The Braid

by Laetitia Colombani

  She helps Sarah to position the wig—always from front to back, it might seem a little tricky at first, but you’ll soon get used to it, she says, you won’t even need a mirror after a while. Of course, she can have it restyled to her taste, in a hair salon. Upkeep is simple, just shampoo and rinse, like your own hair.

  Sarah lifts her chin and looks at herself in the mirror: a new woman stares back at her, a woman who looks just like her yet is someone different at the same time. It’s a strange feeling. She recognizes her features, her pale skin, the dark shadows under her eyes. That’s me, she thinks. Yes, it’s really her. She touches the strands of hair, arranges them, models them, pushes them into shape: she isn’t trying to make them her own, exactly, but to tame them. The hair shows no resistance. It is compliant, generous, it allows itself to be tamed. Slowly, it falls into place, framing her features. Sarah smooths it, strokes it, brushes it, surprised to find it so cooperative. She feels almost grateful to it. Imperceptibly, a stranger’s hair is becoming her own; it matches her look, her silhouette, her features.

  Sarah contemplates her reflection. Suddenly it seems this hair is restoring the things she has lost. Her strength, her dignity, her determination, the things that made her the woman she was. Sarah, proud and beautiful. She feels ready. She turns to the woman and asks if she can shave her head completely. She wants to do it, right there, right now. She can wear the wig from today on. She’s not ashamed to go back home looking like this. And she’ll be able to fit it on better without any hair underneath. It will be easier. It will have to be done sooner or later, at any rate, so she might as well get on with it now, here: she feels strong enough to do it today.

  The woman agrees. Armed with a razor, her expert hands carry out the task gently and swiftly.

  When Sarah opens her eyes, she stares in surprise for a moment. Newly shaven, her head looks smaller than before. She looks like her daughter at one year old, before her hair had grown. That’s it—she looks like a baby. She tries to imagine her children’s reaction—they will be surprised to see her like this. She will show them one day, perhaps. Later.

  Or not.

  She places the wig over her smooth scalp, using the technique the woman has shown her, then adjusts her new hair. Gazing at her reflection in the glass, Sarah knows one thing: she is going to live. She will see her children grow up. She will see them become adolescents, and adults, and parents. More than anything, she wants to know what their likes and dislikes will be, their talents and skills, their aptitudes, their loves. She will accompany them through life, be the attentive, tender, benevolent mother at their side.

  She will win this fight, drained and exhausted, perhaps, but still standing. No matter how many months or years of treatment it takes, from now on she will devote all her energy, every minute, every second, to fighting this illness body and soul.

  Never again will she be Sarah Cohen the powerful, confident woman that so many people admired. Never again will she be the invincible superwoman. She will be herself, Sarah, a woman who has been dealt a low blow by life, but she will be there, with her scars, and faults, and wounds. She won’t try to hide them anymore. Her past life had been a lie, this life will be real.

  When the illness grants her a reprieve, she will set up her own firm, with a few clients who still believe in her and are happy to follow her. She will take Johnson & Lockwood to court. She’s a good lawyer, one of the best in town. She will make public the discrimination she suffered, in the name of the thousands of men and women written off by the world of work too soon, and who had endured, like her, a twofold penance. She will stand up for them. Doing what she does best. That will be her fight. She will learn to live differently, make time for her children, take days off to attend their school fetes and end-of-year shows. She won’t miss a single one of their birthdays. She will take them on vacations, summers in Florida, winters skiing. No one will take those moments from her, they will be part of her life, too. There will be no more wall, no more lies. Never again will she be a woman cut in two.

  Meanwhile, she must fight the mandarin with the weapons that nature has seen fit to grant her: her courage, her strength, her determination, her intelligence, too. Her family, her children, her friends. And the doctors, nurses, oncologists, radiologists, pharmacists, all of them fighting for her, every day, at her side. Suddenly it seems as if she is on the brink of an epic quest, carried along by an extraordinary energy. She feels a wave of warmth pass through her, a new effervescence, a sensation she has never felt before, like butterfly wings beating gently in her stomach.

  Out there is the world, and her children. She will fetch them from school today. She can picture their astonishment already—it’s something she’s never done, or hardly ever. Hannah will be very touched, no doubt. The twins will run to her. They will comment on her new hair. And Sarah will explain it all. Everything. The mandarin, her work, the war they will fight together.

  As she leaves the salon, Sarah thinks of the woman who gave up her hair, of the Sicilian workers who disentangled and treated it, with such infinite patience. She thinks of the woman who assembled the wig. She feels as if the whole world is working to help her heal. She remembers the phrase from the Talmud: Whoever saves one life saves the world entire. Today, the whole world is saving her, and Sarah is filled with gratitude.

  She is here today, yes, right here, and she will be here for a long time to come.

  As she walks away with that thought, she smiles.

  Epilogue

  My work is finished.

  The wig is there, in front of me.

  The feeling that overwhelms me is something unique.

  No one has seen it yet.

  This joy is mine alone.

  The pleasure of a task completed.

  Pride in a job well done.

  Like a child who has finished a drawing, I smile.

  I think of this hair,

  Of the place it has come from, the journey it has made

  And the journey it will make now.

  A long road, I know.

  One I will never see, shut up here in my workshop.

  But that doesn’t matter.

  The journey is mine, too.

  I dedicate my work to these women,

  Bound by strands of hair,

  Like a great net of souls.

  To women who love, and give birth, and hope,

  And fall and get back on their feet, a thousand times,

  Who bend but never break.

  I know their struggles.

  I share their tears and their joy.

  Each of them is a part of me.

  I am one small link,

  A hyphen connecting their lives,

  A tenuous thread,

  Thin as a strand of hair.

  Invisible to the world, to the human eye.

  Tomorrow I shall set to work once again.

  Other stories are waiting.

  Other lives.

  Other pages.

  Acknowledgments

  To Juliette Joste, for her enthusiasm and confidence.

  To my husband, Oudy, for his indefatigable support.

  To my mother, my very first reader, from childhood.

  To Sarah Kaminsky, who encouraged me at every stage of the writing of this book.

  To Hugo Boris, for his invaluable help.

  To Françoise at L’Atelier Capilaria in Paris, for opening the doors of her workshop to me, and explaining her trade.

  To Nicole Gex and Bertrand Chalais, for their wise counsel.

  To the librarians at the Inathèque, who assisted me in my research.

  And lastly, to my French teachers, throughout my school life and ever since, for giving me my love of writing.

  THE BRAID

  LAETITIA COLOMBANI

  This reading group guide for The Braid includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting
angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

  Introduction

  In The Braid, an international bestseller, three women from very different circumstances find their lives connected—across borders, across languages, across cultures.

  In India, Smita is an untouchable. Desperate to give her daughter an education, she takes her child and flees her small village with nothing but resourcefulness, eventually heading to a temple where she will experience a rebirth.

  In Sicily, Giulia works in her father’s wig workshop, the last of its kind in Palermo. She washes, bleaches, and dyes the hair provided by the city’s hairdressers, which is now in short supply. But when her father is the victim of a serious accident, she discovers that the company’s financial situation is dire. Now she must find a way to save her family’s livelihood.

  In Canada, Sarah is a twice-divorced mother of three children and a successful lawyer, whose identity is wrapped up in her work. Just as she expects a big promotion, she learns she has breast cancer.

  Topics & Questions for Discussion

  1. In this novel, the three characters’ stories intersect and overlap like a braid. How do you think this structure affects your reading experience?

  2. The book opens with Smita, who is hopeful about her daughter’s first day of school. Why do you think the author chooses to start the novel with her perspective and at this time?

  3. A member of the untouchable caste, it’s Smita’s job to empty the latrines. When describing her husband’s perspective, she notes that her station in life is “your heritage, a circle no one can break. Karma”. How does Smita adhere to or reject these words?

  4. Giulia is passionate about both her family and her work, remarking on page 13 that “hair was more than a tradition for the Lanfredi; it was a passion, passed down from generation to generation.” Compare this to Smita’s and Sarah’s views about their jobs.

  5. Sarah, a mother and successful lawyer, shirks “all the labels the magazines loved to pin on women like her, as burdensome as the tote bags they slung over their shoulders”. How does her sense of self change over the course of the novel?

  6. After her father has been injured, Giulia’s mother prays for a miracle and Giulia remarks, “Her conviction was such that Giulia felt suddenly envious of her mother’s faith—the unshakable faith that had never deserted her”. Smita and Lalita, too, put their faith in Vishnu throughout the novel. How do their disparate faiths get both women through difficult times?

  7. On page 52, after Lalita refuses to sweep the floor at school, Smita feels pride in her daughter because “Lalita had not given in. She had said no.” How do you think Lalita’s disobedience influences Smita? Does she draw her own strength from her daughter?

  8. Giulia and Kamal come from wildly different backgrounds. What do you think unites them?

  9. After Sarah runs into Inès as the hospital, she observes that “Inès was like her. She gave nothing away, never talked much about her life. It was a quality Sarah appreciated”. Is Inès’s betrayal all the more difficult because she reminds Sarah of herself?

  10. When Giulia learns of her father’s debts, she recalls a conversation in which “he had mentioned that the Sicilian tradition of cascatura was disappearing. Modern life, he had told her”. How does Giulia balance tradition and modernity, both at work and in her personal life?

  11. At the train station, Smita has a conversation with a woman named Lakshmamma, who is on her way to Vrindavan, the City of White Widows, along with her sons. She asks Smita whether “they have a husband, a father, or a brother to travel with them”. How does the conversation with Lakshmamma affect Smita?

  12. In the depths of her despair, Sarah thinks of herself with cancer as “Untouchable . . . Relegated to the margins of society”. Do you think this is an apt description for what she faces and the way she’s been treated by her colleagues?

  13. At the temple in Tirupati, Smita makes an offering to Vishnu by cutting her hair, “a tradition dating back thousands of years: to offer your hair is to renounce all vanity, all sense of self, to lay yourself bare and come before the god in total humility”. Beyond this, what do you think the offering represents to Smita?

  14. Of the wig Sarah chooses, the saleswoman notes it took “eighty hours of work, around 150,000 individual hairs. This is a very fine, rare piece”. How does the rest of this novel color your understanding of the work—and chance—that went into making the wig?

  15. The novel ends on page 198 with stanzas of a poem that has threaded throughout the story. Why do you think the author chose to end the novel this way?

  Enhance Your Book Club

  1. Smita, Giulia, and Sarah all live in different cities. Research Badlapur, Palermo, and Montreal. Which city would you and your book club most like to visit?

  2. The Braid was originally published in France and translated into English. Choose another French bestseller translated into English, like The Elegance of the Hedgehog or The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles, as your next read.

  3. Given the variety of cultures here, have an international potluck inspired by the countries in the novel.

  About the Author

  Laetitia Colombani comes from the world of film, where she has worked as a screenwriter-director and as an actress. She also writes for the stage. The international bestseller The Braid is her first novel.

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  About the Translator

  Louise Rogers Lalaurie translates literary and genre fiction from French. Her work has been short-listed for the Crime Writers’ Association International Dagger, the Best Translated Book Award, and the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, Paris Translation copyright © Louise Rogers Lalaurie 2019

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Atria Paperback edition September 2019 Originally published in 2017 as La tresse by Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, Paris

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  Interior design by Kyoko Watanabe

  Cover design by Emily Mahon

  Author photography by Céline Nieszawer

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Colombani, Laetitia, 1976– author. | Lalaurie, Louise Rogers,

  translator.r />
  Title: The braid : a novel / Laetitia Colombani.

  Other titles: Tresse. English

  Description: First Atria Paperback edition. | New York : Atria Paperback,

  2019. | English translation of a French novel.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019016969 (print) | LCCN 2019019099 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982130046 (eBook) | ISBN 9781982130039 (paperback)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Family Life.

  Classification: LCC PQ2703.O4447 (ebook) | LCC PQ2703.O4447 T7413 2019

  (print) | DDC 843/.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019016969

  ISBN 978-1-9821-3003-9

  ISBN 978-1-9821-3004-6 (ebook)