“Two thousand,” the woman said through the aggressive chewing of her gum, tapping the rat-tail comb against her thigh.
“Ma?” Chizaram looked up from her Hello Kitty wallet, her nail-bitten fingers already wrapped around a one thousand naira note.
“You’re paying two thousand. Two thousand,” the woman held up two fingers, waving them around in Chizaram’s face.
“But you told me it’s a thousand naira…”

She swallowed as she felt the other three clients looking her way from their seats, the attendants working on their hair also had their ears perked. All hungry for whatever little drama they could get after hours of silence in the salon.
“Shey, you don’t know the kind of hair you have?” the woman said, tugging at the end of Chizaram’s newly done braids. “For this kind hair, that is hard and full like this, na two thousand.”
Not again.

“But still, we agreed on a price before you started,” Chizaram tried again. “You should have said something when you began, not till you’re done.”
“Ah,” the woman said with a shrug, blowing out bubble gum. “Na two thousand.”
“But you can’t blame her now, this your hair sef na work,” one woman said from her seat, and Chizaram turned to look at her. She felt her tongue growing heavy, words she wanted to say piling onto the muscle, but because the woman was old enough to be her mother, she swallowed them down.
“I’m sorry, ma,” she turned to the woman who weaved her hair, pulling at the one thousand naira note she had clutched in her sweaty palm, “but I don’t have two thousand naira with me, please take this instead.”
The woman popped another bubble gum, her hand on her narrow waist as she collected the money. “Just remember next time, na two thousand. If you don’t want to pay too much for ordinary weaving, relax your hair.”

Unconsciously, Chizaram reached to the ends of her braids, the hard, thick curls brushing the ridges of her palms. How many times has she been told this? That it would be easier for her to just relax her hair, change the texture and curl patterns of her hair permanently. Always by the same people who are meant to know how to handle any type of hair. And she wondered, would it be easier for her or for them?

Chizaram forced a smile on her face, “Thank you so much, ma. I’ll keep that in mind.” Tucking her purse in her bag, her head bowed, she left the salon, hearing the women whispering among themselves. She made a note to never visit it again. The unforgiving heat from the sun pricked at her raw and sensitive scalp, making her feel the tug and pull of the woman’s hand a lot more. She bent her head as she walked home. A heaviness set over her as she realized she hadn’t had a good look at her braids.

She quickly shot out a greeting to her parents who were both in the dimly lit living room watching some cooking show, and ran two steps at a time upstairs and into her room. In the bathroom, by the mirror hanging by the sink, Chizaram assessed her hair. The heaviness that had begun to set truly sank down into the pores of her skin, the feeling anchoring into her chest, and intensified the throbbing in her scalp. The sections were neatly parted, yes, they were. But also, a few were uneven, especially towards the end. It wasn’t noticeable at first glance, but if someone stared too long, they’d see how some braids were slightly bigger than the others, like the woman had gotten frustrated with the thickness and texture of her hair and just wanted it to be over and done with.

She brushed her fingers across her scalp, feeling her hair; thick, hard, wrong. It wasn’t the first time she had been told to pay higher than the agreed price by a hairdresser, all because her hair was too difficult, too stubborn to handle. There were times they tugged and pulled too hard and mumbled about how she was making their work harder. Then, the “relaxing your hair would make it easier” comments they threw around. The words forming in their mouths the moment they touched a comb to her hair, the words would then grow too hot, they’d had to spit it out, chipping at her already frayed nerves.

There was an incident two years ago with a hairdresser, one of the longest she’d been a client at. She had a fistful of Chizaram’s hair in her hand, her cream-slicked palms gripping it too tightly as she combed. The comb snapped into two as she tried to tug it out of the tight curls. She remembered the complaining, the blaming of her hair, how it was too difficult. Her mother got involved, paid for the comb, and she never stepped foot into that salon again. And since then, she has been bringing her own combs.

But Chizaram loved her hair. It was one of the best things she loved about herself. She loved how it curled towards the heavens, how she could frame it into any shape with little droplets of water, how it made her look taller. She loved it because her mother wore hers proudly. The only difference was her mother’s looked and felt like a cloud, while she had inherited her father’s hard texture.

Chizaram exited her bathroom and sank into her bed, laying her head on her pillow. Wondering and wondering what it would be like to have soft hair or to just… relax it. Not hear the annoyed mutterings anymore, to finally be free from it. She dug her phone out of her bag, swiping away the notifications from her class group chat, all excited to enter into the last year of secondary school, and searched ‘relaxed hair.’

She scrolled through images and different ‘how-tos’:
How to style your relaxed hair…
How many times a year do you need to relax your hair…
How to care for relaxed hair…
She consumed them all, absorbing the words and videos of women with hair like hers, applying the white chemical to the root of their scalp, till she felt like she could burst.

She made her decision.

Her braids got old before the second week it was in. She sat on a couch in a small salon that was down her street, the fan doing nothing to quell the sweltering heat.
“Fine girl, I’ll soon be done,” the hairdresser said as she was washing her customer’s hair. The baby on her back, pulling a box braid and trying to put it in his mouth. “You said you want to relax your hair, ba?”
“Yes, ma,” Chizaram answered, her eyes on the boxes of relaxers on the glass cabinet. Different colors and different women plastered on them, hair straight and blinding smiles. “Which one burns the least?”
“They all burn,” the lady whose hair was being washed said as the hairdresser helped her into the seat in front of the mirror and plugged in the hair dryer.
“Oh,” Chizaram said, trying to squash down the horror growing inside her.

She saw the lady on the seat looking at her through the mirror and wondered what she was thinking. She noticed that her hair was relaxed, long and past her shoulders, a beautiful brown color that complemented her skin tone. “But why do you want to relax your hair?” she asked, still staring at Chizaram in the mirror.
“Oh… I… I think it would be easier.”
“Your hair is very fine,” the lady said and the hairdresser hummed in agreement as she continued her work. “But if you think it would be easier for you, then okay.”

Chizaram looked down at her thighs, her fingers curling around her bag.
“Do you actually want to relax your hair?” the lady asked, her eyes on Chizaram.
“Ma?” she looked up, slightly annoyed that this woman wouldn’t mind her business.
“Do you want to relax your hair because it’s what you want or because it’s what others have told you to do?” the lady asked again. “When you came in and said you wanted to relax your hair, you looked so unsure.”

Chizaram said nothing. Because she did come in looking unsure… she still is.
Would it be easier for them? Or for me?

“But your hair is relaxed,” she shot to the lady.
The lady shrugged. “It is. But I won’t advise you to do it. Your hair is too fine. Abi now?”
“Yes,” the hairdresser agreed, turning to look at Chizaram’s hair. “Very fine hair. It’s now full again.”
“But it’s too hard,” she said, her fingers sinking into the curls. “A lot of hairdressers complain about my hair, and I’m tired of it.”
The hairdresser leaves the lady’s hair and comes over, her fingers smelling of rich apple cream, pulling lightly at a lock of Chizaram’s hair.
“It’s hard,” she agreed with a nod. “But it won’t be difficult to make at all. It would just need extra care.” She went back to continue her work on the lady’s hair, combing through the locks.
“If you still want to relax your hair, relax it,” the lady said, turning away and looking at her phone as she scrolled through it. “But do it because you want to, and not because of others. Don’t let your curls become limp like mine.”

Chizaram swallowed, feeling a heaviness in her chest. Her eyes drifted to the boxes of relaxers sitting on the glass shelf. Their smiles, so blinding, their hair so straight. She made her decision then and there.

An hour and some minutes later, Chizaram walked back home. Her hair neatly braided into twenty equal parts. Her scalp tender but with a softness, smelling of rich apple cream. The ends curled lovingly.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Mohamed B. on Unsplash