Carl and Gerlinde (Instalment No 47)
Yes, indeed – there were areas where Carl was displaying truly unshakable stability! Mind you, I am not only talking his favourite beer, the hazy Glaabsbräu, or his hair tonic, or the much-loved Nivea Cream he puts on his skin on a daily basis – no, he also was religiously faithful when it came to his dentist and his French Baguette from the Briegel Bakery – and the same was true for the TRIGA underwear, the Davidoff Small Cigars and the Falke Socks – and, of course, his hairdresser Florian Breitschuh!
This last was the easiest to understand, because whenever twelve weeks had gone by, Carl would go and see Herrn Breitschuh at the hair studio ’Haargenau’ and have his magnificently growing head of hair shortened: it was something he had been doing for thirty-seven years now!
In fact, the ever bolder grey hair growing randomly in his nose and ears now shortened the ’twelve-weeks-period’ that had been his habit for decades. But then, Carl took this fact with serenity, because having his hair cut by Florian Breitschuh had never been a burden. In fact, it had always been a welcome ’relaxing break’ in his otherwise stress-burdened daily work life.
Of course, Carl was secretly happy that said wild growth of hair inside his nose and ears was restricted to those areas, instead of starting to grow all over his breast or even shoulder blades: after all, Gerlinde always showed unmistakable signs of revulsion whenever she saw a male human with animal-like hairy shoulders in the public swimming pool or sauna. In fact, on these occasions she even had to take extra pains to restrict her compulsively starting ’faecal linguistic eruption’ to a reasonable dimension and make it socially acceptable; naturally, this was a life-saving hint for Carl when it came to how he needed to control his hirsuteness!
But the thing Carl appreciated most about Florian Breitschuh was his taciturnity
With the exception of a short welcome, there was no unnecessary word spoken between him and Carl. And, in particular, there was never any exhausting talk about vacations, the impending climate catastrophe or the ever more threatening refugee situation.…
No – Carl and Florian Breitschuh were always silent during their ’hair cutting activities’!
But still, there was one comment Carl never refrained from: as soon as he sat down and had the barber’s cape around his neck, he smiled at the mirrored image of Florian Breitschuh and sonorously said:
“Two Centimetres“!
After this verbal tsunami, Carl would usually close his eyes and not open them again until the sweetly soft bristles of the Breitschuh hairbrush would indicate that the ’hair-splittingly precise’ end of the haircut was reached, at the same time brushing away everything that might threaten to tickle Carl’s ears, nose, shoulders, neck or collar.
At the very moment when the Breitshuh hairbrush would make its last fanning movement was always the time when Carl opened his eyes and saw in the mirror, admittedly with less enthusiasm as the years went by, his freshly styled, grey ’two-centimetre top hair face’!
Subsequently, a short left and right rotation would suffice before he would, with a hardly noticeable nod, show Florian Breitschuh for the hundred-and-fortieth time how absolutely satisfied he was with the result! Florian would then acknowledge this with a subtle smile and a bow only recognizable for those who knew.
So why did he now have to cope with this absolutely unbelievable event that was beyond all rationality?
What a monster was suddenly looking back at Carl when, as usual, he opened his eyes full of confidence after the haircut was finished.
Was this balding head really E.T. the extra-terrestrial? Or maybe it was one of those millions of pitiable cancer patients who nowadays were never missing from a TV series? Or was it Satan in person bashfully grinning back at him from the hairdresser’s mirror?
Hm – Carl growled and tentatively looked at all angles – then again at the face looking at him just as hesitantly from the opposite side – just like he were currently fleeing from somewhere…
“Hey“, Carl yelled, now a little louder: “who is this?“
After all, it was a fact that he himself was sitting at the hairdressers’, which he spontaneously remembered; but no other familiar face could be seen anywhere. Only this strange guy behind the mirror who seemed to stare out and be totally perplexed …
And when Carl asked him who he was, he laughed and said: “I am your wife’s hairdresser, young man! Incidentally, she sent you to see me, since your hairdresser broke his arm!“
“And ?“.
“Well – nothing “and”! I explicitly asked you again when you were sitting in my chair after you had said ’2 Millimetres’. To which question all your impolite reply was that you did not like repeating yourself. Then you closed your eyes. So I went to work. With the machine!“
“Hm”, Carl said yet one more time. Then he remarked that, luckily, he was not vain.
On his way back home, however, he came to the irrevocable decision that he had to call in sick for the next two weeks: his secretary Bettina, as well as Miriam Braun would get crying fits on seeing him like this.
Even his boss Dr. Osterkorn, would probably advise him to not see any customers for the next six weeks. And he would call his Gerlinde immediately and propose a four-week vacation in Iceland. After all, she had pestered him about going there forever and he had always succeeded in avoiding it because there was nothing in the world he hated he hated more all this rain and cold climate.
But if you wore a suitable cap, such weather capriciousness was not at all a problem, was it? Why had he not thought of this earlier? Wasn’t it strange?
Yes – perhaps he should immediately buy the right cap and surprise Gerlinde? Why not? After all, Nicki Lauda also wore one of them …
KH
(Translated by EG)
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