by Kōbō Abe
That evening … a dirty fog, welling up like muddy water, shut out the sky about an hour earlier than usual … an evening the color of earthenware where the crude light of the street lamps committed its showy act of violence, spurring the advance of time.… As I walked along in the crowd, which became more dense near the station, I again attempted to play the role of assailant, trying to dispel the unbearable feeling of loneliness which had beset me from the moment of separating from the man. But this failed me, for I had no one to confront as in the department-store restaurant. Once the crowd had gathered—it was a conscience-stricken, end-of-Sunday throng—its faces formed a chain, like amoebae extending their pseudopodia toward each other; there was no place at all for me to wedge in. Still, I was not so irritated as before. I was relaxed enough to take in the brilliance of the tangled mass of neon signs which breathed and streamed through the fog. Perhaps because I now had my plan. The potassium alginate mold of the face I had finally purchased weighed heavily in the briefcase at my side—not to be outdone, my face bandages, equally cumbersome with the moisture they had absorbed from the fog, counterpointed the weight of the briefcase—but anyway I had my plan to try. And I reflected that this expectant waiting for the place to materialize had bolstered me up considerably.
Yes, that evening, my heart was open to you, quite as if the front of it had been sliced away. It was not only the passive expectation of shifting the burden of choice onto your shoulders, nor, of course, was it only the utilitarian motivation of entering the final stage when I would actually produce the mask. How shall I put it … I was continually shortening the distance between us—softly, like running barefoot over grass.
It was perhaps relief and confidence stemming from the opportunity to tempt you into being my accomplice, however indirectly, in the lonely work of producing the mask. For me, whatever you may say, you are the most important “other person.” No, I do not mean it in a negative sense. I mean that the one who must first restore the roadway, the one whose name I had to write on the first letter, was first on my list of “others.” (Under any circumstances, I simply did not want to lose you. To lose you would be symbolic of losing the world.)
HOWEVER, as soon as I confronted you, my hopes changed into a heap of shapeless rags, like seaweed pulled out of the water. No, don’t misunderstand. I do not mean to find fault with your manner when you greeted me. Far from that, you always sympathized with me—too generously, as far as that goes. The one exception is when you refused me that time I ran my hand under your skirt. I, and only I, am to blame for that incident. For it is not true that one has the right to be loved by the person one loves, as the poets say.
That day too you greeted me with your usual unobtrusive consideration, or better, unobtrusive pity. Our silence, of course, was quite routine too.…
How long would this silence, like some broken instrument, go on between us? Even the everyday exchange of pleasantries and gossip had petered out, leaving at best an elementary, sign-like conversation, absolutely minimal. But even in this instance I did not blame you. Moreover, I was amply prepared to look upon it as a part of your pity for me. A broken instrument is liable to produce cacophony; better let it remain mute. The silence was painful for me, but how much more distressing it must have been for you. How fervently I hoped we could somehow use this opportunity to resume talking once again.
Even so, you should have at least asked me why I was going out. Although it was an exceptional event for me to go out bright and early on a Sunday for the whole day, you did not show the slightest surprise.
You quickly regulated the fire in the stove and at once withdrew to the kitchen, and as soon as you had brought a hot towel you went to check on the hot water in the bath. You had not abandoned me, but neither did you stay close to me. I wondered whether all housewives were like that—I am talking about your excessive impersonality. Indeed you acted cleverly. You manipulated time beautifully, with the precision of electric scales, attaching no unnaturalness to our silence.
To overcome this silence, I tried to put on a show of anger, but that did not work. When I saw your heroic efforts to remain calm I at once backed down, quite aware of my own willful self-conceit. The icy lump of silence that lay between us was apparently too deeply frozen to melt under just any pretext. The questions I had prepared as I walked along—possible opportunities for conversation—were so many matches held against an iceberg.
Of course, I was not so optimistic as to imagine I could succeed, like a wily salesman, by showing you two specimens of face models and asking which you preferred. The first requirement was that my mask should not appear to be a mask; thus, it would not do to reveal to you the real motive of my question. To do so would be malicious sarcasm. From now on, unless I took up hypnotism, my questions would have to be indirect. But I had no further ideas. I had been optimistic, thinking that I could adapt myself to circumstances, as I had fortunately been able to do so far. For example, I went through various of my friends’ faces with your tastes in mind.
However, you were not a fish living by nature in silence. Silence was an ordeal for you. I myself would be the first to be hurt by any rash mention of faces; you were concerned about this and were trying to shield me. I blamed my own frivolity, but, saying not a word, I by-passed the silence, returned to my study, and locked up today’s booty and my instruments for mold-casting in a cabinet. Then, as usual, I began to take off my bandage in order to cream my face and perform my daily massage. But my fingers stopped unexpectedly in mid-air; I was lost in another dialogue with no one.
—Only my lost face knew how many hundreds of thousands of degrees it would take to melt this silence. And perhaps the mask was the answer. But I could not make it without your advice. Hadn’t I been checked into complete inactivity? If I did not break the vicious circle somewhere, it would end in a stupid impasse, repeating the same sequence. I could not give up the whole thing as useless now. Even if I couldn’t melt away the whole silence, as least I had to try to light a flame.
I rewound my bandage with the determination of a diver putting on his equipment. When my scar webs were exposed I had no confidence of ever overcoming the pressure of the silence.
I returned to the light room, concealing the strain I was under with feline detachment. I surreptitiously watched your comings and goings between the living room and the kitchen from the corner of my eye, as I pretended to read the evening paper. You were not smiling, but you moved about ceaselessly from one activity to another with that strangely light expression that comes just before smiling. Perhaps you were unaware of it, but it was indeed a curious expression. I believe I proposed marriage to you precisely because I was unexpectedly taken by that look.
(I wonder if I wrote about this before. Well, it doesn’t make any difference if I repeat myself. Because for me who sought the meaning of expression your expression was like the beacon of some lighthouse. Even as I write this, I try to think of you, and your expression comes to me first. The instant that expression becomes a smile something suddenly shines forth, and everyone who receives its light has his existence reaffirmed.)
Yet while you shed this expression generously on everything—windows, walls, lights, pillars—I was the only one on whom you did not seem to be able to turn it. Though I thought it natural, I was unable to control my irritation, and being without definite hope of success, I came to feel it would be enough if only I could get you to direct the look on me.
“Let’s talk.”
But when your face turned toward me, the expression had already disappeared.
“I went to see a movie today.”
Looking into the slits in my bandages with such care that it could not be recognized as care, you awaited my next words.
“No, I don’t mean I really wanted to see a movie. I really wanted the darkness. Walking the streets with a face like this was like a burden, as if I were doing something bad. A strange thing, the face. I never felt anything about it at any given time, but when I fo
und I didn’t have one, I felt as if half the world had been torn away from me.”
“What movie was it?”
“I don’t remember. Perhaps because I was so upset. Actually, I was suddenly possessed with a feeling of persecution. I dashed into the nearest movie, quite as if I were taking shelter from the rain.…”
“Where was the movie house?”
“It doesn’t make any difference where it was. I wanted the dark.”
You pursed your lips as if in reproval. But your eyes narrowed sadly, as if to show you did not blame me. I was overcome by a terrible sense of remorse. I should not have been. I meant to talk about something quite different.
“But then, it just occurred to me … it’s probably a good thing to go to the movies occasionally. The whole audience puts on the actor’s face. No one needs his own. A movie’s a place where you pay your money to exchange faces for a while.”
“That’s true. Maybe it is good to go to the movies once in a while.”
“It definitely is, I think. Because at least it’s dark, isn’t it? But I wonder, wouldn’t it be awful if you didn’t like the actor’s face? You put on his face, so half the fun would be gone if it didn’t fit perfectly, wouldn’t it?”
“Can’t there be movies without actors? For example, something like a documentary …?”
“That wouldn’t work. Everything has a face; it’s not limited to actors. Even a fish, or an insect—they all have faces. Even chairs and tables have something corresponding to a face, and you either like them or you don’t.”
“But I wonder if anybody would watch a movie, wearing a fish’s face.”
Butterfly-like, you tried to shift the conversation with a joke. Of course, you were right. Any silence must still be preferable to bringing up the subject of a fish’s face.
“No, you misunderstand. It’s not a question of my face at all. Anyway, since I don’t have a face I can’t say I like it or dislike it. But you’re different. In your case, you can’t help being concerned about what actor you want to see in a movie.”
“Even so, I really would like one without an actor. I don’t seem to be interested in tragedies or comedies now.”
“Come on. Why do you always defer to me?”
Without realizing it, my voice had taken on a strident tone, and displeased with myself, I scowled invisibly beneath my bandages. Perhaps it was because the heat had come back, but the scars had begun to squirm like leeches, and in the flesh around them I felt a creepy, burning sensation.
I could not overcome the silence with such conversation. Wherever we began, the destination of our dialogue was always the same. I lost all power to say more, and of course you fell silent too. Our silence was not the vacuum that comes from having said all there is to say. Whatever conversation we had fell naturally to pieces and crumbled in bitter silence.
THEN for several weeks I continued to walk through the silence, mechanically, as if I were moving on borrowed joints. Suddenly one day I looked up and saw that it was early summer. Outside my window the wind was teasing the slender, soft-green branches of the pine tree. My decision was equally abrupt. I wonder if you remember. I have quite forgotten what the motive was, but it was the night I suddenly exploded in the middle of dinner.
“Why in God’s name are you living with me?” I knew that no matter how I shouted, the silence persisted; unable to look you straight in the face, I fixed my eyes in the vicinity of the yellowish-brown darned spot around the little green button at your breast. Trying not to yield to my own voice, I continued to scream. “Well, come on! What about answering? Why do you go on being married to me? It’s best for the both of us to clear the air right now. Is it simple force of habit? Well, speak up. Don’t mince words. You can’t force yourself into something you can’t understand, you know.”
Withdrawing to my study after these harsh and condescending words. I felt miserable, like a paper kite beaten by the rain. I wondered what connection there could be between the me who was acting out this mad affair about a face and the me who was the acting head of the Institute, with a monthly salary of 850 dollars. The more I thought about it the more my kite filled with holes until at length the paper tore away, leaving only the skeleton.
Down to the skeleton, I suddenly came to myself. I was aware that the abuse I had spewed out at you a moment ago should in fact have been addressed to myself. Yes, we had been married eight years. Eight years was not a short time. It should be long enough at least to know what the other liked and didn’t like in foods. If we could tell each other’s tastes in what we ate, wouldn’t it be the same with our tastes in faces? There was no need to struggle for a subject of conversation.
I groped confusedly among my memories. Surely somewhere there must be a document certifying that I could act for you. There must be. If we had been far apart even before the accident, what was I trying to recapture at this late date with all the fuss about the mask? Nothing was worth the trouble of getting back. There wasn’t a single thing to hide from the eight uneventful years we had spent together; since I was enclosed by a wall of nonexpression thicker than my bandages, I had lost all right to complain. One cannot request payment for what one had not lost. Shouldn’t I ultimately reconcile myself to the idea that my original real face too was a kind of disguise and, without struggling, be content with the present state of things?
The problem was quite profound. That I thought it profound was itself most profound. Thus, I should probably persevere in the attempt to be your stand-in. It wasn’t work I liked, but mobilizing all my memories of your impressions and conversations, I attempted to conjure up various men’s expressions, that you might like. It gave me a weird, indecent feeling, as if a caterpillar were crawling down my collar. But far from conjuring up a definite image of the man, I was at my wits’ end trying first to define you. The lens had to be focused. I couldn’t see you, no matter how I tried, if you moved around like a jellyfish. Yet when I forced my concentration, you seemed to become a dot, a line, a face, at last changing into profileless space, slipping through the net of my senses.
I was terribly confused. What in heaven’s name had I seen, what had I talked to, what had I felt during all the time we lived together? Was I that ignorant of you? I stood in blank amazement before the unknown territory of you, which was enveloped in an endlessly spreading milky mist. I was so desperately ashamed I could have wrapped my head with another two bandages.
However, perhaps it was just as well I was again cornered. Sweeping the caterpillar from my collar and assuming a defiant attitude, I returned to the living room, where I found you sitting with your face buried in your two hands in front of the television screen, from which you had cut off the sound. Perhaps you were weeping silently to yourself. As soon as I looked, I discovered the possibility of a completely different explanation for my failing to be your stand-in.
Of course, one couldn’t say I was ideal as a stand-in, although I had long lived with you. At least I had been living with you in a self-absorbed way. I did not think you would be particular about men’s faces. But did it matter? Why at this point should I have to act the pimp? Isn’t it the normal form of marriage that from the very beginning one should be unconcerned with one’s wife’s tastes in other men’s faces, if not in food? The moment a man and a woman decide to get married, both of them should put aside such doubts and concerns. If they can’t agree, it is best not to opt for trouble from the very beginning.
Taking care not to be noticed, I came up softly behind you; I caught the unexpected smell of asphalt streets just after rain. Perhaps it was the fragrance of your hair. When you turned to look, you sniffled, wrinkling your nose as if you had caught a cold, and then, as if to dispel my misapprehension, you looked back at me with a clear, penetrating gaze, which seemed painted on. With transparent nonexpression, like rays of sunlight filtering through a forest swept with the cold winds of winter.…
It was then it happened. A strange impulse possessed me. Was it jealousy? Perhaps i
t was. Something prickly, like a pokeweed seed, swelled within me to the size of a hedgehog. Then suddenly the basis of facial expression—that errant child of mine—of which I had lost all trace, was standing by my side. It was unexpectedly sudden. So sudden that I could not grasp just how quickly it had happened. But I do not think I was so very surprised. I felt it illogical not to have realized sooner that this was the only solution.
But before anything else, I shall tell you the conclusion. My mask would be the fourth type according to Boulan’s system of classification, that is, the “aggressive, extroverted type”—a sharp face centering around the nose; in terms of Jungian psychology, a strong face, showing ability to act.
I had the feeling of being duped; it was too simple. But on consideration, there was nothing particularly unexplainable. Even with the transformation of a chrysalis, the pupa makes preparation in its own way. Suddenly the face had been forcibly shifted from what I myself would choose to what would be chosen for me; yet I could do nothing but continue looking at you intently, just as, in the dark, one sees only darkness whether one keeps his eyes open or shut, looks right or left. My pride was hurt. I was humiliated, irritated, and impatient that at this point I should have to search for you, but though I was weary of thinking about all this, I could not take my eyes from you for a single instant.
I wanted to get close to you, and at the same time to stay away from you. I wanted to know you, and at the same time I resisted that knowing. I wanted to look at you and at the same time felt ashamed to look. My state of suspension was such that the crevice between us grew deeper and deeper, and holding the broken glass together with my two hands, I barely preserved its form.
And I realized it very well. To say that you were a victim bound and chained to me, who fundamentally had no power over you, was a pack of lies I had made up for my own purposes. You faced this fate unflinchingly of your own volition. Wasn’t the brilliance of your smile more effectively used on yourself? If you felt like it you could desert me at any time. I wondered if I could make you understand just how dreadful that would be. Although you had a thousand expressions, I did not even have a single one. When I thought of the living flesh and organs under your dress, having their own temperature, their own elasticity, I seriously thought that the end of my agony would never come if I did not run a spike through your body—though it would mean your death—and make you a specimen in a biologist’s collecting box.