Gorgeous Beauty "Saloon"(Part 2 of 2)
Second and final part of the short story.
Gorgeous Beauty "Saloon"(Part 2 of 2)
….continuing from Part 1
The fifth time I saw Manjeet…
Manjeet looked at me as I stood there speechless. I pointed to my eyebrows. She motioned me to one of the swivel chairs, tilted me back and began threading my eyebrows. The one end of the thread in her mouth meant she couldn’t talk. I had the feeling she wasn’t going to say much anyway. And that Mr. Kumar was not taking instructions from her anymore.
***
The sixth time I saw Manjeet was three months later. I was back for a longer visit. My father came home from the hospital and passed on. Two weeks after completing his death rituals, my mother encouraged me to go to Manjeet’s salon to “get a facial or something, to feel better.” So I went. It was early and the salon had just opened. No other client was there.
When I entered, Manjeet wasn’t there. I assumed she was in the back. Mr Kumar was sitting upfront, laughing at a raucous video he was watching on his phone. One of the girls came forward, smiling in recognition.
“Eyebrows,” I said.
She asked me to sit down in one of the tiltable, swivel chairs.
“Where's Manjeet?” I asked as she tilted me back.
“Too lazy to come in on time these days,” quipped Mr Kumar, speaking to me directly for the first time. But he wasn’t looking at me. I stiffened at his insolence. The girl about to thread my eyebrows wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Manjeet works hard,” I protested, trying to sound stern.
“Just joking, didi,” said Mr. Kumar, and laughed.
The girl tittered. I wanted to walk out saying I'll come back when Manjeet is back, but I stayed put. No need for drama, I told myself. This was Manjeet’s place after all. I would tell her though, I resolved.
***
The seventh time I saw her was four months later. The front of the salon was spruced up with fresh paint. It had a new board, which now read “Kumar’s Gorgeous Beauty Saloon”.
Was Manjeet’s last name Kumar as well? No, it was Singh.
I took a deep breath and entered. And there she was, bending over a customer’s eyebrows. She saw me and gave me a feeble smile.
Mr. Kumar was seated behind a shiny new counter. He’d grown a pot belly. He looked at me this time. “Eyebrows?”
I ignored him and looked at Manjeet and nodded. She looked at him. And he signaled to one of her girls.
“I’ll wait for Manjeet,” I said. “Sorry,” I mouthed to the girl.
Mr. Kumar shrugged and went back to his phone.
I looked at Manjeet, puzzled. She was so thin—and so very pregnant! What is this! Her husband is dead. Is she seeing someone?
Soon Manjeet came over, led me to an empty chair, leaned me back and stared into my eyes. She must have seen my panic because she held my gaze for a second, then pulled the thread off its spool, put one end into her mouth and started to work on my eyebrows. I didn’t trust myself to say anything.
Finally I blurted, “Congrats!” motioning towards her expectant belly.
She nodded, tried to smile. Her eyes looked so empty. Soon I was done and paid.
As I was leaving a man entered. He stood grinning before Mr. Kumar.
“Haircut please, Kumar ji! Thought of a name for the baby boy?”
I looked back to see Mr. Kumar nodding. Both men looked over at Manjeet. She was looking intently for something inside a box but I knew she wasn’t looking for anything. I tore myself away and left.
***
The eighth time was three months later. My mother, alone now, was aging even more rapidly. I was visiting her every few months, still pretending she’d come out of her grief to make a full recovery.
I made an appointment at Manjeet’s parlor. Mostly I wanted to know how Manjeet was doing. She wasn't pregnant anymore. I could smell the usual baby smells. When she saw me she brought it out to me. A little girl, swaddled in her cotton blanket, fast asleep.
She cooed to her, “See aunty. Say hello.”
The little girl opened her eyes just barely, then closed them again. Manjeet was smiling. Still thin and haggard but perhaps happier, I told myself. Just then a scooter horn sounded outside. Manjeet stiffened, hugging her daughter close. Minutes later Mr. Kumar appeared. He nodded to me, then looked at Manjeet.
“Need 3500 rupees.”
“I only have enough for supplies here.”
“Give me whatever you have”
“I have to order wax and...”
“Shut up! Give me the money.”
The man had zero concern that I was standing right there. Manjeet handed the baby to one of the girls, went to the till and counted out the money. She handed it all to him. He left.
I stared at her.
“Manjeet? What’s going on?”
She cut me off. “He’s my husband. My daughter’s father.”
Then she motioned me to a chair. I sat down with a thud and she proceeded to thread my eyebrows. Her eyes looked dead. The thread broke many times. She finally spat it all out and barked at one of the girls to take over.
I didn’t see her for the rest of the visit although I could hear her coo-ing at her baby behind the curtain.
***
The ninth time I saw Manjeet was in the local paper. In the photo, she was standing flanked by two women cops under the headline, “Noida woman burns down own business.” There was a picture of the inside of the salon in shambles, burnt, black. The report alleged she was accused of arson after a “domestic dispute”. In the photo her hair was awry and she had a black eye. She was looking directly at the camera. Same dead eyes I’d seen the last time.
***
The tenth and final time I saw her was when I went to visit her in jail a couple of days later. The inspector wanted to know if I was kin. I lied to his stupid face.
“I’m her cousin—her Masi's daughter.”
He looked me over, and nodded. In such places, where ideally more questions should be asked, markers of a higher socioeconomic class—divined entirely from attire and diction of language—can get you a free pass.
Manjeet didn’t smile nor look shocked when she saw me.
I sat down, mumbled, “What happened?”
“He can’t take that away from me.”
“And your daughter?”
“She’s with my sister. He didn’t want a girl anyway. Started telling me to spend less time with her. Said I wasn’t bringing in enough from the salon. At least, she’ll not grow up watching her mother being beaten every day.”
I asked her if she had a good lawyer. “You could fight this. Get out, get a divorce?”
She shook her head. “My daughter is safe. I’m better off here, away from him. Outside, he’ll kill me if he can’t make me work for him. Now he can prey on someone else. It’s OK didi. This is how it is for women like me. Khoti kismet.”
This was the first time she’d called me didi. It means elder sister, but is used causally, without much meaning. I knew she meant it. I put my hand on hers. We sat together for a few more minutes. Then I left.
***
I never saw Manjeet again. When my mother passed suddenly, I rushed back to India in shell shock. After completing her last rites, I felt like a banished soul in the city of my birth, a part of me torn out, my home in India lost forever.
For days, I wandered about bereft, my mother’s driver driving me places for no good reason. One day, I found myself back at the shabby market. The shabby building had been razed to the ground.
“After the fire, the building was not safe for anyone,” someone said.
As I stood staring at the empty lot, part of me hoped I’d see one of Manjeet’s assistants so I could ask them for the whole story. But I never did.
How could you lose someone so suddenly, so completely, without notice?
That’s the thing with India and its teeming millions. Fewer than ten encounters with someone and you could find yourself in an unnamed relationship, just enough to torture you for a lifetime, yet not enough that you could do anything about it.
~~~
THE END
—reena kapoor
About this story…
I hope you liked that story! Do tell me.
It’s a work of fiction, but it’s loosely based on people I met in India on my incessant trips there over the past decade. From there, imagining what the life trajectory of some of people may have been, this story arrived in bits, first as a 100-word micro tale and then as a full-fledged one.
The older 100-word story is here. Yes, I renamed the “saloon” and its owner.
A piece of good news!
This story (only Part 1 submitted) received an “Honorable Mention” from Top in Fiction on Substack for last week. You can listen/watch here:
And…THANK YOU!
Because I don’t say that enough. Thank you for being here, for reading even if quietly, for giving you time, your eyes and your minds and (I hope) hearts to my words. Your attention is precious in innumerable ways. I do not for a minute forget you could be spending your time elsewhere.
I just want to say that ALL your comments, responses, reactions, even annoyed complaints that I sometimes split my stories, are my reward. They really do make my day, which is why I respond to each one. It means that much! So please do send me a quick note, email, message, text, smoke signal, messenger pigeon…whatever works, whenever you can. AND please share with your friends and family too.
My ONLY goal for my words is to have as many people read as possible!
Hi Reena, thanks for engrossing me in this short story so firmly.
Was going to say "liked" but it is so sad; aspirations dashed and male ascendant control and theft and more abuse.
And interwoven with other themes, not to mention huge pay gap for same and probably better services ( US to India), and class gap, and at the same time, the tellers own losses and things.
Wonder how far you had to seach for narrative ?
And as I have said before , a fan of Rudyard Kipling, esp his short stories.
But also of Guy de Maupassant, and his often pithy and poignant short ones.
Listening to v cool jazz playlist on Spottily from two Haitian born Montrealiennes (hope a true word, but think it is); duo called Bel and Quinn, who also post on Substack singly and under Not Twin Sisters.
Check them out. If trouble finding , I can send link, I think.
It’s a fiction but sounds so believable , so many woman have such heart breaking stories and fate!! It is written so well I can just imagine the salon and Manjit bending over to thread your eyebrows.