Life_ An Exploded Diagram - Mal Peet [83]
“Good evening, my fellow citizens,” he began.
A hundred million of them were listening or watching. He told them about the missiles on Cuba and how they could fly mass death as far north as Canada and as far south as Peru. He told them how the Russians had lied through their teeth about what they were doing, how they’d insisted they were merely aiding the Cubans with defensive systems. He told them that if World War II had taught us anything, it was that letting military aggression go unchallenged would lead inevitably to war. Even so, Kennedy said, the U.S. would not “prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of a worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth.” Then he announced the “quarantine” and close surveillance of the military buildup in Cuba. He declared (in politer language than mine) that if any missile of any sort were launched from Cuba, America would blow the Soviet Union to kingdom come. He addressed Khrushchev personally, urging him to move the world back from the abyss of destruction. He spoke to the people of Cuba, that “imprisoned island.” He was their friend, but their leaders were Soviet puppets. He assured them that one day soon they would be free. Then he mentioned God and said good night. And all around the world, newsrooms went crazy.
BUSINESS WAS SLACK, so Albert Scott had got himself comfortable in his barber’s chair with a cup of tea and the Daily Sketch. When his door pinged, he sighed and folded the paper; getting to his feet, he was most surprised to discover that his customers were Enoch and Amos Hoseason.
Enoch took the chair first, filling it with his bulk. Albert bibbed him and cranked the chair up a little. Amos sat stiffly against the back wall, flaring his nostrils slightly at the Babylonian aromas of Brylcreem and cheap cologne.
Albert, without pleasure, regarded his client’s hair, which was long and thick and none too clean. It gave off a whiff of old fireplaces and something rodenty.
“So, how would you like it, Enoch?”
“Off.”
“Pardon?”
Hoseason took a last look at himself in the mirror, then closed his eyes.
“All off. Hair and beard. Clean shaved all over. Make me like unto a newborn babe.”
Albert laughed uncertainly. “You want me to shave yer head, Enoch?”
“Thas what I said.”
“Well, I . . . Bleddy wars, Enoch. Newborn babies hev some hair. Most of ’em.”
Hoseason said nothing further. In the mirror he looked peaceful, like the severed head of John the Baptist resting on a napkin. Albert turned and looked at Amos.
“And will you be wantun the same?”
“I will, indeed.”
Albert puffed out his cheeks and rubbed his bald spot. Then he went through the shop and locked the front door. He turned the OPEN sign the other way around. When he returned, Amos asked him a question with his eyes.
“This’ll take some time,” Albert said. “Ent no point other customers sittun here waitun.”
This was not his reason. What he’d been asked to do was not barbering; it was barbarism. Albert didn’t want anyone coming in and catching him at it.
When he’d scissored Hoseason’s head to a stubbled knob and covered it with a hot towel, and while he was stropping the cutthroat razor, Albert said, “So, Enoch, what d’yer make of this here Cuba business, then?”
Hoseason possessed neither radio nor television, considering both to be mouthpieces of Satan. And many months had passed since he’d read anything other than the Holy Scriptures.
Without opening his eyes, he said, “What Cuba business?”
Janice Pitcher was minding the newsagent’s shop while Arnold, her father, took his afternoon nap. Like him, she was myopic and wore thick circular spectacles that gave her the appearance of a startled carp. So when the two dark-suited strangers came in, she thought at first that they were both wearing tight-fitting white bathing caps. It occurred to her (she was partial to crime novels) that armed robbers might adopt such a disguise. Her hand moved slightly