We don’t stink any more, Shlomith says, noticing Ulrike’s gesture, because we might not be alive any more. There. Now they are getting to the point. This was Shlomith’s style. At times she could be rather un-American and spit things out without any warmup laps, and this is why they had come to the wig now: to explain the situation to Ulrike.
Originally the wig campfire had been Nina’s idea. Into Nina’s cute little head had popped the thought that they needed some reference point, some common place of refuge, so why on earth shouldn’t they create one for themselves? Whipping her arms about and slurring her R’s, Nina explained her idea. Polina was the first one to understand what Nina was actually saying: Nina was talking about the wig on Wlibgis’s head. About the unnaturally red artificial hair that suited the cancer-ravaged woman so surprisingly well. Nina glanced at it constantly but didn’t dare to say out loud that Wlibgis would have to give up her hair now. That it was what she wanted to use to make them a homey little fire, a place to gather and chat. Because weren’t all the world’s stories told around campfires once? Like about how the world was born from an egg, the horse from the sand, the foal from the foam of the sea. The wolf from a coupling of virgin and wind, iron from breasts of motherless nymphs, frost from a serpent that gave suck with no teats. Agony from stones of suffering ground against a mountain of pain. Tumors from a golden ball dragged to shore by the fox. Death from arrows carved from splinters of the World Tree. And Summer Boy brought blood! Later, when everyone has settled in properly, the noses have been blown, and the tears cried, and everyone gathers around the comforting crackle of the fireplace, the confessions begin. It’s now or never: Mom, I’m pregnant. Son, I don’t have long to live. Dad, I’m moving to Sicily. Dearest daughter, I’ve never liked women that way, not even your mother. Best friend, I’ve done something terrible, something I can’t take back. I’ve been living a lie all these years. I don’t love you any more. I love someone else. I emptied our retirement account and invested the money in stocks that crashed today . . .
Polina had stopped listening to Nina’s clumsy coaxing ages ago. She stared at Wlibgis’s hair. The tangled fibers were hypnotic, concealing an endless supply of new, blazing filaments, new burning secrets. Confessions it might be nice to listen to as a fly on the wall! Polina couldn’t imagine herself confessing, telling the others her personal business; she didn’t really have any, but she could see from the others that they did. Polina saw Shlomith explaining the reasons for her anorexia; the brutal image of femininity that had locked the poor woman in her decades-long prison. She saw Nina dishing the dirt on her relationship troubles, and Rosa Imaculada crying about the violence she had experienced. And someone had probably mistreated Maimuna too. Hadn’t they all been hurt somehow? In Polina’s vision, even mute Wlibgis burst into speech. Wlibgis, if anyone, looked like a victim, and it had nothing to do with her illness. It welled from her gaze. Polina had looked into the eyes of the dying, had seen grandeur in those eyes, resilience and self-respect, but Wlibgis’s gaze was like her dying mother’s gaze had been during her final weeks: servile, false, just playing for time. If you just visit me every day, death will stay away! That was what her mother’s gaze had communicated to her, and it was a lie.
Polina couldn’t restrain herself any more. She grabbed Wlibgis’s hair and snatched the wig from her head. There now! There’s our fire to sit around and talk! Polina thrust the wig down with all her might, and as if by magic the hair spread and began to fall slowly, drifting slightly to one side, finally coming to rest about half a meter below the soles of Polina’s feet, as handsome as a lion’s mane.
This was how, through the application of a little violence, their campfire was lit. Of course Wlibgis didn’t like the change. The others were also shocked. How could Polina act that way! And so suddenly! However, the wig was enchanting nonetheless. When they stared at it, peace spread through their minds, and concentrating was easier. The entire group began to try to appease Wlibgis as she sulked. She wouldn’t have to look at her own bald head here, Nina said. Instead, now she could see her fabulous hair in all its glory whenever she pleased, Shlomith exclaimed. Maimuna said Oooooh! and dropped to her knees to press her cheek to the hair, and Rosa Imaculada followed suit, letting out a sigh of Beleza! but did not, despite the visible bending of her knees, succeed in dropping down next to the hair.
Wlbigis looked at her choices. Either she would kick Maimuna in the head, shove her bodily away from the hair then take Nina’s hands, which were already on the wig, straightening and fluffing it, shake them loose and make herself altogether difficult, or she would give in. She decided to give in.
Ulrike lifts her nose from her armpit and looks at Shlomith, who does not avoid the girl’s bewildered gaze. On the contrary, Shlomith stares greedily at Ulrike, practically salivating for a reaction. Shock? Disbelief? A hoot of laughter? She’s already experienced it all. Everything except calm acceptance, the kind that might be expressed in a nod: fair enough, we might not be alive any more.
Ulrike looks in turn at each woman gathered around Shlomith. Did they understand what that grotesque woman had suggested to them? That they were here but that they weren’t after all? Verdammt! Was that how this bag of bones explained all of this?
That was one explanation, yes. One possible theory. Not invented by Shlomith but by arrival number two,
