The salon was busy that afternoon. As I walked in, I was greeted by the steady hum of blow-dryers, the warm air of the hair steamers, the sharp smell of shampoo and lotions, the purposeful movement of stylists around their clients. I picked up a magazine—the kind you half-read while waiting—and settled in for an hour of peace. But after a few minutes, something unsettling in the air caught my attention. I put the magazine down and began to listen.
There was a new girl. She looked like she might have started that very day: small, no more than fifteen or sixteen, with a clean face and freshly cut hair, she clearly hadn't yet undergone the transformation that would come in a few months—the right cut, the right color, the right makeup—that would give her the polished look of all her coworkers. But those coworkers, for reasons I couldn't fathom, seemed to have banded together against her. "Claudia, come here. Move faster. Get me that brush—no, not that one, the bigger one." "Claudia, you're doing it wrong. Straighten that hood dryer." "Claudia, sweep up the hair—not with that broom." And they'd smile at each other knowingly, nudging each other with their elbows. Poor Claudia ran back and forth, and naturally, under this barrage, she only grew more confused. Her smile tightened. When she tried to answer back with a joke, they cut her off: "You can't talk like that. If Mr. Mario hears you, you're done for. You have to show respect." And on it went.
I was uncomfortable. I found these women genuinely unkind, and I wanted to side with poor Claudia, who was being so foolishly picked on. I wanted to do something for her. But what could I say? How could I defend her? They'd think me a meddling busybody. And Claudia herself would feel even more exposed, even more the center of unwanted attention. I wrestled with these thoughts but couldn't bring myself to act.
Next to me sat a young woman who, until that moment, had been hidden under a mass of hair wrapped in foil, absorbed in her magazine, seemingly oblivious to everything happening around her—indifferent, I'd assumed, to both Claudia's discomfort and mine. But then, quite suddenly, she closed her magazine with decision, lifted her head of metallic curls, and said to the two or three young stylists around her: "Come on, are you going to stop acting like brats? That poor girl is working just like you are, not having fun. And she's just a kid." She may have said more, but I can't recall it now.
But those few words were enough. A silence fell—respectful, reflective, ashamed. The complicity shattered. The girls went back to their work without talking. Claudia—with a small smile?—disappeared into the back room, called by Mr. Mario. My neighbor returned to her magazine without another word. And I thought: "Here's a small example of a large problem. You felt compassion, tenderness for someone weak and struggling. And then what? When you need to actually do something—when you have to move from that first instinctive impulse of solidarity to real action—you hesitate. You're afraid. You saw how simple it was? Of course, it's not always so easy. But tenderness and compassion are only the first step. They give us the right impulse. After that, we have to step out into the open."
Tea Cabras, 2006