The weight of Nadine’s thick blonde braid felt heavier than usual as she ran through the darkened corridors of the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, her footsteps echoing against the marble floors. The security guard’s shout still rang in her ears, and she could feel her heart pounding against her ribs. Everything had gone wrong – the couldn’t steal the artworks. The late-night visitor, the security guard who wasn’t supposed to be there, and worst of all, the CCTV cameras that had captured their unmasked faces when they’d stumbled in their panic.
“We need to move fast,” Pierre whispered as they reached their beaten-up Renault, parked three blocks away from the museum. “They’ll have our faces everywhere by morning.” His hands trembled as he started the engine, and Nadine could see the fear in his eyes that matched her own. Their dreams of solving their financial troubles with one magnificent heist had crumbled in minutes.
They drove in tense silence to the outskirts of Paris, where Pierre had prepared a small apartment as their emergency hideout. The musty space was barely big enough for a chair and a battery-powered lamp, but it would have to do.
“We need to change everything about our appearance,” Pierre said, pulling out a black duffel bag. “I brought supplies… just in case.” He emptied the contents onto a wooden workbench: dark makeup, temporary tattoos, electric clippers, scissors, disposable razors, and hair dye.
Nadine’s hand instinctively went to her braid – her pride and joy for the past decade. The blonde plait hung thick and rope-like down to her waist, meticulously maintained through years of careful attention. She remembered all the compliments, the way Pierre used to run his fingers through it when they first met, the admiring glances from strangers on the street.
“I’ll do you first,” Pierre said softly, gesturing to the rickety wooden chair. His voice was gentle, understanding the magnitude of what he was asking her to do.
Nadine sat down, her legs weak. She felt Pierre’s fingers at the nape of her neck, holding the elastic band that held her braid together. For a moment, his touch was tender, almost apologetic, as he tightly held the intricate plait. Her golden hair cascaded down the back of the chair, and she could feel tears welling up in her eyes.
“Est-ce qu’on doit absolument se couper les cheveux ? Ma tresse est si précieuse pour moi” (“Do we absolutely have to cut our hair? My braid is so precious to me”) Nadine asked.
“Oui oui, absolument, couper nos deux cheveux de manière drastique peut augmenter nos chances d’être identifié.” (“Yes yes, absolutely, cutting both of our hair drastically can increase our chances of being identified.”)
Nadine pulled the tip of her braid on her lap holding it and admiring it one last time. Pierre picked up the scissors – large, steel dressmaking shears that gleamed in the room’s dim light. Nadine closed her eyes, unable to watch. The first cut came with a horrible scratching sound, and she felt the sudden lightness as Pierre severed her braid at the nape of her neck. The detached plait fell heavily into her lap, like a dead thing, and Nadine couldn’t help but let out big tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, mon amour,” Pierre whispered, but they both knew this was just the beginning.
The electric clippers came next, their harsh buzz filling the small space. Pierre had attached the shortest guard, leaving no room for vanity. Nadine’s fingers dug into her thighs as she felt the cold metal against her scalp. The clippers moved methodically from her nape upward, each pass sending more golden strands sliding down her shoulders and onto the floor. The vibration against her skull felt alien, invasive, and yet there was something oddly cathartic about it – as if each pass of the clippers was stripping away not just her hair, but her old life, her mistakes, her naïveté.
When Pierre moved to the sides, Nadine opened her eyes, watching in the small mirror he’d propped up on the workbench. She barely recognized the woman staring back at her. The clippers carved paths through what remained of her hair, revealing the pale skin of her scalp underneath. The contrast between her fair skin and the stubble left behind was stark, dramatic. What remained was a stubble with hair length of hardly 2 mm, down from roughly 32 inches of braid her head was holding. She looked weird, desperate – exactly what she had become. On the floor lay down lot of blonde hair strands, many long, and countless other small ones and Nadine cried once again looking at the showered hair and her severed braid, repenting her actions.
Once finished with Nadine, Pierre didn’t hesitate with his own transformation. She watched as he ran the clippers over his brown hair without even a guard attached, creating patterns of pale skin through his thick brown hair. The buzzing seemed louder now, more final. When the clippers had reduced his hair to dark shadows, he lathered his head with shaving cream from a travel-sized can and began methodically dragging a disposable razor across his scalp.
The process was mechanical, emotionless – so different from the gentle way he’d always styled his hair before. Each stroke of the razor revealed more of his bare scalp, until finally, he stood before her completely bald, looking like a stranger.
They swept their discarded hair into a plastic bag, being careful not to leave any traces behind. Nadine’s braid lay on top like a golden rope, seeming like a relic from another life. She touched her newly buzzed head, feeling the unfamiliar bristles under her palm. The cool air on her scalp made her shiver, or perhaps it was the reality of their situation finally setting in.
“You’re still beautiful,” Pierre said, but his voice cracked slightly. He wasn’t looking at her, but at their reflection in the small mirror – two desperate criminals with shorn heads and haunted eyes.
Nadine stood up, her legs unsteady. She felt lighter, but not in the way she’d imagined when they’d planned their heist. This lightness came with a heavy price – the weight of freedom purchased with sacrifice and fear. They both applied the temporary hair dye and the temporary tattoos to change their disguise and had a quick bath.
“We should go,” she said, her voice sounding foreign to her own ears. “They’ll be looking for a woman with a long blonde braid and a man with brown hair. That couple doesn’t exist anymore.”
As they stepped out into the pre-dawn darkness, Nadine ran her hand over her buzzed head one more time. The stubble beneath her fingers reminded her of velvet rubbed the wrong way – soft but resistant, like the path ahead of them. Their botched heist had cost them more than their hair; it had cost them their identities, their security, their past. But as they walked away from the shed, leaving behind the physical remnants of who they used to be, Nadine realized that sometimes freedom comes at the price of everything you once held dear.