I will never forget the day I first laid eyes on him. I am reliving it now, descending not into some time drowned in mist, but into the endless present of my life back then: I look straight ahead through the clean windowpane and see the scalps hanging from a pole, and among them, deep inside the shop, I make out the figure leaning against the wall. I lift the curtain a little and wait for a sleigh to pass. Between my window and the shop stretches the street, white with snow, for it had been snowing all night. At last the display window comes into view again; the town has grown quiet.
The wigs look like hair torn out in a great hurry and hung up to dry—five of them, some black, others blond and chestnut. And not far away, to the right, there he is, in profile, smiling, with large eyes. He looks old, and judging by his name, he must surely have come from Istanbul, or somewhere thereabouts. The sign above the shop reads, in gold letters: Matuf, the Wigmaker.
(excerpt from the novel Matuf, the Wigmaker)
