Gjuvezia Dubrovska grabbed her hand and tried to straighten it, but she felt sweat and moisture in her palm as if she held cold mud and silt.
– What is wrong with you, Gjuvezia Dubrovska repeated, you are all wet.
– I am afraid, repeated Sija Hadjibanova. I’m scared of you, too, she repeated frantically. Her whole body was pulsating like clockwork.
– Calm down, said Gjuvezia Dubrovska, fear is just an unconscious feeling.
– What did the potter do to you, asked Sija Hadjibanova.
– Nothing, said Gjuvezia, cut my hair a little bit.
– Maybe that’s why I’m afraid, said Sija Hadjibanova.
– But he cut mine off, said Gjuvezia Dubrovska.
– That’s why I’m afraid of you, too, said Sija Hadjibanova.
– But, Gjuvezia Dubrovska began but did not finish the sentence. Actually, she didn’t want to hear the answer. The fear Sija Hadjibanova showed began slowly to take over Gjuvezia Dubrovska as well. It gnawed at her like smallpox, like a horsefly. She suddenly felt cheated and robbed. Although she was aware that hair was being cut and shaved, she now understood it all as taking away a part of her head. And she began to touch her head part by part and to look for that scar that the potter made her.
2.
When she returned home, she already believed that she had little more than a strand of hair left in Avanos and that she had come home completely empty. And once again something started to buzz in her head. Something like the wind when it enters a forest, among dry leaves. Good Lord, she said to herself, did the hair loosing catch my head? Maybe the potter’s hand was dirty, she thought, and maybe his scissors were. And she began to itch above her forehead, behind her ears, on her crown. Under her fingernails, the skin was itchy, but she didn’t itch. It was as if she was scratching someone else’s head. But when she looked at her hands, she couldn’t believe her eyes: whole tufts of hair were wrapped around her fingers. As on a ridge, as on a rake. And then a flame flew up to her, she was all startled. She shouted:
– Mother, come and see!
– What should I see, asked her mother.
– I have something on my head…
– Don’t be fools, her mother said to her.
– It’s true, says Gjuvezia Dubrovska, I also hear the sound. It’s like a snail is grazing me like a caterpillar is crawling on me. That’s how it sounds in my head, she said.
– Your head is buzzing, said her mother.
– Look, said Gjuvezia Dubrovska, opening her hands.
– What made you pull out your hair, you fool?
– Someone else is pulling it from me, said Gjuvezia Dubrovska.
– I don’t see anything, said her mother.
– I don’t see anything either, Gjuvezia Dubrovska said, but I hear. Some disease has climbed onto my head, and I hear the movement of the hairs.
– It will pass, said her mother – there is no muddy water ever that was not clear.
– This is not going away, said Gjuvezia Dubrovska. I’m already afraid to touch my head. My hair drips with every touch. It’s like dew dripping on me, he says.
– Well, since when?
– I don’t know, said Gjuvezia Dubrovska, since yesterday, since the day before. And maybe it all started in Avanos after a potter took a hair from my head. Since then, something has kept whispering to me: when do you want to die, and how long do you want to die? And where do you want your life to continue after your death? And I know that man dies all his life. As soon as she is born, she begins to die, said Gjuvezia Dubrovska.
Her mother stood over her and listened dumbfounded.
It seemed to her that she had raised a high temperature and was talking with no sense. When she came to her senses, she just asked:
– Well, what made you nuts to let your hair cut?
– The potter said Gjuvezia Dubrovska. He told me: here you will be eternal, always alive. And after a hundred, and after a thousand years. This hair will always defend you and always testify for you. It will never turn gray and grow old.
– May God save and protect her, said her mother, you let her out into the world, and she returns to you without a brain. How did you allow yourself to be sheared like a sheep, she whined and covered his mouth. She scolded herself for what she said. And she, personally, did not know how those mischievous words that were so close to a curse and a hex escaped from her mouth. She would have never raised her voice like that. She felt sorry and wept. I should cry for you, Mother, said Gjuvezia Dubrovska and got up, and hugged her. And then both embraced like that, they cried together.
Gjuvezia Dubrovska’s time was long and painful. Her days passed in suffering, and her nights in long sleeplessness. And when she managed to fall asleep, she had horrible dreams. Her head was constantly in the hands of the potter. He kneaded it into the clay, spun it on the potter’s wheel, and made various shapes out of it. It was horrible to see him move her mouth to her forehead, her eyes to the nape of her neck, and her ears to her throat. And then, with one quick grip on the thumb, he puts them back in their place. Then he put her in the oven along with all the clay pots. And when she felt too hot, she would wake up with frightened eyes covered in cold sweat. She was telling the dream to her mother, but her mother did not know what to do. She prayed to God for help, and, she went to all hospitals. But the dermatologists too, were also surprised and confused: each of them determined a different diagnosis and each prescribed a different medicine. The root of the hair has to be awakened – they said – the soil should be improved. As if it were a melon garden, a vegetable garden. They removed the fats from her diet and added vitamins and minerals. And she took everything they gave her and smeared herself with everything they told her, but there was no improvement. The rust was still on her head: it was digging, plucking, working, and not stopping, not moving from there. And time was rushing, rushing so fast. In the end, the doctors also began raising their shoulders. They said it’s some insidious hair disease eating away at the root. Some unknown parasites, some larva, fungus, something…