by Kōbō Abe
No, of course it was an illusion. It was not the mask that was moving, but the lights which illuminated it. A number of miniature light bulbs, imbedded in a line on the back of the wooden frame, switched on and off in a regular, progressive movement, producing a unique effect. It was a clever device. But even after I realized that it was a device, my initial surprise lingered on. I abandoned once and for all the simple preconception that there was no expression in Noh masks.
Not only was the design of this mask very elaborate, but its effect too, compared to the others, was striking.
Its difference was irritating; I don’t know why. I made another round of the exhibition hall, and when I came again to where the mask hung, everything suddenly came into focus, and the enigma was resolved. This wasn’t a face. What professed to be a face was in fact nothing more than a simple skull to which a thin membrane had been applied. Some masks representing old people were indeed more clearly skeletal, but actually the woman’s mask, though it seemed fleshy, on closer inspection revealed the basic skull. The seams of the bones in the brow, forehead, cheeks, and lower jaw stood out in relief with an exactness that made one think of an anatomical chart; and the shadows of the bones, following the movement of the lights, emerged as expression. The muddiness of the glue, recalling the texture of old porcelain … the network of fine crackle covering the surface … the whiteness and warmth as of driftwood bleached by the wind and the rain … basically, the beginnings of the Noh mask were the skull.
However, any woman’s mask was not necessarily like that. With the passage of the centuries, they have changed simply into expressionless faces like peeled muskmelons. Perhaps in order to get the essential lines mask makers today have misread the intentions of the makers from the period when Noh began and stress only the expressionlessness.
Then suddenly I had to face a dreadful hypothesis. Why in heaven’s name did early Noh mask makers, trying to go beyond the limits of expression, end up with the skull? It was doubtless not simply to suppress expression. So far as escaping from ordinary expression was concerned, any mask would do that. If I really wanted to name a difference, I suppose it was that the Noh mask aimed in a negative direction, in contrast to the ordinary mask which attempts escape in a positive direction. I could give the mask any expression I wanted, but it would still be an empty container, a reflection in a mirror, transfigurable according to the person peering in.
At this point there was no reason for reducing my face, already thick with leech scars, to the skull. But wasn’t there in the radical method of the Noh mask some fundamental principle which made the face an empty container, some law applicable to every mask, every expression, every face? The face is made by someone else; one doesn’t make it oneself … the expression is chosen by someone else; it is not oneself that chooses it … yes, that may be right. A monster is a creation, so we can call man a monster too. And the Creator seems not to be the sender but somehow the receiver of this letter we call expression.
Did this describe my inability to make up my mind, to decide on a facial type? A letter with no address is simply returned, no matter how many stamps one puts on it. Well, that was a thought. How would it be to show someone a reference album of established facial types and get him to make the selection for me? Someone? But who? But isn’t it decided …? You, of course. The receiver of my letter can be no one but you.
AT FIRST I modestly thought this a very small discovery, but gradually the wave lengths of the light around me began to change, and a rosiness, like a gradually welling laugh, suffused my heart. Gently shading the glow with my two hands so that it would not die away, I went on through the exhibition, leaving it with the exhilaration of running downhill.
Yes, actually, I had made no small discovery. From the standpoint of procedure, there were still many problems—there were bound to be—but having come this far, perhaps everything could be solved. Unhesitantly, I hurried into the restaurant. I entered abruptly, without trepidation, into the heated atmosphere of a large restaurant that included in its mere two-page menu every conceivable aid to gluttony, in contrast to the atmosphere of the Noh mask exhibit. It was not sudden courage on my part. It was rather cowardice with the dawning of hope.
And then, as if by chance, the man stood directly in front of me, blocking my path. His coolness as he stood looking lingeringly at the showcase containing artificial samples of food was somehow appropriate for the person I was seeking. Ascertaining immediately that his age was right and that there were no scars on his face, I made my decision.
At length, having made up his mind, the man bought a token from the cashier for Chinese noodles in broth. Following him, I too got tokens for a sandwich and coffee. Then, with an innocent face—no, I didn’t have a face—I sat down casually at the same table, across from him. Since there were other empty seats, the man clearly showed his displeasure but did not actually say anything. The young waitress punched our tickets, brought water, and left. I took off my surgical mask, drew out a cigarette, and aware of the shyness of my companion, gently began to speak.
“I’m sorry. If I am disturbing you …”
“No. No.”
“But the child over there’s staring at my bandaged face. He’s quite forgotten the ice cream he was so absorbed in. Perhaps he’s thinking you’re a friend of mine.”
“Well … go get another seat!”
“Yes, I suppose I could. But before I do, I just want to ask one thing in all frankness. Would you like a hundred dollars? If you don’t, I’ll change my seat right away.”
There appeared in my companion’s expression a wretchedly opportunistic reaction, and without a moment’s delay I began to pull in my net.
“It’s not really an especially troublesome request. It’s not at all dangerous, and with little bother to you the hundred dollars are yours. What about it? Will you listen to what I have to say, or shall I change my seat?”
The man passed the tip of his tongue over his yellowed teeth, and a nerve below his eye twitched. If I classified him according to the Boulan system he would be a concave type, slightly fleshy. In short, he was the introverted, antagonistic type I had excluded. However, since I needed only the quality of the skin texture, I wasn’t interested in the type. One had to be imperious with this sort of person, but I would be careful not to hurt his feelings.
EXCURSUS: While I vigorously rejected the face as a yardstick for myself, it was quite sufficient for others. I realize it was self-centered of me, but treating him this way was a luxury from my viewpoint. People like me who lack something are liable to become spiteful critics.
“Even so …” he said, staring at the entrance to the roof, where gift balloons were being distributed to children. Turning the upper part of his body, he looped one elbow over the back of his chair, as if he could finish the business without looking at my face. “Well … let’s talk.…”
“That’s a weight off my mind. I can still move my seat, but these waitresses are so sullen. However, before I do, I’ve just one promise I’d like you to make. Since I’ll not ask you anything about you or your work, you’re not to ask about me.”
“There’s no work to ask about,” he said, “and if I don’t know anything I can save the trouble of excuses later.”
“After we’re done, I want you to forget the whole thing … that we ever even met.”
“That’s all right by me. Anyway, it doesn’t look like something I’ll want to remember.”
“I wonder. Even now, you can’t look me straight in the face. Isn’t that proof you’re disturbed? Surely you’re itching to know what’s under my bandages.”
“That’s absurd!”
“Well, then. Afraid?”
“Certainly I’m not afraid.”
“Then, why are you avoiding me like that?”
“What do you mean ‘why’? Do I have to answer these questions one by one? Or is this a part of the hundred-dollar deal?”
“You don’t have to force yourself to answer if
you don’t want to. I know all the answers even if I don’t hear them. I just thought I could make the load a little lighter for you, that’s all.”
“All right. What do I have to do then?”
The man ill-humoredly stuck out his lower lip and drew from the pocket of his coat a battered package of cigarettes. All at once the muscles around his mouth began to twitch, like the underside of an insect, jerking the flesh around his thin cheeks. His expression was that of a cornered victim. But could that be? I knew from experience that a child could be thrown into considerable panic by his own fancies, but this fellow was a full-grown man. My colleagues averted their eyes from me doubtless out of the usual feeling of discomfort in front of a superior. Precisely because I knew that, I was only trying to establish a pseudo-equality at best with my hundred-dollar bait.
“Well, let’s get down to business right away.” I carefully sent out a feeler in a deliberately unpleasant manner. “The fact is … I’ve been wondering if you wouldn’t sell me your face.…”
Instead of answering, he vigorously struck a match with a grave expression. He broke the matchstick, and the broken part, still burning, flew onto the table. Hastily he blew it out and with his fingernail flicked it to the floor; snorting in exasperation, he struck a new match. It was as I expected. It had been simply a question of a few seconds, but in that interval he had focused all his attention and was engrossed in trying to discover the meaning of the words “sell me your face.”
Surely, any number of explanations were possible—starting with extremely feasible ones like wanting a stand-in for a murderer, blackmailer or swindler to fanciful cases like wanting to buy and sell actual faces. Such a request would never arouse innocent speculation. If he had any presence of mind, he would weigh the very real item of the hundred dollars. You can’t get much for a hundred dollars. Wouldn’t it be common sense to ask at once what I meant, without brooding over it? Overcome by my bandage, he had assumed this stiff attitude as if tormented by irrational arguments in a dream. I had been unerring about the restaurant. And what pleased me more than anything else was that he was concerned about the bandage itself rather than about what lay underneath, as if stopped by the barbed-wire entanglement surrounding a camp.
As soon as I realized this, an amazing transformation took place within me, as if some master sleight-of-hand artist had waved his handkerchief. I was changed into a merciless assailant, aiming my polished, shining fangs straight at my opponent’s neck, like a bat that suddenly darts from an invisible hole.
“Well, even though I did say the face, just a little bit of the skin will do. I’m thinking of using it in place of the bandages.…”
The man’s expression grew darker and darker, and he puffed restlessly on his cigarette; he had apparently quite forgotten the original business. I had at first intended to tell him, and only him, something of the real facts in order to allay his opposition as much as possible, but there was apparently no longer any need to. Under my bandage I involuntarily smiled a secret, bitter smile. Once in a while it’s good to give vent to one’s anger.
“No. You don’t need to worry. I’m not going to peel your skin off. I want just a little skin surface … some wrinkles, or sweat glands, or pores, or.… In short all I want is a sample of skin.”
“Ah … a sample …?”
The man’s tenseness relaxed and he sighed with relief. Working his Adam’s apple up and down, he nodded his head in a number of short jerks; but he did not yet seem to have completely dismissed his doubts. I did not have to ask what was bothering him. He was probably worried about what in heaven’s name I was up to, putting on a face exactly the same as his. Yet I didn’t try to dispel his suspicions at once. While I was eating my food, which had at last been brought, I deliberately let him stew in uncertainty, adding now and then an ill-tempered thrust. I didn’t bear him any personal grudge. I was doubtless only trying to take my revenge against the convention of faces.
Surely, if I were not afflicted with these keloid scars there would be some good in these bandages. For example, I thought that the basic significance of the face could actually be well summed up in the effect of the bandages, that is, the disguising effect. A disguise is a spiteful game where the convention of the face is turned upside down; I suppose one might well think of it as a kind of art of concealment, by which one ultimately suppresses the heart by wiping out the face. In the case of executioners, strolling flute players, religious judges, primitive medicine men, priests of secret societies, and sneak thieves, a disguising mask was indispensable. It had not only the negative aim of concealing the man’s face, but also the positive objective of cutting off the connection between face and heart by concealing the expression, thus liberating him from ordinary, earthly ties. Take a more common example: disguise is part of the psychology of the dandy, who wants to wear his sunglasses even though there is no glare. Being released from any mental restraint, he can be utterly free and accordingly infinitely cruel.
However, this is not the first time I have thought about the disguising effect of my bandage. Yes—the first time was before the incident of the Klee picture—I recall being pretty self-complacent, comparing myself with a transparent man, for I alone could see and yet not be seen by others. Then there was also the time I went to visit K of the artificial organs. K stressed the anesthetic nature of disguise and earnestly advised me that I would ultimately be poisoned by my bandages; and now was the third time. Over half a year had gone by. Could it be that I was still plodding around the same circle? No, there seemed to be a slight difference among them. For indeed I was now actually experiencing the hidden pleasure of the disguised spy—the first time had been mere bluff, and the second time I had just been advised by someone else. My thinking seemed to move in a spiral. Of course, I was not without apprehension as to whether the direction of the movement was following a rising curve, or whether it had begun to fall.
Therefore I lured the man out of the department store, maintaining an aggressive attitude all the while; and taking a room in a nearby hotel, I succeeded two hours later in obtaining an impression of the skin of his face by the method I had used in making the mold of the scar webs, but.… The man, having finished the job, thrust the hundred-dollar bill into his pocket. He left as though furtively escaping, and as I saw him off I was suddenly overcome with an unbearable feeling of loneliness, as if all my strength had been drained from me. If the convention of the face were empty, perhaps a disguise too was just as empty.
EXCURSUS: No, such thinking was wrong. Perhaps I felt this way because I imagined the change in my thinking that would come with the completion of the mask would be something like the reaction to wearing a disguise. It was thus no doubt natural for me to be uneasy, since I had deviated from my aim to restore the roadway between myself and others. But my original analogy had been unreasonably fanciful. Since the mask was not my real face, treating it as a disguise was like talking black into white. If the mask was an enlargement of the roadway, then a disguise would be a blocking of it, and the two conflicted with each other. If this were not true, I who was so avidly reaching out for the mask, so eagerly trying to escape from the disguise of my bandages, was a stupid clown.
Finally, I shall put down one more thing that occurs to me now: isn’t the mask something required mainly by the victim and the disguise, on the contrary, by the assailant?
THE WHITE
NOTEBOOK
I HAVE at length changed to a new notebook, but my state has not altered so abruptly. Actually, several weeks passed without incident before I could go on to a new page, and I remained unable to move ahead. There followed several uneventful weeks, quite suited to my anonymous face, which had neither eyes, nose, or mouth. Two things did happen, though: I sold a patent to raise funds, and I received some unexpected criticism from the younger men in the Institute about this year’s budget. The patent was still far from being of practical use and was extremely specialized; it was doubtless unnecessary to consider it too s
eriously. However, the budget question—even though it had no direct relationship with the plans for my mask—was an important one, and I had to give it some thought. When my colleagues spoke about it, they apparently seemed to think of it as a political move on my part. Some time ago I had agreed to the formation of a special section incorporating the hopes of the Young Members Group, but when it came down to the essential budgeting, I simply went back on my word. As they said, it was nothing so complicated as intrigue, or jealousy, or the stifling of ambitions. It was nothing but a lapse of memory. I thought I must accept meekly the criticism that I was deficient in zeal for my work. I was scarcely aware of it before, but when they spoke up I did indeed realize that for some time my enthusiasm for my work had been ebbing. I did not want to recognize the fact, but I wondered if perhaps it was the influence of the scars. Of course, aside from the more or less underhandedness involved, to tell the truth I actually felt a sort of exhilaration at their protests. Instead of constrained smiles directed at a cripple, I was now being treated on an equal footing.
Now, what in heaven’s name was to become of the discovery made at the Noh mask exhibition when I thought I had at last resolved the central problem of the choice of a face?
How painful it is to write about it. The expression is not some hidden door, unlikely to be seen; it is like a front door, constructed and decorated to be the first thing to greet the visitor’s eyes. Or like a letter, it apparently cannot exist without an addressee in mind; it is not some advertising handbill to be passed out indiscriminately. Recognizing the validity of this comparison, I at once decided to entrust the right of choice to you, and although I felt I had shifted a heavy burden of responsibility from my own shoulders, the problem was not so easily resolved.