The house next door

In1994 We moved back into my grandmother’s house, which seemed smaller this time, just like every time we returned. This was the house where my mother lived through her teenage years. Upstairs there were three bedrooms. I shared with my sister Arlés one that, for us, was rather boring. Twin beds, a dressing table and a night table, all pine. The house next door was supposed to be twins with ours, but it was empty, half-built and covered in bindweed and undergrowth. There were rumors about the disappearance of the owner, my sisters even said that there where ghosts there, but I never believed them.

Arlés was about twelve years at that time. Her big expressive eyes and a wide smile, that showed a crooked tooth, matched perfectly with her brown wavy hair that was almost always very messy. For her, four years older than me, it was quite obvious that our parents were the ones bringing the Christmas presents, that it was fine to bathe the cat with grandma´s shampoo and that girls in dresses can also climb trees.

I remember how we would sit in the sun on the roof of the garage to eat oranges and guavas, or how we used to climb the trees while mom and grandma were telling us to get down quickly, with trembling angry voices. Arlés showed me how to climb the wall of our backyard to get to the abandoned house next door. There we hid, we pretended to be explorers and we drew seas and castles on the naked brick walls with pieces of lime that looked like chalk. After a couple of years it was very clear for me to guess that if I couldn’t find her anywhere in the house she was probably there, waiting for me to come and find her.

HAIRCUT

I can feel my mother’s warm and fresh breath close to my face, my eyes are shut and my breathing is steady. The cold tips of the scissors are softly tickling my eyebrows, my eyelids and my forehead. I can hear my sister giggling in the background, but I can’t move.

My aunt always complained about the length of my fringe. “You look like a sheep!” she used to tell me, trying to hide laughter.  Normally I blushed in shame and drew a little smile. “When are you going to cut her fringe?” she asked my mother every month. After a few sentences I couldn’t understand, they would shake their heads looking at me and smile back. I never understood if it was a good or a bad sign.

Then, as usual and without a warning, my sister and I would sit on my mother’s dressing table with wet hair and water drops falling on our shoulders.  She would open one of the drawers and take out a pair of long silver scissors and a plastic comb. The combination of fancy and ordinary seemed odd and funny at the same time. We chat playing with our hair until she says “Now sit straight, close your eyes and don’t move”. Then it was just the sound of the scissors opening and the comb moving slowly down my forehead.

I knew the rules, I wouldn’t move, ever.