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clips. Bucharest was full
of hairpieces. Even men
who hadn’t yet gone bald
preferred to wear them.
Wherever you looked, you
would only see shaved
napes, but under fezzes, fur
hats or striped shawls there
were always the hairpieces
that had driven men mad
and had changed the tastes
of women.
The merchants and the
common folk bought them
from Turkish shops and
the wealthy ordered them
in from Braşov. Doicescu,
however, had fine tastes,
those of a picky man. His
were made by Fabio the
Florentine himself who
went down in history only
for Doicescu’s hairpieces.
Manda had ordered this
headpiece just in time.
He left the hookah aside
and sipped from the coffee
which had cooled down, just
as he liked it. He casually
went back to his scalp and
felt it with his fingers to
notice, as he did every day,
how feeble it was. Then
he fixed his hairpiece with
special care to cover the
hairpin properly. The skin on
his head was almost white, a
oneday shave tobetter show
the lock of hair positioned
between the crown and
forehead like a leech made
of tar. You couldn’t say they
were real bangs, but rather
a thin band, as if a painter’s
paintbrush had passed
over once. The hairs stood
aligned over the two stripes
that crossed his forehead.
If you looked at it from the
side, the small lock seemed
like a snake’s head resting
on the snowy bald head.