The “club” that would probably once have been called a “salon” was small, although it rightly promised “hairstyle” and “shave”.
It was not luxurious in the sense of the Sonnenalp, where luxury consists of space and of technology. It was luxurious in the old way: of smells and rituals.
It smelled of soap, of alcohol, of warm water – and at the same time, very faintly, of a chemical note that immediately reminded Hans Castorp of something he had not expected down here: disinfection. As if even shaving today were a hygiene measure. Maybe it is that too. Maybe everything has become hygiene if you live in a program long enough.
A mirror hung on the wall.
It was large.
It was so large that when you look into it, you not only see yourself, but also the room behind you. Mirrors, esteemed reader, dear reader, are one of the most cruel inventions of culture: they pretend to be truth, and yet they are always interpretation. They choose angles. They choose light. They choose what they show. And one believes them because one finds it convenient to have an authority.
Above the mirror was a ring light.
Yes.
A ring light.
It hung there like a modern chandelier, like a little brother of the crystalline eye in the hotel. It did not shine warmly, not like candles, but coldly, precisely, so that every pore, every wrinkle, every hesitation becomes visible. The ring light is, if one is strict, a moral instrument: it makes visible what one would like to hide, so that one can then hide it. Visibility as the precondition of the mask.
The barber – a man of middle age, dark eyes, shiny hair, an apron that was so clean it seemed pressed itself – greeted them with that polite familiarity that service produces when it presents itself as art.
“Signore,” he said to Gustav, and the word sounded like a small rejuvenation: sir, but not old.
Gustav nodded.
He sat down in the chair.
The chair was big, black, with chrome, heavy. It looked as if you could not only cut hair on it, but destinies.
Hans Castorp did not sit down.
He remained standing.
He stood at the edge, observing.
The barber laid a cloth around Gustav, white, smooth, and the cloth lay around him like a priest’s robe. Then he tied it at the nape of the neck.
A binding at the nape of the neck, esteemed reader, dear reader, is always a symbol, whether one wants it or not. For that is where the place sits where you cannot see your head, and precisely for that reason it is so sensitive: you entrust it to another.
Gustav looked into the mirror.
He saw himself.
Hans Castorp saw how Gustav narrowed his eyes very briefly, as if he had to bring himself into focus.
“What would you like?” asked the barber, in English, because English in such situations is the neutral mask between two languages.
Gustav hesitated.
Then he said, softly:
“Order.”
The barber smiled as if he had understood.
“Order,” he repeated.
