My Body in Nine Parts (2 page)

So that day, the day I was so depressed, and saying that I was going to give up everything, even writing, Erica said,
Take off your shirt and your pants, and sit on this chair. I'll be right back
.

Astonished by this sudden command, in the middle of the day, I sat on the chair in my underwear, wondering what she was going to do to me. And here she comes, joyfully hopping back, still fully dressed, with a comb in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. And before I can even object or argue, she starts cutting. I give in.

Why bother resisting? Depressed as I was, let her cut it all, let her shave my head if she wants to. Let my hair go to hell. Who cares.

Okay, so not to keep you in suspense any longer. When Erica had finished clipping my hair on all sides, she said,
Go look at yourself in the mirror
.

I go to the bathroom without much enthusiasm, and I look into the mirror. At first, I do not recognize myself. And suddenly I burst into laughter. Erica comes in.
Well, what do you think?
She has a lovely smile on her face. A reassuring smile.

I look like Julius Caesar
, I say.
You gave me an imperial hair cut
. I lean towards the mirror staring at myself. I burst into laughter again. I examine my new hair cut. From the front. From the side. In profile. With a little mirror in my hand looking at the back of the head in the big mirror over the sink.
Not bad. Damn good. Makes me look younger. Don't you think so? Bolder too. I mean more virile
. I suddenly felt. I couldn't stop laughing.

And you know what? I have not stopped laughing since that day when Erica cut my hair Roman style, since the day she changed the direction of my hair forward. Now I could cover half my forehead with my hair, up to where it used to grow when I was younger.

It's also on that memorable day that I understood how I had to write the noodle novel. Straight forward in mad laughter, without worrying about what was left behind, simply projecting myself into the story without worrying about what would happen, or would not happen. That day I invented the leap-frog technique. Better known as
Laughterature
.

Well, I'm not going to bother you now describing in detail how little by little my hair changed color, from black to grey to white. The reason was the noodle novel. What I was writing day after day continued to cancel itself as I progressed, or regressed, I should perhaps say. And this was certainly the cause of the discoloring of my hair.

But at least now my hair no longer depresses me. I rather like it, even though there is less and less of it, and it's more and more white.

Today I saw my hair fall out. I saw it with my own eyes. I had just taken a shower. I was drying my hair with a towel. Gently rubbing my skull. Then leaning over the sink, I shook it well with my fingers to make it more loose, more supple, and that's when I saw 4 hairs, yes 4, fall from my head one after another into the sink.

I didn't panic. I just told myself, now I have 4 hairs less on my head. Or should I have said I have 4 less hairs.

I reflected. If I were to calculate how many hairs I have on my head right now, and if I were to divide that number by the number of showers I take each year, on the basis of these 4 fallen hairs, could I determine when I will be totally bald?

Of course, one would have to know when this loss of hair first occurred.

Today is May 15, 2003. My birthday. And it is today that, for the first time, I noticed this loss of 4 hairs after my shower.

Normally, I take a shower every day, without fail. Unless, of course, something unexpected prevents it. A water shortage. A broken pipe. Or just plain laziness. At most I may miss half a dozen daily showers a year.

In the summer, when it's really hot, I often take 2 or 3 showers a day. And sometimes during the night I take an extra quick shower to wash away the nocturnal sweat.

A few years ago, when I traveled in Africa, near the Equator, in the middle of the summer, it was so hot and humid, I had to shower at least 6 or 7 times a day.

[For details about my travels in Africa see
Federman From A to X-X-X-X.
]

To these regular showers one must add the necessary cooling showers one takes in the course of a year after an active
aventure jouissive
, to put it in the Gallic way.

So, let us calculate. 365 daily showers each year. 366 if it's a leap year. To this I must add approximately 150 supplementary showers, to round it off, give or take a few more or a few less here and there, which gives us a grand total of 515 showers per year.

515 showers in a year. Sounds reasonable.

Assuming I lose 4 hairs after each shower, I can now determine how many hairs have left my head in one year. All I have to do is multiply the 4 falling hairs by the number of showers …

Oh, what a scary thought! Suppose it's more than 4 hairs each time? Suppose the number of falling hairs is irregular. More one day, less the next.

No, let's not panic, let us remain calm, and accept the 4 hairs per shower as a constant.

4 hairs less here, 4 hairs more there will not make much difference in calculating the future state of my baldness.

So if I multiply these 4 hairs by the number of showers taken during the year we arrive at …

One moment, let me get my little calculator.

515 × 4 = 2060.

How frightening. Each year I lose 2060 hairs. 2064, when it's a leap year.

As I noted above in
MY HAIR
, I felt the beginning of this loss of hair when I turned 40, which caused me a great depression. I first felt [notice, I am not saying saw, but felt] this vexing loss of hair [yes, vexing is a better term than embarrassing] while combing my hair after a shower. It was on May 15, 1968. I remember the exact feeling. On my birthday.

Erica and I had gone out to play tennis, doubles with friends. We were both good tennis players back then, and still are, though not as agile. Now we prefer golf.

After the tennis match I took a shower before getting dressed to go out for a fancy gourmet dinner to celebrate my birthday and Erica's beauty. Wow was she gorgeous then. And still is. But there was something special, something irresistible about the combination of blue eyes and black hair, more striking than the blue eyes and blond hair she now sports. Although that combination is also irresistible. But I am digressing.

While combing my hair after the shower, I felt that it was not as dense, not as thick as before. Hard to determine when before was, I mean when I did not feel that my hair was thinner, but that day, on my birthday, after tennis, I did feel that perhaps I was starting to lose hair.

I did not see any hair fall that day, nor the following days, nor the following months, nor the following years. It was not until today, May 15, 2003, on my birthday again, 35 years later, that I first witnessed 4 hairs fall from my head.

I wish I had taken a picture of those 4 miserable hairs mocking me in the sink. Or even preserved them for future reference.

The coincidence of these two birthdays, 35 years apart – the first when I became aware that my hair was getting thinner, the second when I witnessed for the first time hairs falling from my head – may be an important factor in determining the exact date of my future baldness. Or in the words of the prophet:
Tui vestri capilli sunt numerati
.

I wasn't dejected today when I saw these 4 hairs fall. I felt amused. But then I remembered how sad, how panicky I was when I first noticed that my hair was getting thinner on May 15, 1968, when I turned 40, thirty-five years ago.

Or perhaps it was not on my birthday, but the day after when I became conscious of my hair getting thinner. Whatever. The same day or the day after doesn't make much difference in how I felt.

It was late that evening, after a turbulent day in the streets of Paris … yes the day after my birthday, now I remember. That day I was in front of the Sorbonne shouting slogans with the students against the cops, against the bourgeois, against
la société mercantile
, against the crooked politicians. Remember, May ‘68 at the Sorbonne. I was there, yes I was there participating in the rebellion.

Late that night, even though still exhilarated by the excitement of the demonstration and the violence that it incited, feeling somewhat out of place, and out of time among the kids, as we older intellectuals called them, I sensed a little depression coming on when back in our apartment, rue Jacob, I looked at myself in the mirror, and while passing my fingers through my hair, it suddenly hit me, and I screamed:
Féderman, tu te déplumes!

[Erica and I were spending the year in France, on a generous Guggenheim Fellowship, but that's another story.]

Already asleep when I came in, Erica woke up when she heard me scream, and exclaimed,
Oh! it's you? How was the revolution? Did you get hit on the head by the cops' convulsive clubs?

Erica thought it was infantile of me to go out that day and play the hero on the barricades in front of the Sorbonne, especially the day after my 40th birthday.

So, instead of participating in what she called
that pathetic childish weekend revolution
, she went to see the movie
Smiles on Sunset Boulevard
. A sappy love story about a French writer who falls in love with an American movie star with whom he only exchanged smiles.

When Erica told me which movie she saw, I told her I thought it was a terrible adaptation of a rather good novel by Namredef. The actor who plays the part of the French writer was too old, and the actress who plays the American movie star was too young. Not at all like the two lovers in the book. In the book by Namredef, the young man is just a lost soul, penniless, futureless, unrecognized, but in the movie they made him into a famous writer, and the girl, even though in the book she's older than the young man, they made her into an insipid blonde Hollywood starlet. The movie was a flop.

I don't understand why you wanted to see that movie
, I told Erica.
So many good flicks playing right now in Paris. In version originale. Like Terminator Zero. Or Rambo 17. Or Duck You Sucker by Sergio Leone
.

Who is asking you to give me a film seminar in the middle of the night
, Erica mumbled, while yawning,
I just wanted to know why you woke me up with your screaming? What's wrong? Did you get hurt? Did you have a heart attack?

No
, I said meekly, standing naked in front of her, holding my hair brush in my hand,
I just felt that I am losing hair
.

Just now? Big deal. That's why you woke me up. I've been watching your hair fall for a long time already. But don't worry it's a slow process, and you've got plenty of it left on your dumb kopf
, Erica said, and she went back to sleep.

Back in the bathroom, I examined my hair more closely. Felt it with my fingers. I looked at it from all sides, from behind in the mirror of the bathroom by holding a little mirror in front of my face. The hair looked normal. The same as the day before. But still, that night it felt as if I had less hair on my head. And that caused the depression.

I didn't cry. I just felt sad, because suddenly I realized how much I love my hair, how much I have loved it since the day when I discovered, at the age of 13, how useful hair can be in certain social and sentimental situations.

I must tell you more about that day in ‘68, when I first felt that my hair was no longer as thick, as full as before. It was a crucial day in my life. The beginning of my future total baldness. Please, excuse the detour, but I think it's relevant.

Early that morning, after a quick croissant and a cup of
café filtre
, I rushed to the Sorbonne to participate in the student revolution.

The fact that this revolution failed as soon as it started is of little consequence here in relation to my hair. Except that it was on the day when
la pitoyable petite révolution des étudiants avait foiré
, as Erica put it, that I realized my hair was getting thinner.

That day, I stood among the long-haired-bearded-loudmouth kids in the streets of Paris shouting slogans against those who were trying to take away our
liberté
our
égalité
our
fraternité
, against those who were sending children to their deaths in the Far East, against those who ate too much, against those who masturbated with gloves on, against those who didn't like loud music, against those who didn't let us smoke the good sweet stuff that took us where we wanted to be, way up in the clouds, far far away from the fucked up reality of those we then called
Les Squares
. Yes, I was there that day, in the middle of the revolution.

It was a perfect day for my mood. You know the kind of day which starts joyfully and ends gloomily. We were throwing bottles at the Flics, we were cursing them, writing obscene slogans on the walls of the Sorbonne.

I wrote this one:
Les structures ne descendent pas dans la rue pour baiser avec nous
. I was deep into
Structuralism
in those days.

Yes, it was one of those days that feels good to be alive in the morning, but feels shitty in the evening when one contemplates one's future baldness.

The kind of day that makes you feel like reciting to yourself sad lines of poetry:

I can even tell you the exact time when I felt this loss of hair, and recited these lines from
Le cimetière marin
de Paul Valéry, while looking at myself in the mirror, and feeling my hair with my fingers.

It was past midnight when finally the kids in front of the Sorbonne decided they had had enough of the convulsive hits on the head they had taken from the convulsive clubs of the cops, and they dispersed. As I was running away from the Sorbonne, up Boulevard St. Germain, I felt my skull bleeding. Holding my hand on top of my head, I ran all the way to rue Jacob. I was drenched in sweat when I finally got home. It's quite a long way from the Sorbonne, but I ran all the way.