Jennifer Mackenzie is a poet and reviewer, focusing on work from and about the Asian region. She makes regular appearances at festivals and conferences, including the Ubud, Makassar and Irrawaddy Festivals. Her most recent work is ‘Borobudur and Other Poems‘ (Lontar, Jakarta 2012).
The Hairdressing Salon
It was early evening. Some of us had gone to our favourite salon, a baroque palace of plunging mirrors, marble staircases, and tiny alcoves, where secrets were whispered between staff and clientele. Many of the hairdressers had drifted into town from the city of G.; they did not confine themselves to black suits or black hair. Blonde streaks ran through long twisted locks, patterned shirts flowed over slinky pants and diamante belts. Labour was strictly divided; the men cut hair, their tools of trade lodged in jewelled cases.
M. had put on weight. He strode through the salon to an elevated platform reserved for people like him. As long as it took to have his hair cut, the staff danced to his tune. Not in any obvious way of course; more in the manner in which he was allowed to bark out orders, in the almost ceremonial arrangement of towels around his shoulders, in the way a glass of tea was swiftly placed near his large hands. This attention was not so much ostentatious as detached, a gesture bestowed without commentary or irony.
As his hands are dipped into warm paraffin wax, a rival gang is raided. As his hair is blow-dried, his enemy is being beaten to the very inch of her life. As his nails are being polished the police rush to close a particular nightclub so lucrative to Her. As he rises to take his coat, an ambulance rushes up the coast road.