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'Very nice hair.' I said, puzzled.

'Well, I'll sell it,' said Gallen. 'There's good money in selling your hair for wigs.'

'Sell it?' I said. It struck me as a perverse sort of whoring.

'We'll just find some classy friseur in the suburbs,' said Gallen.

'How do you know about wig makers?' I said.

'Keff told me,' said Gallen.

'Frotting Keff?' I said. 'And just what does he know about it?'

'He was in Paris for the war,' she told me. 'He said it was big business, even then - ladies selling their hair.'

'In Paris for the war?' I said. 'I understood they were snatching hair, not buying it.'

'Well, some maybe,' said Gallen. 'But it's a very classy business now. And real hair makes the best wigs.'

'Keff told you he was in Paris?'

'Yes,' said Gallen. 'It came up when we were talking about my hair.'

'Oh, were you?' I said, and tried to imagine Keff in Paris. It wasn't a pretty picture. I saw a very young swaggering, bullish Keff - in the ladies' hair business, or somehow connected with hair. In his off-duty hours.

'Well, we were talking about money too,' said Gallen. 'That's when he mentioned my hair.'

'Did he want to buy it?' I said.

'Of course not,' said Gallen. 'He just said I'd get a good price for it, if we were short.' And she stroked her hair, as if she were petting a cat.

'Gallen, I love your hair,' I said.

'You wouldn't love me without it?' she said, and snatched it up above her head, showing off her ears and the long back of her neck. She made her face sleeker, and her shoulders more slight; she seemed even more fragile. I thought: Frot Hannes Graff - the girl would cut off her hair for him.

'I'd love you without any hair,' I said, but I was sure I wouldn't. I saw her bald, gleaming at me; she had her own helmet, spotted with speed-struck insects, pitted as a peach stone. I took Gallen's braid in my hands.

Then Siggy snapped at me, out of the fire, 'No nonsense now. Just a total shave, please.' And I dropped Gallen's hair.

She must have noticed my faraway-traveling eyes, because she said, 'Graff? It's not that you don't want to go to Vienna, is it? I mean, if you'd rather go somewhere you've never been before - if you don't want to see any old stuff you remember, or might, you know - I wouldn't care, Graff. Really, if Vienna's a bad place for you now. I just thought it would be easier for money - in the long run.'

In the long run? I thought

'You know,' said Gallen. 'It would just probably give us enough to get someplace to stay, indoors. Just a room, maybe, at first.'

At first? I thought, Oh, frot me if she doesn't have some overall plan.

'Wouldn't you just like a room with a great big bed in it?' she asked, and blushed.

But this girl's schemes were sounding dangerous to me - this vague, long-term stuff never works. This was too much planning in front of ourselves - for sure.

I said, 'Well, let's just go to Vienna and get one or both of us a job, at first. Then maybe we can do whatever we want. Maybe we'll want to go to Italy then,' I said hopefully.

'Well,' she said, 'I thought you'd like the room with the bed.'

'Well, let's just see what happens,' I said. 'What's the matter? Don't you like our sleeping bag?'

'Well, of course I like it,' said Gallen. 'But you can't sleep outside forever, you know.'

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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