with as much authority as she could muster, ‘is temporarily unavailable for business. Due to personal reasons,' she added, ‘as I am sure you are all aware.' Word had spread fast across town that Don Bosco had returned, and more and more men were now gathering outside the barber's as Nicanora spoke.

‘What is
she
doing here?' one of the newcomers to the crowd shouted, astonished at the sight of Nicanora standing on the doorstep wearing Don Bosco's apron. ‘Has she gone mad?'

‘As you all know,' Nicanora said again, ‘Don Bosco is temporarily unavailable for work and has requested in his absence that I should
take care of his business. I am sure you are all very anxious to have your beards shaved. So let's get on with it. Who is first?' There was a silence in the plaza, the depths of which had never been heard before. Nicanora looked at the faces before her, and realised that this time she had gone too far.

‘Where is our barber? What have you done with him? How come you have his hat? Witch,' Don Dionisio shouted, pointing at the battered black trilby. Nicanora felt a panic rise inside her.

‘Don't be ridiculous,' she said. ‘I have done nothing with Don Bosco. He has simply asked me as a friend and neighbour to take care of his business while he is away. What is so surprising about that? Now, who is first? There are a lot of you to get through and you all look as if you need a good shave, so let's begin.'

‘How dare she,' another man shouted. ‘Teofelo, what are you going to do about it? She has stolen the key to Don Bosco's shop. We should take her to the mayor. She needs to be stopped. Witch, witch …' And the chanting man from the previous day started to try to agitate the crowd.

‘Take me to the mayor if you like,' Nicanora challenged, her indignation at the suggestion fuelling her courage. ‘Take me to the mayor and see what good that does you. For one thing you will lose your precious barber's shop for ever. You heard him yesterday. If the shop is not opened by the keyholder today then by the terms of the lease he will claim it back and you will never be able to have your beards cut again. Within a few months you will be tripping over them. Don Bosco has faithfully run this service for years and now I am taking over for a while.' And Nicanora passed to the crowd the note in Ramon's scrawled handwriting that had been pinned to the door the previous evening.

‘But you aren't the keyholder. Bosco is,' someone said.

‘I am for the time being, until Don Bosco returns. I ask you once again, who is first? Don Julio, you look as if your beard needs a trim.'

‘Witch! Liar!' Don Dionisio shouted, trying to whip the crowd into a fury. Teofelo, who had said nothing up to this point, stepped forward.

‘She is speaking the truth,' he said. ‘I was witness to it. Don Bosco did indeed leave the key with Doña Nicanora for her to look after his shop until he returns.'

‘You know where Bosco is?' Don Alfredo asked, astonished.

‘No,' Teofelo replied. ‘All I know is that he has gone on a journey because he needs a break from all of you. But he thought of you enough to ask Doña Nicanora here to kindly look after his shop while he is away.' Teofelo, who was as stunned by the scene being played out in front of him as anyone, was also beginning to enjoy the proceedings and, despite himself, was filled with admiration for Nicanora's courage.

‘He's gone on a journey because he wants to find something interesting to say,' a small voice piped up from the back of the crowd. Nicanora shot a look to silence Nena, who had stopped on her way to school to see what was happening.

‘Well,' Don Teofelo said to Nicanora sternly, the crowd parting to let him through.

‘That's right, Teofelo,' Don Dionisio egged him on. ‘You sort her out.'

‘If this is to remain a barber's shop,' he continued, loud enough for all to hear, ‘then you had better behave like a barber and start shaving.' There was silence again from the watching men.

‘No woman is going to shave my beard,' Don Dionisio said at last.

‘Well,' Teofelo said, turning to address him, ‘you had better get
used to growing it then.' The crowd looked on aghast as Teofelo stepped inside and sat himself in the barber's chair, ready for Nicanora to begin her work.

Ramon raced straight to the town hall to alert his boss to the events unfolding in the plaza. When he got there, the mayor was nowhere to be found. In his anxiety, Ramon, decided to busy himself with tidying the paperwork that had now abandoned the desk and was lying in mounds on the floor, making entry to the mayor's office a complicated procedure. Devising a fail-safe plan for cutting through the piles of letters and forms, he decided to throw away anything that was more than one month old, and he was making excellent progress, managing within the space of an hour to clear almost the entire pile.

He was so pleased with his efficiency that he had already forgotten the extraordinary events of the morning and was starting to sing with the satisfaction he was deriving from his work when his gaze was drawn to an envelope with large red lettering on it:
For the Urgent Attention of Mayor Ramirez
. Ramon froze and his stomach lurched. He looked at the date. It had been sent just under four weeks ago and was stubbornly defying his sorting system by demanding that it still be attended to. Ramon suddenly recalled having received the letter in the donkey delivery from Rosas Pampas a few days after the mayor's arrival back in town. Life had become so busy recently, what with the doctor and the Gringito, that it had quite escaped him to make sure the mayor had seen the letter. He was also reminded of the phone call he had received a few days previously in which an officious voice on the other end had informed him
that he had an urgent message for the mayor – and was then cut off before the message could be given. There was nothing to be done. Ramon opened the letter and then let out another yelp.

The mayor's house was empty. Ramon knocked on the open door and called out. There was no answer. He went round to the back and found his patron walking about the garden looking confused.

‘Señor, are you all right?' Ramon asked, and then, not waiting for a reply, added, ‘Señor, you must come quickly, there is trouble in the plaza.'

‘Not again,' the mayor replied. He sounded distracted and was not really paying attention to what Ramon was saying. He turned away, and got down on his hands and knees and started looking under a bush.

‘What's wrong, señor?' said Ramon, slightly disturbed by his patron's strange behaviour. ‘Have you lost something?' And he also got down on his knees and began to search for the lost object.

‘I can't find Gloria,' the mayor said at last, sitting back on his haunches.

‘Gloria?'

‘My wife.'

‘Do you think she is hiding under the bush?' Ramon asked.

‘I don't know,' the mayor replied. ‘I've looked everywhere. I haven't seen her since yesterday morning. You don't know where she is, do you?'

‘I don't think she's in here, señor,' Ramon replied. ‘What is wrong
with everyone? Nobody leaves town for years and then suddenly they all start disappearing.'

‘So what's going on?' the mayor asked. ‘What's the problem now?'

‘Well, it's not a problem as such,' Ramon said, trying to break the news gently.