On barbers, ambassadors, and capital punishment

You move to a new city, you settle down, find the supermarket, the school, a nice apartment and figure out the bus lines among these. For me, what followed this list was the bookstore, the pharmacy, a good newspaper stand, a pizzeria, and a ferramenta –the hardware shop, to get a copy of my keys-. Next on the list, when you feel you need a haircut, is the barber’s…

It had been a while since I first felt I needed a haircut, but I was a little reluctant keeping in mind the prices for a haircut and the obvious fact that I didn’t command enough of a hair stylist’s jargon in Italian to tell him my “style”.

Of course I must now say that I have no specific style, and most of the times I tell my barber to prune my unhealthy bunch of hair however he feels is aesthetically pleasing. Of course, this habit has had me leave the barber’s shop with bizarre results; nevertheless I’ve come to learn there is no style that would make me look strikingly handsome anyway.

I went to a shop which a friend had recommended and sat down waiting until my turn arrived. The barber was a cheerful and handsome man, in his forties… After he invited me to the chair and asked me how I wanted them, I told him “come Le piace, ma non molto corto…”, however you like but not too short…

Although I didn’t screw up a single word, and was confident about the grammar; he probably picked up from the stresses that I was a foreigner and asked the first question to mark the beginning of our conversation: “di dove sei?”, where are you from…

I told him I was Turkish. He had to fake he was delighted to have a Turk in his shop before pompously commenting that the Turkish ambassador was also his client. Wow… In fact he stressed the word “ambasciatore” so musically, in a way only an Italian can, that I thought our ambassador to Rome must be an important, important man.

“He is the ambassador and he sits here, I have all the razors and everything…” he went on. I laughed where I thought was appropriate and commented a simple “Sì” every now and then. In fact, I felt so discouraged by his super-fluent Roman accent; I thought I might quit trying to speak Italian once and for all.

Still, it was a nice chat, him telling the subtleties of his profession, and me responding with sì. I felt at home, looking at myself in the mirror and thinking the ambassador might have preferred this shop because somehow it reminded those in Turkey with everything it had.

Right at that moment, the notizie –the news- started airing on TV and the first story was about a child molester caught by the Italian law enforcement. The smile on my barber’s face faded, and he broke into a series of cursewords… He turned to my reflection on the mirror, saying what I suspected was “child abuser” in Italian, but my guess wasn’t confirmed until I saw a five year old blond girl on the screen, carried away in a blanket.

“Pena di morte, via” said he. Death penalty… My part of the conversation had not changed drastically, but I replied strongly this time, repeating the same word twice “sì, sì”…

I’m not a big fan of capital punishment, although at moments like those you can’t help think of the people you love, and join in on his enthusiasm. It breaks the barriers of civilizations, languages and religion, and somehow two strangers strongly feel the same desire towards the death of another.

It’s a new city, a new country, a new existence. Some of your thoughts lose credibility, while others now lack rationality. Rome has already started possessing you.

Eugene Ionesco once wrote, "Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."