How Should a Person Be by Sheila Heti

How Should a Person Be by Sheila Heti

Author:Sheila Heti
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780887842405
Publisher: Henry Holt
Published: 2010-01-01T05:00:00+00:00


• chapter 3 •

ANTHONY AND URI

The next several weeks I worked double shifts at the salon, to distract myself from the nothing that made up my days. One afternoon, Sholem came in to have his hair washed. He said he was still feeling dirty from making his ugly painting, and he wanted to wash away that feeling. It often happened that people came to the salon for that very reason—more than anyone would guess. Seating him at a basin, I put a towel around his neck and guided his head back into the bowl, then turned on the water and adjusted the temperature on my hand. Uri had recently started me on shampooing. I put the spray near the crown of his head, and as the water flowed down, I asked, “Is it too hot? Too cold?”

“Just right.”

When it came time for the conditioner, I gave him a head massage, the way I had been taught, but he was tense, his shoulders straining toward his neck, and his neck was very rigid. Then he blurted out, “Oh, why did Margaux make us do this?”

SHEILA

Do what? The Ugly Painting Competition?

SHOLEM

Yes, the Ugly Painting Competition! I’ve been thinking about it a lot, you know, because I still can’t understand why she’d want me to have these bad feelings, and the only thing I can come up with is that she must be going through a painting crisis. She wants to make the worst possible paintings out of some mistrust of painting.

SHEILA

A painting crisis! But she never stops painting! She’s painting all the time.

SHOLEM

But she hasn’t begun her ugly painting yet, has she? And why not? When you ask her, she just shrugs it off. But it’s been months! I saw her at an opening last night, and she just kept saying that paintings don’t matter. I find it really depressing, and it makes no sense. It’s so frustrating!

SHEILA

But she’s always spoken like that.

SHOLEM

But don’t you think it’s strange? And the strangest thing about her crisis is that it’s late.

SHEILA

It’s what? Late?

SHOLEM

Late! Most painters go through their crisis in art school, because that’s where you’re surrounded by all these people telling you that, you know, painting is dead. So I can’t understand why she’s going through this crisis now, when everyone loves her work, when the critics do, and when she has a dealer who’s a consummate believer in painting. Why now? And I think it’s because Margaux doesn’t trust painting. She doesn’t trust it to be a powerful communicator, so she has to make the worst painting possible. Then, if there’s still some beauty or value at the end, it will restore her faith in painting.

I led Sholem to an empty station and swiveled the chair around. He sat, and I turned him to face the mirror. I took the comb from my apron and dipped it in the Barbicide, so he could see for himself—whether he was consciously worried or not—that it was free of germs, and I flung off the excess liquid and drew it through his hair, looking down at his head.



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