An Unnecessary Woman

Also by Rabih Alameddine

Koolaids: The Art of War

The Perv: Stories

I, the Divine: A Novel in First Chapters

The Hakawati

Grove Press

New York

Copyright © 2013 by Rabih Alameddine

Jacket art and design by Roberto de Vinq de Cumptich

Excerpt from
Poems of Fernando Pessoa,
translated and edited by Edwin Honig and Susan M. Brown, copyright © 1986 by Edwin Honig and Susan M. Brown; reprinted by permission of City Lights Books. Excerpt from “I Sit by the Window” from
Collected Poems
in English
by Joseph Brodsky, copyright © 2000 by the Estate of Joseph Brodsky; reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Excerpt from “High Windows” from
Collected Poems
by Philip Larkin, copyright © 1988, 2003 by the Estate of Philip Larkin; reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. and Faber & Faber, Ltd. “Happiness Writes White,” from
Special Orders: Poems
by Edward Hirsch, copyright © 2008 by Edward Hirsch. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, LLC; any third-party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited; interested parties must apply directly to Random House, LLC for permission. Excerpt from
Sonnets to Orpheus
by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by M. D. Herter Norton, copyright © 1942 by W. W. Norton & Company,Inc. , renewed © 1970 by M. D. Herter Norton; used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Excerpt from
A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems
by Fernando Pessoa, translated by Richard Zenith, copyright © by Richard Zenith; reprinted by permission of SLL/Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. Poem VII, “The Keeper of Sheep,” from
A Little Larger Than The Entire Universe: Selected Poems
by Fernando Pessoa, edited and translated by Richard Zenith (Penguin Books 2006); translation copyright © Richard Zenith, 2006.

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Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-2214-8

eBook ISBN: 978-0-8021-9287-5

Grove Press

an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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To Eric, with gratitude

From my village I see as much of the universe as you can see from earth,

So my village is as big as any other land

For I am the size of what I see,

Not the size of my height.

—Fernando Pessoa as Alberto Caeiro,
The Keeper of Sheep

Perhaps reading and writing books is one of the last defences human dignity has left, because in the end they remind us of what God once reminded us before He too evaporated in this age of relentless humiliations—that we are more than ourselves; that we have souls. And more, moreover.

Or perhaps not.

—Richard Flanagan,
Gould’s Book of Fish

The cure for loneliness is solitude.

—Marianne Moore, from the essay

“If I Were Sixteen Today”

Don Quixote’s misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.

—Franz Kafka,
Dearest Father: Stories and Other Writings

You could say I was thinking of other things when I shampooed my hair blue, and two glasses of red wine didn’t help my concentration.

Let me explain.

First, you should know this about me: I have but one mirror in my home, a smudged one at that. I’m a conscientious cleaner, you might even say compulsive—the sink is immaculately white, its bronze faucets sparkle—but I rarely remember to wipe the mirror clean. I don’t think we need to consult Freud or one of his many minions to know that there’s an issue here.

I begin this tale with a badly lit reflection. One of the bathroom’s two bulbs has expired. I’m in the midst of the evening ritual of brushing my teeth, facing said mirror, when a halo surrounding my head snares my attention. Toothbrush in right hand still moving up and down, side to side, left hand reaches for reading glasses lying on the little table next to the toilet. Once atop my obtrusive nose they help me see that I’m neither a saint nor saintly but more like the Queen Mother—well, an image of the Queen Mother smudged by a schoolgirl’s eraser. No halo this, the blue anomaly is my damp hair. A pigment battle rages atop my head, a catfight of mismatched contestants.

I touch a still-wet lock to test the permanency of the blue tint and end up leaving a sticky stain of toothpaste on it. You can correctly presume that multitasking is not my forte.

I lean over the bathtub, pick up the tube of Bel Argent shampoo I bought yesterday. I read the fine print, squinting even with the reading glasses. Yes, I used ten times the amount prescribed while washing my hair. I enjoy a good lather. Reading instructions happens not to be my forte either.

Funny. My bathroom tiles are rectangular white with interlocking light blue tulips, almost the same shade as my new dye. Luckily, the blue isn’t that of the Israeli flag. Can you imagine? Talk about a brawl of mismatched contestants.

Usually vanity isn’t one of my concerns, doesn’t disconcert me much. However, I’d overheard the three witches discussing the unrelenting whiteness of my hair. Joumana, my upstairs neighbor, had suggested that if I used a shampoo like Bel Argent, the white would be less flat. There you have it.

As I understand it, and I might be wrong as usual, you and I tend to lose short wavelength cones as we age, so we’re less able to distinguish the color blue. That’s why many people of a certain age have a bluish tint to their hair. Without the tint, they see their hair as pale yellow, or possibly salmon. One hairstylist described on the radio how he finally convinced this old woman that her hair was much too blue. But his client still refused to change the color. It was much more important that she see her hair as natural than the rest of the world do so.

I’d probably get along better with the client.

I too am an old woman, but I have yet to lose many short wavelength cones. I can distinguish the color blue a bit too clearly right now.